So we’ll finish our previews of the full-season affiliates with the top Single-A teams in this organization. Again, if Jeff and the flagship site wrote up a guy in the system’s Top 10, I won’t spend all that much time on the player.
High-A St. Lucie Mets – Hitters
This is a fun infield! Shortstop Amed Rosario earned the No. 2 spot on the BP Mets Top 10 list which, given that Matz is #1, is consistent with the fact that there were plenty of scouts in the 2015 season who thought he was the Mets’ best prospect.
The Mets started the 20-year-old back in St. Lucie rather than send him to near-Arctic Binghamton climate April. There had to many happy smiles in Flushing when he went 3-for-5 with a walkoff homer on Opening Night this year. The home run was his first since June 18, 2014 for Brooklyn. Prospect depth is overrated. If Rosario, the franchise’s best and brightest guy, develops to a point where it looks like he’s a MLB star–and that’s a massive if–then that will swamp nearly anything else happens among the minor leaguers in 2016.
To Rosario’s right, Jhoan (pronounced: Johan) Urena will man the hot corner. Urena turned 21 last September after a largely lost season in which he hit .214/.257/.267 in 64 games in St. Lucie while missing nearly half the season with a broken hamate bone and wrist issues. Urena is now about the appropriate age for a good prospect in the Florida State League. As a bat-first third baseman, the numbers have to be there in 2016 for him to maintain his prospect status.
The Mets have paired Rosario with Luis Guillorme up the middle. The idea is that Guillorme, who is an excellent, fun-to-watch defender at short, will learn second alongside Rosario. Here’s a less than bold prediction: Guilllorme will be a terrific defender at second. Guillorme–a smart baseball player–was surprisingly effective with the bat in 2015, slapping his way to .318/.391/.354 performance in Savannah. His presence on the roster also allows the Mets the latitude to move Rosario up to Double-A as soon as he’s ready.
Out in right field, Wuilmer Becerra was the No. 8 prospect for the Mets at BP. I don’t have much to add to Jeff’s preseason comments: he looks the part, has all the tools, and just needs to find repeatable, effective swing mechanics. He’s one to dream on.
In center, I still love Champ Stuart’s speed; he was 21-for-24 stealing bases in 2015. Then again, he hit just .176/.271/.242 with 141 strikeouts (!) in 97 games in for St. Lucie last year. Stuart is now 23 years old, and even though he once scored from second on a sacrifice fly, he just does not show the hit tool of a big leaguer. But if he can ever add a little bit of contact to strong center field tools, he’s a real dude again.
Baseball America named John Mora to the second-to-last spot in their Top 30. I don’t get it. Mora had a fine season for Savannah–particularly in the second half, when he hit .310/.383/.465 with 23 walks against 25 strikeouts in 54 games. That kind of plate discipline is nice, but he’s still a little guy who is underpowered, and looking to pull the ball nearly every time he makes contact. He just does not profile at all defensively in center field or offensively on a corner.
Not pictured: third baseman Eudor Garcia, who was suspended 80 games for testing positive for a pair of diuretics (masking agents) in January.
High-A St. Lucie Mets – Pitchers
The guy to watch here on the hill is Chris Flexen, a personal favorite of mine since his first professional start out of high school in 2012. He has a good pitcher’s frame at 6’3″, 215 pounds and he moves well.
However, he’s moved slowly. He had to repeat the Appalachian League in 2012-2013 and then had Tommy John surgery … plus he had bone chips removed from his elbow in 2014, which truncated his 2015. When he returned, he threw the ball with purpose and made eight good starts for Savannah down the stretch. This is a semi-aggressive assignment, but he’ll be 22 on July 1, so it’s time to take a step.
Flexen’s fastball lives in the low-90s, but he can get it up to 95 when he reaches back. He has a curveball in which I see potential, and likes to throw a slider / cutter thing that I think should be tossed in the nearest dumpster.
Single-A Columbia Fireflies – Hitters
On the business side of the minor leagues, the franchise formerly known as the Savannah Sand Gnats moved to Columbia, South Carolina to become the Columbia Fireflies in a brand spanking new stadium – Spirit Communications Park.
There’s a blanket statement that applies to nearly every player on the roster: the jump to a full-season roster will be an interesting test. The Brooklyn, Kingsport and GCL seasons are really short and most of the guys live in dormitory-style housing. Now, they’ll be out on their own in a way that they were not in their previous baseball stops.
The top prospect on this roster, which is a little thin, is 20-year-old shortstop Milton Ramos, the Mets’ third round pick out of high school in Florida in the 2014 draft. At draft time, he had a reputation as a strong defender who was light with the bat. In 2015, in 43 games in the GCL, he hit a batting average-heavy .317/.341/.415. He could use a little patience; he walked in 3.9 percent of his Appalachian League plate appearances.
First baseman Dash Winningham–who Jeff described as “country strong”–did pop 12 homers on his way to a .213 isolated slugging percentage in Kingsport in 2015 as a 19-year-old. The Mets plucked the now 20-year-old out of high school in Florida in the eighth round in 2014, and he’s a little young for the South Atlantic League level. He’s a long way away, and he’ll need to improve on his 5.2 percent walk rate from Kingsport a year ago, but hey, his first name is “Dash,” and that’s a skill you just cannot teach.
Watching Ivan Wilson is fun. He’s big, strong, fast with a good arm and plays a strong center field. When he connects, the ball goes. However, he often does not connect–he fanned in 34 percent of his 2015 plate appearances in 2015 while hitting .247/.337/.349 in 42 games. He’ll never be a high average guy, but .260 through the minors with power and center field defense would get him a big league look some day. He’ll turn 21 at the end of May, so he is playing at an age-appropriate level in 2016.
As the Mets’ eighth round pick out of Stetson in 2015, catcher Patrick Mazeika was on the older side for the Appalachian League. Still, he hit a loud looking .354/.451/.540 with a nearly 1-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio (24 walks against 26 strikeouts). Even lousy catchers often play in Double-A, so if Mazeika can hit at all in full-season ball, he’ll have a real chance to make a case for himself in the upper minors.
Third baseman David Thompson is a little bit interesting as a strong guy who used to be a two-sport athlete. He didn’t hit much in Brooklyn (.218/.268/.320 in 59 games) but hey, football!
Single-A Columbia Fireflies – Pitchers
The Mets set a new record when they signed 11th-round pick Tyler Bashlor for $550,000 in 2013. He’s a six-footer who can run it up to the upper 90s, but his 2013 season in the Kingsport bullpen was unremarkable. He’s missed the the last two seasons with Tommy John surgery, and will turn 23 in under a week. If the velocity is there, he could move relatively quickly as a bullpen arm.
Johnny Magliozzi returned from his own Tommy John surgery at the end of 2015, so he’s thrown just 22.1 innings in the last two years … but he did throw the final inning Saturday night to make history in the Fireflies’ first franchise win.
Of course, we would be remiss here to fail to mention that Columbia Fireflies earned that first win when three pitchers, Magliozzi, Thomas McIlraith and Alex Palsha combined on a 13-strikeout no-hitter against the Yankees’ SAL affiliate, the Charleston RiverDogs. Congrats, fellas!
Photo Credit: Jim Brown-USA TODAY Sports