“I genuinely don’t even know how to evaluate Tebow as a prospect. He’s 29 in Low-A, but his ‘baseball age’ is probably closer to some of the recently-drafted prep guys he was playing with. Jeffrey Paternostro and I were batting around comparisons, and came up with everything from ‘two-way high school player drafted as a pitcher and converted to a hitter after blowing out’ (read: Stetson Allie) to ‘Cuban toolbox gets held up in the defection process for years’ (read: older Andy Ibanez) to ‘super-athlete from non-baseball country is discovered late’ (read: Rinku Singh, but a hitter).

He is certainly a super athlete, a point I made when he was signed but is even more noticeable when he’s lined up next to baseball prospects who get noted for their athleticism, like Desmond Lindsay. Tebow is tall and built like an Adonis, the type of body that rarely ends up in baseball and stands out when it does.”

Photo credit: Joshua S. Kelly – USA Today Sports

Before we get to Reyes’s recent extreme struggles, let’s dismiss the idea that the Mets should ever want Jose Reyes leading off, especially against right-handed pitching:

Not great, Bob. Reyes, coming into this season, looked like a perfectly fine fill-in third baseman for the MLB minimum, if you ignored the reasons behind the Mets paying him the league minimum. His full PECOTA forecast was .266/.315/.382 with scratch defense at third, good for 1.9 WARP over 633 plate appearances. Essentially, we projected Reyes to be a slightly below-average player, which is great to have as a fill-in. But delving into things a little closer, there were already signs of concern. Reyes’s 2016 “resurgence” wasn’t all that much better than he had been doing for the last few years as an overall package, especially given the sharp declines in his speed and defense. It was mostly driven by pop from the right-handed side of the plate, making him a truly terrible leadoff hitter against right-handed pitching. He’s always run a notable platoon split—.349 career OBP vs. LHP, .333 career OBP vs. RHP—and, even conceding that the sample sizes weren’t huge, he was actually somewhat terrible as a leadoff choice entering the season, even before the brutal start..

Oddly enough, the Mets went through a similar pickle with the very same Jose Reyes on the other side of his career. In the waning days of the Steve Phillips administration, the Mets rushed then-prized prospect Reyes to the majors just two days before his 20th birthday, and within a month he was installed as a bone fide Major League Top Of The Order Hitter. By mid-2004, he was The Leadoff Hitter. Except Reyes was awful at doing leadoff hitter things that didn’t involve running fast. For example, despite posting 60 steals and 17 triples in 2005, he only posted a .300 on-base percentage and 80 wRC+, choking off the offense. With age, Reyes eventually improved his hitting ability and selectivity, and while he was never the sabermetric ideal of a leadoff hitter, he was a very good player until a few years ago when his bat started diminishing.

There’s a stunningly obvious replacement leadoff hitter against righties, and it’s one that the Mets have already tried: Michael Conforto. You’d have to find consistent time for him to play, but that’s not actually all that hard with just a touch of creativity. Then again, every time Conforto looks like he’s breaking through, Collins fires back with a quote like “the biggest question is, who are we taking out?” while conveniently ignoring that he has nearly a half-dozen players in their thirties on expiring contracts being stretched into roles at or beyond their current skills, with a positionally versatile roster that makes nearly any of them for Conforto a potential straight swap. On the plus side, Conforto’s 2017 is setting up to be a hell of a bench season in your Met table-top simulation leagues.

The Cubs have been running this leadoff gambit with Kyle Schwarber, perhaps the player most frequently compared to Conforto over the course of their careers. In theory, Schwarber has “nowhere to play” in an overcrowded outfield, just like Conforto; in reality, you move guys around and stick a veteran on the bench once or twice a week to accommodate young players of this quality. Chicago is hitting Schwarber leadoff to maximize his plate appearances, while still aggressively getting him out of left late in games for defense. Three times already this season,, Schwarber has gotten five plate appearances in a game and then been lifted for a defensive replacement. Joe Maddon is stealing an extra at-bat once every two or three games for Schwarber by hitting him leadoff instead of fifth or sixth, without giving anything up on defense. And by doing so, he’s avoiding hitting exciting, lower-OBP players like Addison Russell or Albert Almora at the top of the order. I’ve mentioned before that Terry could use to be a little more like Joe Maddon, and this is yet another instance in which that is the case. His willingness to try Conforto there once is a start, I suppose.

For now, Reyes batting low in the order and playing third is tenable, but the Mets have a ton of options here. David Wright is back throwing, and while you certainly can’t really count on the Captain right now, if he’s back ready to play half or three-quarters of the time in a few weeks or a month, that makes the decisions a lot easier. Sitting on the bench are Wilmer Flores and T.J. Rivera, who can both play third well enough and could probably both outhit Reyes moving forward.

Over the longer haul, one of baseball’s top prospects in Amed Rosario waits. He’s a shortstop by trade, and a darned fine one at that, but Rosario could slide over to third himself for a portion of a season. They could also play himat short and slide Asdrubal Cabrera to third, a position he isn’t overly familiar with but one that should suit him well, or move Cabrera to second and Neil Walker to third, positions they’ve both played and been comfortable with in the past. The Mets won’t consider this a current option publicly—they’re only two more weeks of Rosario at Triple-A away from gaining another year of service time on him—but if he’s still putting up big Vegas numbers with Reyes continuing the “can’t hit water if he fell off a boat” routine as April turns to May, expect the clamoring to get pretty loud.

Photo credit: Bill Streicher – USA Today Sports

In the classic Bill Simmons running diary style, I decided to follow Lugo’s start to provide some stream-of-consciousness analysis.

9:00 PM: I turn on ESPN2, which for some reason has the rights to this game. UCF leads Illinois in a NIT game with 12.3 seconds left. I go back to my BP chat. Hopefully this ends quickly.

9:02 PM: We break into the United States being introduced and apparently ESPN2 is the Spanish language feed and my program lied to me? Off to the MLB Network … where Eric Hosmer appears to have brass knuckles on during player introductions. The United States is being introduced to some country riff.

9:04 PM: Puerto Rico, meanwhile, is introduced to salsa music, all showing off their different versions of blonde hair. Carlos Beltran features his beard because he’s bald. T.J. Rivera looks really uncomfortable doing modeling.

9:06 PM: Our first appearance of tonight’s hero, Seth Lugo, rubbing down a baseball in the bullpen. Seth does not show off his hair. Onto the national anthems, where we finally see Lugo’s glorious dye job.

9:13 PM: Matt Vasgersian is on my television. He hasn’t referred to anyone as “property” yet, but I’ve got my clicker ready for the Spanish-language feed if his verbiage declaring that MLB teams own their players gets too bad.

9:16 PM: An Eric Hosmer hype package and interview airs, seemingly to blunt his inexplicable continual presence in the lineup over Paul Goldschmidt. I’ve heard the same playing time promise stuff as anyone, but didn’t anyone in the Diamondbacks front office bother to get one for Goldy? Even beyond that, you can argue that the United States has literally its three best hitters on the bench tonight between Goldschmidt, Daniel Murphy, and Buster Posey. At no point has the United States really played this like it counted instead of like, well, Spring Training, but that all really highlights it.

9:19 PM: Lugo finally takes the mound to more salsa music. Vasgersian goes over his familiar backstory, as a late-late-late draft pick out of Centenary College. Color man John Smoltz goes over his other story, the curveball with the best spin rate in the majors. Smoltz seems really impressed with Lugo.

9:22 PM: Lugo’s first pitch is a 91 MPH two-seamer which late-breaking villain Ian Kinsler beats into the ground to Carlos Correa at third for an easy out. Baseball can be so easy sometimes.

9:24 PM: Adam Jones grounds to short. If Lugo can keep inducing grounders to the infield, he’s got over-qualified defenders at literally all four positions, and it’ll be a long, long night for the United States.

9:25 PM: Christian Yelich hits an excuse-me double down the LF line, beating a shifted Carlos Correa. Javy Baez’s crazy tag ability nearly gets Yelich at second even though Yelich easily beat the throw.

9:28 PM: Lugo blows away Nolan Arenado with a wicked fastball high at 96 to get out of the jam. This was the type of inning that can convince you that Seth Lugo is very much for real, and he didn’t even throw the curve that much.

9:39 PM: Puerto Rico goes down in order in a boring bottom of the inning. Lugo’s curve sure is spinning a lot, but he hasn’t been able to get it over yet, and he’s facing hitters far too good to be burying them. Eric Hosmer lays off two of them on his way to a walk.

9:41 PM: Yadier Molina’s presentation helps Lugo get expand the inside/low corner with two tough called two-seamers on Andrew McCutchen, setting him up for a Warthen Slider away at 87 for a swinging K. Lugo’s slider development went relatively unnoticed last year, since it wasn’t as stark as Gsellman’s, but he used it more than the vaunted curveball over the course of the season, and it’s an above-average pitch now.

9:42 PM: Brandon Crawford becomes the first person to swing at and miss a Lugo curve by a mile. He makes contact with another one on a 1-2 count, lining it to Lindor, who proceeds to throw a dart to first to nearly double Hosmer off. Review time!

9:48 PM: Lugo makes Giancarlo Stanton look absolutely silly on 3-2 with another Warthen Slider for a swinging strikeout. For all the jokes about Dan Warthen being a magic card for two grades on the slider …

10:02 PM: Lucroy lines another high fastball at 96 back up the middle for a single, because MLB hitters sometimes square up 96 because they own. Smoltz narrates a Statcast video package calling Lugo’s curveball one of the best in the majors. I respect the spin rate stuff, and Lugo’s curveball does sometimes make batters looks very foolish, but I think we might be getting a little out of hand here given that he doesn’t always command it and usually doesn’t use it as an out pitch. Lugo catches Lucroy leaning to nearly pick him off first.

10:03 PM: Lugo hangs an 0-1 two-seamer down the middle that Kinsler hits to left-center for a two-run dinger.

10:07 PM: Adam Jones walks. My phone is getting blown up by Jeffrey Paternostro, who thinks Lugo’s command is going second time through the order as it did sometimes last year. He might be right, but it’s an elimination game so you can’t exactly spend a lot of time thinking about it.

10:09 PM: Lugo follows one of his best changes with one of his best curves to get Christian Yelich to two strikes. Yelich then takes a fastball that Lugo badly overthrew, but somehow hit the high outside corner for strike three.

10:11 PM: As if to prove my point about which breaking ball he’s actually using as the out pitch, Lugo bounces a 55-foot curve for a wild pitch to advance Jones, then buries Arenado for another swinging strikeout with another Warthen Slider. Arenado is one of the dudes that looks like he’s still in March.

10:14 PM: Hosmer intentionally walks. McCutchen strikes out swinging again on another Warthen Slider. Let’s hope Travis d’Arnaud is watching how Yadi is sequencing Lugo tonight.

10:28 PM: Puerto Rico manager Edwin Rodriguez puts over Lugo’s performance in the in-game interview as Lugo induces a grounder to second, but reveals that he’s batter-to-batter already here in the fourth given his command and the nature of the game. Lugo gets another swinging strikeout on Stanton, this time with a two-seamer with some pretty hard run.

10:30 PM: Lugo gets away with a hanging slider that Lucroy pops to medium-deep right. He’s through four now, two runs on three hits and three walks, but with seven strikeouts in 69 pitches. Unfortunately for Puerto Rico, Marcus Stroman has been even better.

10:41 PM: Ian Kinsler singles to left on another hanger to lead the fifth off. Double-barrel action behind Lugo in the pen now, and he might be running out of gas.

10:46 PM: Lugo walks Jones on a 3-2 curve that missed inside. Rodriguez seemingly comes out for the hook at 78 pitches, but Lugo talks his way into staying into the game as the manager looks to Molina for his approval.

10:49 PM: Yelich makes Puerto Rico pay for the long hook, lining yet another hanging slider to right for a RBI single. Eddie Rosario airmails the plate, but Lugo backs up the plate to save further advancement. That’s the end of his night.

10:56 PM: If Andrew McCutchen wasn’t still a pretty good runner down the line, Francisco Lindor would’ve just made the greatest defensive play in baseball history.

10:59 PM: One of Lugo’s two inherited runners scores off Tigers relief prospect Joe Jimenez, ending Lugo’s book at four runs over four-plus. A much more visually impressive start than the final line would indicate, and the slider may have legitimately jumped to plus now. But also a start that highlighted the long-term concerns about whether his command and stuff will hold together multiple times through the order.

11:23 PM: United States starter Marcus Stroman has a no-hitter through six. Whether it’ll be ruined by Puerto Rico, Jim Leyland, or the weird pitch-count rules remains to be seen. (A championship round starter cannot start a batter at more than 95 pitches.)

11:49 PM: A fourth option has appeared: a top of the seventh so long that it’s nearing on the length of a short rain delay. I look up the rules to find out that there’s no mercy rule in the championship round. The U.S. leads 7-0. 

11:52 PM: Vasgersian just went into full home run call for what ended up being a 300-foot flyball, shortly after another “property” reference. This WBC has been amazing, but it’s winding to a tedious end.

11:56 PM: After a half-hour-plus sitting, Stroman promptly gives up a leadoff double to Angel Pagan and leaves to the loudest crowd response of the night. While most American players, even including some on the team, clearly don’t care much about the WBC, Stroman has been really fired up all night, and that continues in the dugout. We get what I think is the night’s first Daniel Murphy sighting in the high-five line.

12:52 AM: An hour later, the United States wins. Pat Neshek carries out an eagle statue to the mound for the team to pose with. James Brown’s “Living In America” is the celebration song. Seth Lugo is probably already on his way back to Mets camp. Opening Day is now only 10 days away.

Photo Credit: Gary A. Vasquez–USA TODAY Sports

The major exception to that is how a player looks, when accompanied by a sensible positive or negative narrative explanation. One of the examples I used was Noah Syndergaard, who spent much of spring 2016 honing the slider he’d occasionally deployed in 2015. It was clear, by the end of the spring, that this was going to be a huge new weapon moving forward.

What I didn’t try to identify in that piece was a player whose skills appear to have declined, with some clarity and reasons supporting them. I’ll take a big old whack at that over here: I’m becoming concerned that Matt Harvey is just no longer pre-2016 Matt Harvey.

Part of this is the look. I’m not a mechanical expert, so I’m not going to write a whole article telling you it just doesn’t look right just based on TV looks, but I am going to tell you it doesn’t look right to me, nor does it look right to several other talent evaluators I’ve spoken with over the past week. When Harvey was at his best in 2013, and even in 2015, he looked like he was exploding from the legs, gaining a lot of power off his leg drive. Now, the action is all in his torso and arms, and the delivery looks unfinished like he’s not driving off. (He’s also casting his curve and change.) No longer is he the pitcher that was right up there with Yu Darvish in spawning GIFs of multiple pitch devastation coming from the same location and ending up everywhere in the strike zone.

We’ve also got some data to look at–anecdotal as it is–in terms of fastball velocity. Courtesy of the PITCHf/x data at Brooks Baseball, we know exactly how hard Harvey’s average and peak fastball velocities have been over the course of his career. (I’m going to use April data since that’s in the regular season period where he should still be ramping up.)

We don’t have that kind of easy data to manipulate for spring training, unfortunately. What we do have are a lot of velocity reports from beat writers, scout reports, and the stadium and TV guns before the Mets curiously ordered those turned off. Generally, and pretty consistently over all three starts, all reports show Harvey living around the 90-93 velocity band, topping out at 94 with a few pitches reported at 95, but no higher. With some confidence, we can say that over his first three March 2017 starts, Harvey’s velocity has been down about four miles per hour across the board from prior averages. That’s bad.

We really have no idea how effective Harvey would be working around 92 MPH, because even as compromised as he was in 2015, he was only down slightly over one mile per hour on average velocity from 2015 to 2016. His 2016 velocity was only four-tenths of a mile off his 2012 velocity. And his pitch usage was right in line with career norms, aside from throwing a few more sliders and a few less curves. Harvey has distinctly not been Cole Hamels in the past, who has a history of bleeding four miles per hour off his velocity in spring that magically comes back on April 3. Harvey has come out fairly early in the spring—even last year—and looked like regular season Matt Harvey. That raises a narrative red flag for this season.

But the biggest red flag is Harvey’s season-ending diagnosis of thoracic outlet syndrome and subsequent surgery. The outlook for pitchers recovering from thoracic outlet syndrome is mixed to the point that it can be career-ending or functionally so, far bleaker than the Mets originally optimistically portrayed. After yesterday’s outing, pitching coach Dan Warthen admitted that this diminished repertoire might just be what Harvey has, at least early in the season, and they’re hopeful Harvey’s velocity comes back closer to normal by the end of May. In the meantime, he’s going to have to rely on his secondary pitches and his command more, but those are the specific things that originally deserted him because of the very same thoracic outlet syndrome.

It’s far too early to write Matt Harvey’s obituary as a pitcher. He could find it again at nearly any time, and he could even learn to pitch with the stuff that he has. But it’s no longer too early to ignore that Harvey has diminished velocity and once again looks like a mediocre pitcher this spring. We probably know why, and the delta on Harvey’s outcomes from here is very, very volatile.

Photo Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

Only one outfield position is truly clear entering 2017: Yoenis Cespedes will be this team’s left fielder. You can argue he should be in right because of his arm, or you can lament this his spell in center didn’t work out. But Cespedes prefers left and believes he’ll stay healthiest and most productive playing in that spot. He’s the team’s best player with the $110 million contract, so he gets what he wants. As long as he’s healthy, nobody is else is playing that spot more than once or twice a month.

Center field appears to be a mixed offense/defense and lefty/righty platoon with Curtis Granderson and Juan Lagares, the two most experienced center fielders on the roster. Before last fall, Granderson’s last run as a semi-regular in center was in 2013. He turns 36 next week, and was never more than an average CF by defensive metrics even in his prime, so if you were trying to make Granderson work as your strong-side option in center, you’d want to compliment him with a lefty-crushing defensive specialist. Enter Juan Lagares, who is exactly that player when healthy. Let’s assume for now that Conforto probably isn’t picking up much playing time in center … although the Mets did experiment with it at times last season.

That leaves the RF/1B quagmire. Given that the Mets have chosen to work Jay Bruce out at first, the Mets have the choice of the following alignments:

• Option 1: RF Michael Conforto / 1B Jay Bruce
• Option 2: RF Michael Conforto / 1B Lucas Duda
• Option 3: RF Jay Bruce / 1B Lucas Duda

Let’s take a quick look at what PECOTA projects for each of our three heroes in 2017:

I included WARP/600 to point out that the only thing keeping this even a remotely close competition is that Baseball Prospectus currently estimates that Michael Conforto will only be a part-time player. At full playing time, the choice is clear: Conforto is the best projected hitter, and the overall value from WARP (including defense, baserunning, and positioning) only further makes his case.

It’s not just enough, in my opinion, to look at a raw projection and call it a day, so let’s run through why PECOTA sees Conforto as a vastly superior option to Bruce and Duda:

• The aging curves of baseball sway in Conforto’s favor. Bruce’s projection nearly exactly duplicates his last three years worth of playing time, which isn’t unreasonable for a corner outfielder entering his age-30 season. Duda gains back some of his 2016 losses, but not most of them, and that’s also a reasonable call for a 31-year-old slugger coming off a season lost to injuries and underperformance. Conforto, meanwhile, is expected to improve on his career numbers as he enters his age-24 season.
• PECOTA sees what Conforto did in Vegas. Conforto put up some truly excellent numbers in Vegas last year, hitting .422/.483/.727 over 144 plate appearances. It’s Vegas and Vegas is absolutely stupid offensively, but it’s stupid in the sense that guys hit over .320 sometimes, not over .420. Yes, 144 plate appearances isn’t a lot, but it’s also not an exceedingly small sample; it’s 29 percent of Conforto’s 2016 playing time. Heck, that Vegas annihilation accounts for 11 percent of his total professional plate appearances. PECOTA is absolutely regressing that performance for everything under the sun—run environment, Triple-A quality pitching, and the small sample—but it’s still a pretty decent piece of data propping up Conforto’s projection. Even accounting for all of those things, hitting like Ted Williams for a quarter of a Triple-A season is impressive.
• Conforto’s 2016 in the majors was not nearly as much of a failure as it probably feels like. It felt like a failure narratively, because he went from “emerging star” to “unable to find his way off the bench” in only about six weeks, and was repeatedly blocked and sent down. PECOTA couldn’t care less about the narrative; it saw a 23-year-old in a mild sophomore slump still hitting .220/.310/.414, which is only slightly below-average.

I trust that I need not go on a polemic about how Conforto has nothing more to prove in the minors, or how the Mets are screwing up unless he gets the next thousand at-bats at the MLB level. But here’s one more piece of data I’m going to throw out there: he’s is currently hitting .360 with a 1.025 OPS in the Grapefruit League. Given that Bruce is similarly hot this spring, probably not, but it’s another example of success. Since sending him down last summer, all Michael Conforto’s done is respond by hitting at an elite level everywhere the Mets have put him. At some point, you have to let the guy win a job.

Photo Credit: Kim Klement–USA TODAY Sports

In many spots, this approach was entirely sensible. After bringing Yoenis Cespedes back, the Mets have too many outfield candidates, with nowhere obvious to play potential star Michael Conforto. At least until the David Wright situation comes to what feels like its inevitable conclusion, the Mets also have too many infield candidates, with planned leadoff hitter Jose Reyes currently lacking a defensive home. At catcher, no available option was clearly any better than the Travis d’Arnaud/Rene Rivera/Kevin Plawecki triumvirate–and certainly not in the age where we consider framing and other metagame aspects of catching so strongly. The Mets come to camp with at least eight worthy MLB starting pitchers. That’s a situation likely to shake itself out between injuries and implosions, but outside of moving Amed Rosario-and-more for Chris Sale, no move the Mets could’ve made for starting pitching would’ve projected to do much for the 2017 squad.

That leaves the bullpen as the one potential missed opportunity to add folks from the outside. With Jeurys Familia likely facing a league suspension of a month or more, and assuming the Mets open with seven men in the pen, Robert Gsellman is the fifth starter, and Zack Wheeler’s season is delayed by a visit to extended spring training, here’s what the Met pen could look like on Opening Day, with their weighted-mean 2017 ERA projection from PECOTA in parentheses:

Closer: Addison Reed (4.13)

Eighth Inning Guy: Fernando Salas (4.14)

Seventh Inning Guy: Hansel Robles (3.98)

Primary LOOGY: Jerry Blevins (3.71)

Second Lefty: Josh Smoker (3.49)/Josh Edgin (4.65)/Tom Gorzelanny (5.13)

Middle Relief: Erik Goeddel (4.09)/Paul Sewald (3.97)/Kevin McGowan (5.55)

Long Relief: Sean Gilmartin (3.72)/Seth Lugo (4.26)/Rafael Montero (4.46)/Adam Wilk (4.52)

There are reasons to believe some of those guys will outpitch projections, most obviously Addison Reed, who has been an absolute force after righting the narrative ship in ways PECOTA cannot know. You’d expect Reed to continue being more like Met Addison Reed than Diamondback Addison Reed given the real advancements in his slider and command profile. Jerry Blevins is coming off his best season by most standards, and PECOTA projects him to backslide not just to his career norms but to be over a quarter of a run worse.

But even if you give Reed credit for being a top-flight reliever now, that’s not a great bullpen, and I’m not sure I’m much more bullish on the overall set than the projections are. PECOTA projects Josh Smoker as the most effective reliever on the team, and he’s currently far from a lock to even make the team. Sean Gilmartin is projected as the third-best reliever, ahead of Reed and just behind Blevins, and while he could put up a shiny ERA again a la 2015, I think his inability to fool batters in 2016 more accurately represents Gilmartin’s true talent. It’ll get better when Familia (projected ERA: 3.34) gets back and everyone gets knocked down a peg in Terry’s order, but the inevitable set of injuries could reveal that there’s not a lot of depth here. Nor is there much more help coming this season; the Mets now lack the kinds of upper-level pitching prospects who would take well to the ‘pen. Marcos Molina and Chris Flexen might well be good major-league relievers someday, but the day is probably not in 2017. Perhaps Wheeler ends up relieving by mid-season, though he’s fighting it.

Why didn’t Sandy Alderson do more here? I think it comes down to two repeating refrains for the Met fan: money and familiarity. Baseball Prospectus affiliate Cot’s Contracts currently estimates the total 2017 Mets payroll to come in around $158 million when league-minimum and 40-man salary costs are added to current guarantees. That’s a couple million above where the Mets ended 2016, but it’s over $50 million above where the Mets spent from 2012-2014. Given that Sandy Alderson expected payroll to go down this offseason instead of marginally up, we should perhaps be thankful that the Mets were able to cough up the necessary $8.5 million late to bring Blevins and Salas back. The Mets have valued familiarity at an extremely high rate during the Alderson regime, as I’ve noted here in the past, so perhaps that money was only available for Blevins and Salas specifically.

Still, it’s not hard to wonder what this roster looks like with, say, Joe Blanton and Joe Smith on top of Blevins and Salas, replacing the up-and-down options of the past few years like Erik Goeddel and Sean Gilmartin. PECOTA likes Blanton in particular, projecting him for a 3.70 ERA, better than any Met reliever other than Smoker, and Blanton was available until signing with Washington just a couple days ago for $4 million. This pipe dream may have been plausible had the Mets been able to move Jay Bruce’s $13 million salary, although it bears repeating that the Mets could have simply bought Bruce’s option out in November. Given the recent high cost of acquiring good relievers during the regular season, that could be an expensive mistake in prospect talent if the Mets need to go out and add those pieces near the trade deadline.

Photo Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

Thomas Szapucki, LHP

As a live-armed prep pick in the mid-single digit rounds, Szapucki’s 2016 wasn’t totally out of nowhere. But the jump from low-90s and a promising curve to mid-90s with sharp action and a wipeout curve is pretty huge, and the numbers Szapucki put up in both Kingsport and Brooklyn were absolutely staggering. A back injury ended his 2016 slightly prematurely, and while we don’t believe it to be a serious injury, back problems and pitching prospects don’t always go well together. If Szapucki continues to progress his stuff, and if he continues to run strikeout rates into the mid-teens per nine, our ranking of him as the 69th-best prospect in baseball will no longer seem nice by this time next year. He’ll probably open in Low-A Columbia as part of the traveling Tim Tebow Circus, but High-A and even Double-A are within reach for later in the season. — Jarrett Seidler

Andres Gimenez, SS

I got a question in a BP chat recently asking me to compare Kevin Maitan and Andres Gimenez. Sammy in Connecticut seemed a bit skeptical that there was really that big a gap between them as prospects. I’m fairly confident that Maitan’s surfeit of offensive tools is enough to make him a Top 101 prospect before he ever takes the field for a professional game, stateside or otherwise. I get the premise though. Gimenez was very highly rated in the 2015 July 2 class, and we have reports on him from actual games, granted ones from the Dominican Summer League. It’s all data of course, but the best data can be found behind home plate, which is why I will be trucking to whatever short-season affiliate he ends up at this year to find out if we were in fact a year too late on him. I expect to find a polished shortstop and an advanced hitter for an 18-year-old, like if someone used the upgrade meme on Luis Carpio. But I suspect Gimenez has the capacity to surprise me as well, which is why I keep gassing up the car for East Tennessee every year. And speaking of Carpio … — Jeffrey Paternostro

Luis Carpio, SS/2B

We ranked Luis Carpio as the third-best prospect in the Mets system heading into the 2016 season. We ranked him ahead of Dom Smith, Desmond Lindsay, and Robert Gsellman. (I say we, but I was driving that bandwagon, and my byline is on the list.) Then Carpio tore his labrum in the Spring. See, it’s not just pitchers! It was an aggressive ranking at the time for a kid that spent most of the 2015 season as a 17-year-old, but it’s rare to find that level of defensive polish and advanced hitting ability at any age in the short-season leagues. The injury was to his right shoulder, and his arm was already maybe better suited to the right side of the infield, but I’m antsy to check in on the still-only-19-year-old. He made quite the first impression. — Jeffrey Paternostro

Tyler Bashlor, RHP

The Mets turned some heads in 2013, when they handed a $550,000 signing bonus to their 11th-round pick, junior college reliever Tyler Bashlor. After signing with the club, he pitched in 13 games for Kingsport that year, but then didn’t throw another professional pitch until 2016, losing two full seasons after undergoing Tommy John surgery. In a 2016 season that was spent primarily pitching out of the bullpen for the Columbia Fireflies, Bashlor showed why the Mets believed in him enough to give him more than half of a million dollars three years prior, posting a 12.16 K/9 and 2.50 ERA at the level. His fastball, which sits in the mid-90s and touched as high as 98 mph in 2016, is a legitimate swing-and-miss pitch that should carry him to Queens. The bigger questions for Bashlor are his secondary pitches and control. His command and control should figure to take strides forward in 2017 as he is another year removed from surgery. His slurve, which currently sits in the low-80s, is a pitch that could be improved upon (attn: Dan Warthen). If Bashlor is able to progress enough with command and the breaking ball, he will find himself on the fast track to pitching out of the Mets bullpen before too long. He figures to open this season in the bullpen for either St. Lucie or Binghamton. If all goes well, he won’t finish the season with the same affiliate that he began the year with. — Skyler Kanfer

Marcos Molina, RHP

The continuing saga of Zack Wheeler reminds us on a near-daily basis that Tommy John surgery is still anything but routine. Yet Marcos Molina has had, well, the “routine” recovery, popping back up about a year out from surgery. He used the Arizona Fall League as something of a rehab stint, throwing short outings and flashing the premium fastball/slider combination that made him one of the system’s best pitching prospects two years ago. With violent mechanics, a TJS in his background, and durability questions even before that, Molina still might be a reliever in the end, but 2017 represents his shot to get back on the fast track as a prospect. He could open as high as the Double-A Binghamton Rumble Ponies, and a pitcher on the 40 in the high-minors is of course only a phone call away from The Show. — Jarrett Seidler

Andrew Church, RHP

The 2013 second-round pick spent years in the wilderness bouncing around the lowest levels of the system as an oft-injured project, largely falling off the prospectdom map. In a tale that’s been around as long as there have been pitching prospects, he showed up in 2016 a new man, coming out of extended spring in May to shine for Low-A Columbia, mixing in a fill-in stint in High-A Port St. Lucie and a late-August emergency appearance for hometown Triple-A Las Vegas. Once again touching the mid-90s with his fastball and featuring a promising slider, Church could start back at High-A or get a bump to Double-A, where I think I have a pretty good chance to see him in Binghamton’s late-May/early-June visit to Trenton. A full year of effectiveness should get him in strong consideration for both a spot on both the 40-man roster and high up on next year’s prospect lists. — Jarrett Seidler

Desmond Lindsay, OF

Beyond the trio of Mets prospects who made the BP 101 list, there is not a prospect in the Mets farm system with more upside than Desmond Lindsay. Lindsay, the organization’s top draft pick in 2015, is a centerfielder with all the raw tools that any scout would fawn over. In 2016, Lindsay’s performance represented his skillset, as he posted a .297/.418/.450 line with the Brooklyn Cyclones, including a .344 True Average*, 14.9 percent walk rate, and 19.4 percent strikeout rate. Unfortunately, since his senior year of high school, Lindsay has had considerable hamstring issues. They kept his sidelined for most of his draft year, which caused him to fall to the Mets in the second round, and they have continued to hamper him since signing with the club. Recurring injuries for a teenager could very well be the sign of, well, more hamstring injuries, or it could be something that a player as young as Lindsay, just 20, could outgrow. In the near-future, Lindsay could very easily be a guy who is being talked about as the next uber Mets prospect—or, in other words, the Amed Rosario of two years from now—or he could be a guy who is being talked about as the new Reese Havens. His performance and health in 2017, where he most likely will open in Columbia, will tell the story. — Skyler Kanfer

( * – Editor’s Note: For those of you curious, those numbers indicate that he hit about as well compared to his league as Joey Votto did compared to MLB.) 

Tomas Nido, C

The ride hasn’t always been smooth for the 2012 eighth-round pick, who prior to 2016 had never posted a minor league OPS higher than .660. However, over those first few years of his minor league career, his defensive game advanced from raw at best to his calling card. Due to his overall strong catching ability and above-average arm, he was able to open the 2016 in St. Lucie at age-22. Last season, his bat finally started catching up to his glove. In a full season in the pitching-friendly Florida State League, Nido posted a .320/.357/.459 line with seven homers and a .294 True Average in 370 PA. He more than halved his strikeout rate, going from a 25.7 percent clip in Savannah to a very respectable 11.4 percent in 2016. If he is able to combine his developed defensive skills with his newfound hitting ability, he has a chance to be a starting catcher. Nido, who was praised when he was drafted for having plus raw power, still has plenty of room to turn that power into game power. Doing that, in addition to potentially increasing upon his 5.1 percent walk rate from 2016, could make him a viable long-term answer for the Mets behind the dish. I look forward to watching Nido play in person in Binghamton starting this April. — Skyler Kanfer

Luis Guillorme, SS

If you are reading this website, you don’t need to be told that Amed Rosario or Justin Dunn or Desmond Lindsay are worth the price of admission. The implication in all these entries is that we want to see something new. There are guys here with 2016 breakout seasons that we didn’t get enough reports on. There are injured pitchers on their way back who have flashed major league stuff in the recent past. You want a sleeper or you want to know if the breakout guy is real. Prospects can change a lot from year-to-year, but I don’t expect I will be updating my priors much on Luis Guillorme. If anything, I worry a bit about his bat against Double-A velocity. But goddamn am I happy to have him within driving distance again. Rosario has the louder defensive tools and is a plus shortstop in his own right, but there is no one I would rather watch at the 6 than Guillorme. His defense has an ineffable quality to it. Immanuel Kant would suggest that’s his glove is far too functional in scope to have true aesthetic beauty, but I part ways with the German on that. Kant more famously wrote that one should “live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law.” Guillorme’s actions in the field set the bar too high for every other shortstop I’m afraid, but I am happy to see him synthesize utility and art in the infield as often as possible this year. — Jeffrey Paternostro

Tim Tebow, QB/OF?

Tim Tebow isn’t a real baseball prospect. He’s probably not going to make the majors, and if he does it’s likely to be in a cameo that he won’t have earned based on his own merits. But he is an elite athlete—a player so uniquely talented at football that he was a first-round quarterback despite a known and near-complete inability to make pro throws—and his transition to baseball will be nothing if not fascinating. Can he compete even at the lowest levels? He’s currently expected to open at Low-A Columbia, which is an appropriate level for what we suspect is his baseball ability, but a level where he’ll be about a decade older than the real prospects. Both Jeffrey and I are preparing for the circus for when Columbia comes to Lakewood early in the season. (We totally didn’t throw Tebow in down here because we were dividing a list of ten between three people and had one slot left over, no sir.) — Jarrett Seidler

Photo Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

(* – Editor’s Note: Jarrett was part of the team, led by BP Mets’ Jeffrey Paternostro, that contributed to the 2017 BP 101 rankings.)

It’s certainly true that Baseball Prospectus is, to this point, the only major outlet to rank Gsellman quite that high; John Sickels of SB Nation ranked Gsellman 59th and Keith Law of ESPN.com ranked Gsellman 76th. In our Mets Top 10, we graded Gsellman as an OFP (overall future potential) role 70 and likely role 60; this was the highest combined grade pairing we gave to any pitcher this year, and Gsellman ranked fourth of the five we graded that high.

In less-scouty terms, what do we think about Gsellman? Think of OFP as the roughly the 75th percentile outcome for a player, a reasonable high-side outcome, and the likely role as about the median outcome. A role-70 pitcher is a number two starter or elite reliever, and a role-60 pitcher is a number three starter or good closer. When putting this together with calling Gsellman a 70 OFP/likely 60, you should note something immediately: BP isn’t projecting Robert Gsellman’s career outcomes to look like Robert Gsellman in 2016. 2016 Gsellman pitched like a role 80 ace, and we’re expecting that to backslide a good bit, or else he’d be a likely 80 and the best pitching prospect since Stephen Strasburg nearly a decade ago. Gsellman might yet be an ace, but nearly every good or better pitching prospect has “ace upside” if everything goes right. Most of the time, something goes wrong. Put another way, there’s a list of the 10 top non-Gsellman pitching prospects later in this article, and it’s likely that around two of them will turn into true aces.

Good luck guessing which two it will be.

What does Robert Gsellman look like as a prospect now now? We have very reliable velocity data thanks to PITCHf/x and Brooks Baseball; he was consistently sitting from 93-96 with his fastball, often leaning on a two-seam with absolutely vicious sink and run. His groundball rate, as it has been throughout his minor-league career, was excellent. This is a pure 70-grade fastball in every sense, just a tick or two short of an 80. His most used secondary offering was the vaunted Warthen Slider, a pitch on the border of a slider and cutter that Gsellman has taken to like a fish-to-water, running it anywhere from the high-80s all the way up to 92. It’s not quite Noah Syndergaard’s slider, but it’s absolutely an out pitch and a plus secondary offering, at least a consistent 60-grade pitch and flashing a 70. Gsellman has always shown good feel for his curveball, and it’s at least a MLB average 50-grade pitch now with higher future potential. His change … well, he threw it five percent of the time in the majors. It’s below-average, but a pitch thrown four or five times a start is a “show-me pitch” and no more, and his two-seamer gives him a higher-priority pitch that moves armside.

What are the risks in Gsellman giving back more of his 2016 gains than we project? He’s only been throwing this hard for about a half-season, and sometimes guys can have velocity pop like this and not maintain it over the long haul. He’s had enough injury woes—though mostly minor and not to his pitching arm—that he’s never cracked 160 innings in a professional season, so the generic concerns about durability exist. You’ve also got that below-average change and some fastball command nitpicks, but if you read our system top 10 lists, you learned that there’s barely a young pitcher in baseball who couldn’t use a half-grade on the command or change.

Who are the pitchers we’ve ranked around Robert Gsellman and how do they stack up with Gsellman? Without giving away a dozen scouting reports, ahead of Gsellman are:

• Alex Reyes: Well, he looked like the safest bet and is now undergoing Tommy John surgery.
• Lucas Giolito: His 2016 included the velocity and command regression that worry us about Gsellman.
• Tyler Glasnow: He’s possessed of frequent command problems, albeit with greater raw stuff that RG65.

Behind Gsellman, but still in the top 30, are:

• Josh Hader: Owns an unorthodox motion that raises injury/reliever red flags.
• Brent Honeywell: Owns an unorthodox everything.
• Yadier Alvarez: Has thrown only 39.3 innings above short-season ball, and needs a third pitch.
• Anderson Espinoza: Needs more than only one season in full-season ball, is slight of frame, and his command and secondary offerings have quite a long way to go.
• Mitch Keller: Has a similar “pop-up” type profile to Gsellman, but did it in A-ball instead of the upper-minors and MLB.
• Francis Martes: He’s actually a good comp for where Gsellman is now in stuff and overall profile, but is still in Double-A.
• Jason Groome: Is great, but has a grand total of 6.7 professional innings.

The comparison that has tended to bubble up the most over the past six months is Gsellman to Giolito. They’re both tall California prep righties and–until the Adam Eaton trade–both were prominent National League East prospects. Everything up until they both reached the majors in mid-2016 would tell you that Lucas Giolito was a far, far better prospect than Robert Gsellman: rankings, old reports on stuff, draft position, developmental time, minor-league stats … literally everything. Then they got to the majors and Gsellman’s two-seamer was coming in harder than Giolito’s flat four-seamer, Gsellman was running two distinct breaking balls grading better than Giolito’s once-future 80-grade curve, and Gsellman looked miles ahead on command and overall polish. Things changed very quickly, as tends to happen with pitching prospects.

Yet, everything that happened before this summer still matters. We do still have Giolito seven spots ahead of Gsellman, after all. We didn’t quite give Gsellman that Strasburgian projection of repeating 2016 over a full season over and over again for the next decade. But you can make the argument that Robert Gsellman compares favorably to nearly every pitching prospect in baseball. And if you can do that, you’ve got yourself a top prospect in his own right.

Photo Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

21. Chris Flexen, RHP, Age 21 (St. Lucie)

The least-heralded prospect the Mets added to the 40-man this offseason. Flexen is honestly about as close to a generic assembly-line good-but-not-great right-handed pitching prospect as there is, right down to the Tommy John surgery in his recent past. 2016 was his first full season back, and he was middling in High-A, but his velocity did largely come back. The Mets have done extremely, extremely well maximizing this profile into major-league success, and Flexen will start 2017 in Double-A and on the 40-man, so this could all come together quicker than you’d think. Whether or not that future is in the rotation or bullpen remains to be seen.

22. Andrew Church, RHP, Age 21 (Columbia/St. Lucie/Las Vegas)

2013’s second-round pick emerged from years of erratic and unspectacular performance in the depths of short-season ball to put up an impressive half-season split between A-ball levels. There isn’t a lot differentiating him and Flexen, honestly—touching 95, good breaking ball (curve for Flexen, slider for Church), change that needs some work, a lot of time missed with arm injuries, unclear whether either will fit in the rotation or the bullpen. Flexen being a spot higher is more that we’ve seen him pitch more and better through the years, despite the TJS in his background, but consider these guys fairly interchangeable.

23. Phil Evans, IF, Age 23 (St. Lucie/Binghamton)

Evans opened 2016 as a High-A extra infielder and ended it as a Double-A batting champion. He was originally notable as one of the first markers that the new regime would be way more aggressive in the draft, signing as 2011’s 15th-rounder for a $650,000 bonus. Of course, draft bonus pool caps came just the year after, and nobody could be particularly aggressive after that. Evans bounced around the system until this year, emerging as a hit-tool first second base option in much the same way T.J. Rivera did at Triple-A and in the majors.

The Mets exposed Evans to Thursday’s Rule 5 draft, and he’s been widely talked about as one of the more likely players to get popped. It’d be more of a loss if the system didn’t already have Wilmer Flores, Gavin Cecchini, and Rivera as young RHH utility options that can’t really play short.

24. Anthony Kay, LHP, Age 21 (DNP)

As ESPN’s Keith Law noted at the time, Kay’s usage at UConn this past spring was suspect at best. Surprise surprise, Kay’s physical with the Mets showed significant elbow damage, costing him many hundreds of thousands of dollars of bonus money. MLB, through the bonus pools, made it up to the Mets by allowing them to sign Cameron Planck. Nobody will make it up to Anthony Kay–not UConn or the NCAA or the AAC.

This ranking is pretty much a shot in the dark; Kay would’ve made the top ten if healthy, but won’t throw a meaningful professional pitch until his age-23 season in 2018. As with Marcos Molina, we’ll probably have a much better idea how the recovery is going in a year, even if he probably won’t make it back before the end of the MILB season.

25. Cameron Planck, RHP, Age 18 (DNP)

Do you like playing the lottery? Well, here’s a pair of prospects for you. The Mets went through quite a saga to acquire Planck, originally offering to cut a pre-draft deal with him for somewhere in the mid-high six figures, to be drafted in the third or fourth round. Planck turned them down. The Mets took him in the 11th as a backup plan, and ended up having a bunch of leftover pool money when Kay took a far lower bonus than expected. Planck signed for $1,000,001.

He’s yet to pitch as a professional. He throws in the mid-90s. We’re ranking him around where we’d rank a generic third-round prep arm because, well, for the purposes of rankings, he’s sort of a generic third-round prep arm. And as you see with Church upstream, it’s not always clear for a number of years which way these things are going to go.

26. Gregory Guerrero, SS, Age 17 (DSL)

Gregory Guerrero is most notable as Vladimir’s nephew, trained by Uncle Vlad at the Guerrero Academy. He signed for $1.5 million as one of the reported best players in the 2015 international class. And that’s where it about ends for now—Guerrero was adequate in enough in the Dominican Summer League, but doesn’t get the kinds of great whisperings Andres Gimenez has, at least not yet. He’s likely to be way up this list after a summer in North America, or off it entirely.

27. Nabil Crismatt, RHP, Age 21 (Brooklyn/Columbia/Binghamton)

Crismatt put up one of the more spectacular ratios in the system in 2016, striking out 74 and walking only 7 while rising from extended spring all the way to a spot start in Double-A. He’s already being used in a swingman type role and is very likely headed to a future in the bullpen. As a fastball/change guy with a fringe breaking ball, it’s easy to think Akeel Morris. He’s a few years away from any sort of major-league role, and was subsequently left off the 40, where he should be among the lower risks among the significant prospects to be taken in the Rule 5 draft.

28. Kevin McGowan, RHP, Age 24 (St. Lucie/Binghamton)

Of the prospects the Mets exposed to the Rule 5 draft, McGowan is probably most ready to contribute to a major-league team. Jeffrey and I talk quite frequently about “95-and-a-slider” guys in the context of generic perfectly acceptable relievers, and after converting to relief in 2016, McGowan is basically already there. He could be this year’s Erik Goeddel in contributing decent innings to the major-league club from off the radar, or he could be this year’s Matt Bowman in contributing decent innings to someone else’s major-league club.

29. Jake Simon, LHP, Age 19 (Kingsport)

The Mets gave Jake Simon $400,000 in the 11th round in 2015 because he was a projectable lefty, and early signs are promising. His velocity ticked up in 2016 while pitching adequately in the Appy League, a perfectly respectable assignment for his age and advancement. These profiles can come together quickly—we’ll note that this is about the same point where we’d have had Simon’s teammate Thomas Szapucki last year, and with broadly the same profile. Simon will be headed for a higher-profile assignment in either Brooklyn or Columbia in 2017.

30. Ty Kelly, IF/OF, Age 27 (Las Vegas/New York)

Ty Kelly deserves to be higher than this, as he’s not more than a shout off of T.J. Rivera, but this is what happens when your authors end up counting service days by hand and realize he is eligible at the last second. He’s a present major-league role 4, a perfectly good utility guy, and honestly most of the players behind him are future 4s, so here he is. I guess this serves as a reminder that more guys are still “prospects” than you’d think.

THREE MORE WITH A SHOT:

• P.J. Conlon, LHP, Age 22 (Columbia/St. Lucie): A small, soft-tossing lefty from Northern Ireland who has dominated the low-minors to the tune of a 1.47 career ERA. This profile often implodes in Double-A, but he could carve out a MLB future in some role.
• Paul Sewald, RHP, Age 26 (Las Vegas): The best pitcher for the 2016 Las Vegas 51s, and overqualified for a MLB long relief type role with a chance for more. Could be selected in Rule 5.
• Jeff McNeil, IF, Age 24 (Binghamton): The former golfer missed nearly all of 2016 with lower-body injuries. If his athleticism and hit tool remain intact, he has a chance at a long career as a utility player or even fringe starter. Also exposed to Rule 5.

Photo Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

1. SS Amed Rosario
2. RHP Robert Gsellman
3. LHP Thomas Szapucki
4. 1B Dominic Smith
5. CF Desmond Lindsay
6. RHP Justin Dunn
7. SS Andres Gimenez
8. OF Brandon Nimmo
9. SS Gavin Cecchini
10. RF Wuilmer Becerra

And now, prospects 11 through 20!

11. Luis Carpio, SS/2B, Age 18 (GCL/Brooklyn)

JP: Life comes at you fast. A year ago, Carpio was a polished, 17-year-old Venezuelan middle infielder with a potential plus hit tool, not all that different from Andres Gimenez, minus a million bucks in the bank or so.

JS: And now he’s a shortstop-in-name-only … probably? Do we have any idea if he can still throw or not?

JP: He spent a few weeks DHing at two short-season levels, getting the Spring Training he never had. So no. He was always gonna be a little stretched at shortstop, the arm was more solid-average than plus. Outlook cloudy, I guess. We’ll know more this Spring, and a heck of a lot more next September. I’ve comped him to Ruben Tejada in the past, which tends to annoy Mets fans, but Tejada was a very useful player his first couple seasons before he had major injuries.

JP: …

JP: Oh, right.

12. Tomas Nido, C, Age 22 (St. Lucie)

JS: So the Mets have always liked Nido’s catching abilities and his bat came alive in 2016. I don’t think any of us actually got any Florida State League looks this year, did we? Internal reports at BP from the rest of the prospect team were pretty good. Catchers are freakin’ weird.

JP: I did not get my usual fix of Lola’s Seafood, Vine and Barley, and divorce lawyer highway billboards unfortunately.

SK: Catchers always seem to emerge late and have unpredictable career paths and Nido may be yet another example of that. Kevin Plawecki was once a catcher with a potential 60 hit tool and Matt Wieters was supposed to be the next Johnny Bench, while two years ago Willson Contreras was left unprotected for the Rule 5 Draft and in the span of one year Carson Kelly went from posting a .263 OBP in the Florida State League to appearing in major league games.  

JP: Hey, I only put a 55 on Plawecki’s hit … uh, and thought he would be a fringy defender. Catchers are freakin’ weird. Nido has a case to be higher, but I’d like to see him do it for another year before I bump him into the top ten after two years of vaguely anonymous looks at him.

JS: And now Plawecki’s the new really awesome defensive catcher/future Tampa Bay Ray that can’t hit a lick. Go figure.

SK: When Nido was drafted in the eighth round in 2012 and signed for $250,000 the scouting report on him indicated plus raw power but a raw defensive toolset that put into question whether or not he would be able to stick behind the plate. For the first few years of his minor league career, his defensive tools became his calling card that allowed him to reach St. Lucie despite not hitting at all until this year. If he is able to combine his developed defensive skills with his newfound hitting ability and the raw power that made him interesting in the draft four years ago, he has chance to be a major league starting catcher and a good one at that. The fact that the bat only showed up for the first time as a pro in 2016 keeps him lower down on the list, but catchers are weird.

13. Gabriel Ynoa, RHP, Age 23 (Las Vegas/New York)

JP: My #brand is looking good for 2017 as Ynoa is in line to be the Mets eighth starter, which means he might be the Mets fifth starter by May 1st. He got the Warthen bump in the majors, sitting 94 in the majors with both his fastballs and the slider tightened up and looked more Warthen-like at times. But Ynoa’s long arm action and low slot give hitters a long look at the ball, and major league hitters sure hit a lot of line drives off him, and may limit how much magic the Mets coaching staff can work here. There’s a major league arm in here, but it’s off the likely role 40, middle relief or fifth starter, variety.

14. Ali Sanchez, C, Age 19 (Brooklyn)

JP: Don’t scout the stat line, kids.

JS: I have no sense if Ali Sanchez can hit. I also increasingly have no sense if we should care whether a catcher hits.

JP: So you were paying attention during Harry Pavlidis and Jonathan Judge’s Saberseminar presentation too? I don’t know if we are any good at evaluating the important non-hitting aspects from our view behind the backstop either. I do think Sanchez will hit. I like the swing. I like the way he uses center and right-center, and he sure looks the part behind the plate, throwing arm excepted. We do have a better idea about how little that matters now compared to the rest of the defensive profile now.

JS: What we do know is that Ali Sanchez gets amazing, incredible marks on the soft factors. There’s the famous quote from our dearly-departed Triple-A skipper about how he’s the best framer in the system. He’s still a few levels from having minor-league framing numbers, but he’s supposed to be really great, and most of the dudes who have supposed to have been really great have been. And again, catchers are freaking weird. Austin Hedges slugged .597 in Triple-A this year! Austin Freaking Hedges!!!

JP: If you are a disappointing prospect looking to get some new helium, go to El Paso, young man.

JS: It’s still .597 slugging for a guy who once looked like he couldn’t hit water if he fell off a boat.

SK: While Sanchez doesn’t project as much of a power hitter, his defensive ability could allow to climb up the minor league ranks until he starts to hit more, like Tomas Nido. And Sanchez has the advantage of being an even better defender than Nido and anyone else in the organization. If he can find a way to hit like Yadier Molina did, he can become, well, a slightly lesser version of Yadier Molina.

JP: And if I can find a way to drink like Jason Parks, I can become, well, a slightly lesser version of Jason Parks.

JS: Congratulations on your 2021 World Series ring, Jeffrey.

JP: Sanchez could be much higher on this list a year from now. He could also be a third catcher for the Binghamton Rumble Ponies six years from now. Catchers are freakin’ weird.

SK: Remember Francisco Peña?

JP: Congratulations on your 2015 World Series ring, Francisco Peña.

15. Marcos Molina, RHP, Age 21 (DNP)

JS: It’s a hell of an arm. He’s had basically two lost years, I don’t think any of the three of us thinks he can start, and he’s ahead of two actual major-league contributors. It’s a hell of arm.

JP: The grainy YouTube videos coming out of fall ball suggest that his wonky mechanics haven’t changed significantly, but the stuff has come back well a year out from his surgery. This is a placeholder ranking that probably is wrong in one direction or the other (aren’t they all), because either the stuff comes all the way back and he stays healthy–and he’s a top 10 prospect in the system–or he’s a reliever who’s going to start 2017 in the Florida State League.

SK: If you think Luis Severino is all upper body, then you should look at Marcos Molina’s delivery.

16. Josh Smoker, LHP, Age 27, (Las Vegas/New York)

JS: Why in Seaver’s good name is Smoker still eligible for this list? He should’ve been up in August or September 2015, let alone waiting a full year. He’s a good MLB lefty reliever now—probably more a setup guy than a straight LOOGY—and he’ll never be anything more because this is what he is. But that is pretty cool for a dude signed off an independent league tryout.

JP: What he is: A fastball/split lefty with a 96 mph fastball that was somehow cast as a LOOGy throwing a below-average slider a lot because Terry Collins. I do worry if gopheritis will continue to haunt him a bit, the fastball lacks wiggle, but he’s providing major league value now.

SK: A lefty that can throw in the mid-high 90s. Along with Addison Reed and Hansel Robles, Smoker remains probably one of only three locks to make the Mets opening day bullpen.

17. T.J. Rivera, IF, Age 27, (Las Vegas/New York)

JP: Pass.

SK: He’s from the Bronx.

JS: It might be a 60 hit tool. And the rest of the profile might not be enough to carry it. But 60 hit guys who can sort of stand at many positions do have roles as good utility players. He could be a good utility player. By the meritocracy version of the game, he probably does deserve a chance to figure out if there’s more there.

JP: He also had a top-five swinging strike rate on the Mets in 2016 and that checks out with my eye test, where he looked overmatched by better velocity and better sliders. He’s below-average defensively even at second. He could hit an empty .250 and be on a Jet Blue to McCarran by 5/1. But 3’s play in the majors too.  

SK: TJ Rivera has absolutely no secondary tools. His defense, arm, power, and run tools are not major-league caliber and he can’t walk either. But the hit tool is so good that he’s going to stick as a major league player for a while.

18. Luis Guillorme, SS, Age 21 (St. Lucie)

JP: We’re at the part of the list where we are stretching for guys with major league futures. If you want to have a major league future as the 18th best prospect in a system, it helps to do one thing really well. It especially helps if that one thing is “play shortstop.” Guillorme fits the bill. This is the converse of the Rivera profile, if you are a 60 shortstop glove (and Guillorme might be a 70), it’s usually enough.

JS: Legitimately the best defensive infielder in the organization. Some feel for hitting. No power. Can we just cut and paste one of your old Wilfredo Tovar reports?

SK: If this was the 1970s, he’d be penciled in as a major league starting shortstop for the next decade.

JP: He’d be the best shortstop in the league in the 1870s, even had the mustache for a while. I’ll always root for him, insomuch as I “root” for prospects anymore. He’s an 80 makeup, baseball rat that gets absolutely every inch out of his limited physical tools. I guess that means I should be higher on Rivera, but aesthetics matter here too. And good shortstop defense is high art.

JS: He’s really cool and he’s got a shot because it doesn’t take much for this profile to bump into major-league regulardom.

19. Peter Alonso, 1B, Age 21 (Brooklyn)

JP: I get it. I really do. But this org has been putting overqualified college dudes in Brooklyn for as long as there has been a Brooklyn, and they always hit a ton.

JS: The competition Peter Alonso faced in the New York-Penn League was arguably worse than the competition he faced in the SEC. The SEC is good college baseball. The Penn League has some dudes throwing 83 that can’t locate. You would expect a high-round SEC pick to destroy the Penn League, and he did. It doesn’t mean much.

SK: Raw power is fun. Did you see that 113 mph exit velocity in the NY Penn League?

JP: I’ll just quote what I wrote about him earlier this Summer:

“Alonso’s stance is wide open and he stands well off the plate. He uses a medium leg lift to close, but he starts the whole process early and lets the leg hang a bit before getting it down. The timing here is inconsistent and often leaves his upper half trying to catch up. The swing itself has some length to the ball, the bat speed doesn’t jump out at you, and Alonso struggles with balls below his waist and spin generally. It’s a long-and-strong power profile, and those tend to struggle the first time they see higher-quality stuff. Even short-season arms have occasionally been able to exploit the holes (though they have many more times given him balls up in the zone he can both catch up to and get extended on).“

Ask me again in Double-A. First base profiles are tough.

SK: I like first basemen with plus power profiles over first basemen who are reliant on any other tool.

20. Merandy Gonzalez, RHP, Age 20 (Brooklyn)

JP: Merandy Gonzalez is the kind of polished Latin pitcher the Mets like to put in the Brooklyn rotation. He has a little more stuff than the median Cyclones arm though. His fastball regularly hits 95. He can elevate it to get Ks and command it down to both sides of the plate. The curve flashes and he can spot or bury it. It’s inconsistent and he’ll slow his arm and guide it in when it’s coming out of his hand in the 70s. He doesn’t have an ideal starter’s frame and the change is crude. There’s a major league arm in here, albeit one best-suited to the pen. Not bad for No. 20.

SK: What round of the draft would Merandy Gonzalez be projected to go in as a 21-year-old next year?

JP: Is he just Dakota Hudson minus four inches? For all you kids out there, there’s a reason I don’t do amateur stuff.

JS: I mean, we’re listing him a spot after a mid-second round pick whose stock hasn’t changed much and signed for around slot, so mid-second round sounds just about right. And that’s not far off from Dakota Hudson, really.

Photo Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports