There is Minor Hope for Mets Fans
It’s been a pretty depressing year for Mets fans, but there are some things to be excited about for the future. Along with the resurgence of former No. 1 draft pick Ike Davis and the emergence of teenage pitcher Jenrry Mejia, some lesser-known names are stepping forward. Outfield prospect Kirk Nieuwenhuis was recently named the Florida State League player of the week by MiLB.com.
Originally a 2008 third round draft pick out of Azusa Pacific University (an NAIA school), the 22-year-old left-handed hitter raised his draft stock after being named Baseball America’s Alaska League player of the year in the summer prior to his junior year of college. He had a modest pro debut and hit .277/.348/.396 with three homers and 11 steals in 285 short-season at-bats. Nieuwenhuis stepped things up this year despite skipping over low-A ball and going directly to high-A.
He is currently hitting .270/.355/.463 with 16 homers and an equal number of steals in 467 at-bats. His walk rate is reasonable at 10 BB% but his strikeout rate is a little high at 24.2 K%. He’s also struggled against southpaws and is hitting just .227/.287/.333 against them this year. Nieuwenhuis has seen his ISO increase from .119 in ’08 to .193 in ’09. If he can continue to develop his power game, he has more than enough arm to play right field.
Nieuwenhuis had an inconsistent performance for much of the year in high-A but he’s finishing the year strong, having hit .442 with five homers and 13 RBI in his last 10 games. For the month of August, he’s hitting .337/.402/.653 with 22 RBI in 24 games. With any luck, the outfielder will build confidence off of this strong finish, which will help him with the jump to double-A in 2010. Although he is no sure-fire Top 10 prospect, Nieuwenhuis is an intriguing name to keep in mind in 2010. Keep the faith, Mets fans… Keep the faith.
29
it’d be nice if a couple met prospects came out of nowhere and saved this team from itself.
I knew this season was a wash several weeks ago. My faith rests on the health of this team at the start of the 2010 season, whether Minaya is given the boot (and someone who knows a thing or two about building a team is brought in), and if their pitching bears some resemblance to a major league staff.
judging by your stipulations, you might want to sleep through the 2010 season :) don’t worry, there’s always next next year!
Nieuwenhuis is a nice prospect, but probably not good enough for us Mets fans to hang our hats on. The Mets have repeatedly failed at providing their prospects any sort of opportunity to learn at the big league level. Outside of the big two, we haven’t really allowed any of our potential in-house replacements to contribute to the big league club if they haven’t wowed us immediately. Until the Minaya-Randolph tandem is gone (and I assume most of the rest of the front office), I think the Mets will continue to think of the minor league system as (a) something to be ignored at all costs, (b) a source of commodities to trade for league average or below starters, or (c) a place to save money to sign more of the mediocre established players. Can’t we just hire a random number generator to GM our team for a while? Methinks the damage would be less than keeping Minaya.
interestingly enough, this is one of the stupider things i’ve read in a long time.
They seem to have let Murphy and Pelfrey try to learn at the big league level. I assume he meant Reyes and Wright as the big 2.
Minaya-Randolph Tandem? Well it is half gone.
Jerry Manuel is just as stupid though.
Another Minor hope is they didn’t spend the #7 pick to get one.
Do you think if Santana, Reyes, Wright and Beltran are all healthy next year they will still be very very bad, and for how long do you assume they will be very very bad?
They will be mediocre if they are lucky.
If you wish to insult people’s intelligence, you probably should check your spelling.
If the ‘core’ is all healthy next year, the Mets are an 85 win team. They have proven that. The question isn’t do the Mets have what it takes to be o.k., its what will the Mets do to actually compete for the division? I think they are taking the right steps by not dealing their young guys, and like the author said, they do have some guys who are showing some promise.
The Mets farm has really been heading in the right direction the last couple of years. As a regular at St. Lucie games in the Florida State League, I’m seeing the kind of big league potential on this years team that I haven’t seen since 2003, when they had David Wright, Jason Bay, Justin Huber, Angel Pagan, Scott Kazmir, Grant Roberts, Tyler Yates, Len DiNardo, Matt Peterson, and Neil Musser.
I realize the upper levels were more barren this year, but some of the NY press really went overboard in beating up on the system. Just a couple of years ago this really was a bottom 5 system. I’ll be shocked if they rank bottom half by the end of this season, if you add the talent I’ve seen to some of the high ceiling talent in Savannah (Flores, Marte, Familia, and Allen), it’s easily in the top half.
From this year’s St. Lucie team, I would project:
good SP: Mejia, Holt
good bullpen arms: Niesen, Rustich
maybe: Carr, Kaplan
good regulars: Davis, Nieuwenhuis
possible regular:: Pena, Havens
bench: Guzman, Lutz
One thing that will hurt though, is that they seem to have gone a bit cheap in adding new talent in 2009; really only adding Matz, Urbina, and Dotson, three young LH pitchers, as especially interesting high ceiling talent from the draft and international signing period.
Perhaps next year they’ll be able to sign their top draft pick. Nice season. At least Ollie isn’t locked up. DOH!
Top draft pick was Matz– a second rounder– who signed.
The highest signing “failures” were the 5th and 6th round picks (4th and 5th picks, respectively, in the Mets’ draft class).