Daily Archives: October 26, 2007
Baseball America has issued their 2007 National League Draft Report Card (subscriber only), with evaluations of each team’s crop from June’s Amateur Player Draft.
Among other categories, they rank best ‘pro debut,’ ‘athlete,’ ‘hitter,’ and ‘fastball,’ as well as ‘closest to the major leagues.’
BA gives specific attention to 21–year-old Mets RHP Dylan Owen, who was drafted in the 20th round out of Francis Marion University.
Owens was 9-1 with a 1.49 ERA in 14 games (13 starts) for Single-A Brooklyn, while walking 12 and fanning 69 in 72.1 innings.
The report also predicts that Mets RHP Eddie Kunz will compete for a big league job this spring.
On the draft class as a whole, BA writes:
“The Mets were pleased to get plenty of power arms, though most of them project to be relievers. The organization clearly could bring its revenue to bear in the draft like the Red Sox, Tigers and Yankees, but apparently has not found the right match of player, pick and bonus since signing Mike Pelfrey in 2005.”
…with the graduation of a number of the Mets top prospects, they need a serious infusion of life into the farm system…while not littered with big names, this draft class seems solid…owen, as well as Scott Moviel and Brant Rustich, two big second round arms, and 1B-OF Lucas Duda, drafted out of USC, all had solid pro debuts, and there are some good young power arms to be found throughout…
…mix the draft class in with an intriguing Caribbean crop at the Gulf Coast League this year, along with a larger than normal Latin signing class this summer, and you’ve got at least a promising foundation for a new wave of prospects…
Tagged Minors |
…it has been two weeks since my initial post looking for new writers to 
MetsBlog.com…in that time i was contacted by 300 people, all of whom were kind, interested and worthy of consideration…
…unfortunately, only 90 of those 300 met the specific qualifications i am in search of…if you did not get an e-mail from me this week asking for additional information, it means you are no longer being considered…if you are curious as to why you were passed over, feel free to contact me…
…otherwise, those of you who did get a follow-up e-mail, i will continue my review in hopes of pegging down a new group of writers over the next week or so…
…thank you for your time and interest, and understanding…
Tagged MetsBlog |At Prospect Insider, Jason A. Churchill offers up a very detailed and complete scouting report on Japanese RHP Hiroki Kuroda, Koji Uehara, Kenshin Kawakami and Kazumi Saitoh, all of whom could find themselves signing with a MLB team this winter.
Regarding Kuruda, Churchill writes…
“Kuroda is the class of the three free agents and will get the most interest but he profiles as a No. 3 at best…He’s slow to the plate but has a relatively compact and clean delivery that gives his fastball some late life…Considering the domestic market, Kuroda, even at 33 years old, could command a contract in the $9-11 million range, for at least three years.”
At his blog for the Journal News, John Delcos asks…
“Will you renew or cancel your season tickets (either full or partial plans)? If you’ve received an invoice for 2008 tickets, how much was the price increase?”
…if you are a season-ticket holder, go to john’s blog and let him know your thoughts…
MLB will finish the year with just over $6 billion in revenue, “which puts 
baseball right on the heels of the more than $6 billion in revenue reported by the National Football League in 2006,” reports CNNMoney.com.
According to the report, MLB sales have increased 50 percent from 2004 and have doubled since 2000, while “NFL’s sales grew at roughly half of baseball’s pace during the same time period.”
Earlier this week, multiple reports noted that Omar Minaya will not look to hire soon-to-be, free-agent hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo, for fear that he will be seen as a ‘manager-in-waiting,’ since Jaramillo had once interviewed for Willie Randolph’s job.
However, in today’s Newsday, Ken Davidoff explains that Jaramillo is disappointed, because he hoped to have an opportunity to work for the Mets, while noting he has no interest in being a manager, thus suggesting he poses no real threat to Randolph
…i’d like to weigh in on this, but it’s becoming clear to me that there is a bit of politicking to this that we, as fans, cannot understand…i mean, if rudy and omar are such good friends, why is omar not convinced of rudy’s ambitions…or, if omar is, why is willie so uncomfortable or insecure, and if he isn’t, why is omar walking on eggshells…also, if willie’s nervous, and he should be, wouldn’t all of his coaches be managers in waiting…i don’t get it…personally, i find the idea that hojo earned the right to keep his job much more acceptable than this notion of not disrespecting willie, which is not adding up…so, omar, just stick with the pro-hojo stance, it feels more sincere and accurate…
By the way, Davidoff writes that Rickey Henderson will not return to the coaching staff, though Howard Johnson, Jerry Manuel and Sandy Alomar will.
…this will mean a job is open on willie’s coaching staff…yesterday, in a post for Mets Fever, Ed Ryan made an interesting case for replacing rickey with Mets Triple-A manager Ken Oberkfell, who has been coaching with the team’s minor-league system for the last seven years…
Last off-season, the 51-year-old Oberkfell interviewed with the Nationals for a position on Manny Acta’s bench. He also interviewed along with Gary Carter to fill the first-base coaching job for the Mets, which ultimately went to Howard Johnson, who later switched to batting coach.
Oberkfell was named Minor League Manager of the Year by Baseball America in 2005.
Tagged Rickey Henderson, Rudy Jaramillo |In the Philadelphia Inquirer, Todd Zolecki writes that free-agent LHP JC Romero and the Phillies are ‘far apart’ during early contract negotiations, meaning he will most likely hit the open market.
The 31-year-old Romero was 1-2 with a 1.24 ERA in 51 appearances for the Phillies last season.
In six full years of pitching from relief, Romero finished two seasons with an ERA under 2.00, but three seasons with an ERA over 5.00.
…actually, if you look at his stats, it reads like the American League had started to catch up with him, and so a switch to the National League made him more effective…
…you know, just one quality, productive signing, like romero, coupled with a healthy Duaner Sanchez, and the return of Billy Wagner, Aaron Heilman and Pedro Feliciano, and suddenly the Mets bullpen does not seem all that bad…
…that being said, whether romero or some one else, i sense that the Mets will bring in a top-flight relief pitcher, along with other lesser-named options, so to work it all out in spring training…
…my advice, however, would be to not get bogged down in long-term contracts in the bullpen, like so many seasons in the past…the talent isn’t worth the risk, and it ultimately limits the team’s options, forcing them to ride out pitchers who are underperforming because they have no room to make a transaction…for instance, guys like Carlos Muniz or Willie Collazo may or may not have been an answer for the team’s struggling pen last August, but there was no way of knowing because their was no way to get them on the roster without cutting ties with an expensive, long-term contract, or a veteran without options…so, if the team will not cut these contracts from the roster, and i understand why they will not, then it has got to stop having them in the first place…
According to the New York Post, the Yankees appear certain to pick up Bobby Abreu‘s $16 million option for next season.
In 158 games this season for the Yankees, Abreu hit .283 with 16 HR, 25 
stolen bases and 101 RBI.
…i recall hearing a few talk radio types suggesting how abreu could be a nice solution for the Mets, should a) the team need a full-time corner outfielder, and b) he became a free agent…i’m glad he will not be a free agent…i find abreu to be painfully overrated…if you lived in my house, you’d think his first name was a curse word, not bobby, given the way my wife yells at him through the television…since i have no interest in the Yankees, i actually find it funny when watching him casually jog to baseballs hit over his head, or fumble around in the corner of the stadium trying to pick up a slow grounder…it was just as bad when he played for the Phillies…and so i’m glad he will have no shot of duplicating this performance at shea…
The Post’s writers, George King and Joel Sherman, also give a quick update on Alex Rodriguez, as well.
Tagged Yankees |
