Minors: Sickels Grades Mets Prospects
Over at Minor League Ball, prospects analyst and author John Sickels gives his Mets’ top 20 prospects list, ranked by his unique letter grading system.
Topping his list, with B+ grades, are OF Fernando Martinez and RHP Deolis Guerra, followed by OF Carlos Gomez and RHP Kevin Mulvey, both given B’s but with the potential to be bumped up to B+ in Sickels’ yearly prospect book, which is due out in February.
…note that because of service time accrued, OF Lastings Milledge and RHP Mike Pelfrey did not qualify for the list…
On the system as a whole, Sickels states:
“There is some nice pitching in this system, but depth in position players is very weak. Overall the system is better than it looks at first, but lack of hitting depth is a problem, and I hate the way they rush some of their prospects.”
…later this week, i’ll have an interview with sickels about his take on the Mets farm system…
…given the questions about the team’s lack of depth, the list is a lot more promising than one might initially anticipate…unlike Baseball America, sickels ranks 1B Nick Evans in the top ten…after evans’ strong year in the extreme-pitcher friendly Florida State League, i agree with sickels…
…as with all of these Mets lists, you get the feeling there will be significant upheaval and change in the next year or two, as the top-level guys such as Carlos Gomez and Phil Humber graduate for good (or are traded); the nearly ready 2007 draftees start seeing big-league time; and the big latin classes signed over the past two summers start to see significant time stateside…
