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In a recent post to their blog, Mets Refugees debunks a collection of popular internet-myths about Mets 19–year-old OF prospect Fernando 
Martinez, who was recently ranked as the team’s top prospect by Baseball America.
According to Baseball America…
“His upside remains tremendous…Minaya says Martinez is on the same track as players such as Juan Gonzalez, Ivan Rodriguez and Sammy Sosa, all of whom reached the majors by age 20…His bat ultimately will be his calling card, and the Mets see him as a future 30-homer threat.”
In 60 games for Double-A Binghamton this past year, when most kids his age are playing in their senior-year of high school, Martinez hit .271 with four HR.
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can we teach him to play 1B?
If we have to deal Milledge and Gomez for pitching this year, it would nice to slot FMart into LF when Alou retires……I think he is two years from the bigs though.
Id like to use Milledge Pelfrey Humber and Mulvey for pitching, and try to hold onto Gomez and Martinez……..
Hurry up already, Fernando!
I do hope we get to see him in a Mets uniform though….Although he is further off, I’d rather part with a Gomez/Milledge. Plus, they’d be more likely to bring back better talent, as they are a lot closer to the show.
“His upside remains tremendous…Minaya says Martinez is on the same track as players such as Juan Gonzalez, Ivan Rodriguez and Sammy Sosa, all of whom reached the majors by age 20…”
Yeah, great. This description puts F-Mart in some fantastic company. So hopefully Martinez can be on track to make the majors by age 20 without showing up on the Mitchell Report.
Jeez, if there was any comparison I didn’t want to see it was one like that.
haha, surprised they didnt throw palmiero in that comparison.
that’s why i laugh at people who think we have to trade a boatload of prospects to get good talent. You should always take the proverbial “unnamed sources” and “rival GMs” with a grain of salt. Most of them have agendas when giving their opinions. In a perfect world, we’d keep all three, and stick Gomez in right, Milledge in left, and Martinez at first. It’ll be interesting to see what Minaya does with those guys.
The story they did on him last season on Mets weekly was good….he shows some amazing skills….I am hoping we do not let him go ….Of the 3 OF’S I would throw Gomez in a trade 1st…It is obvoious we will make a trade in the next few weeks…..so I guess when it is all said and done Im hoping Millz and Fmart are still here …as for the pitching prospects and Gomez….peace out!
reality check…i watched fmart play in bingo last year. as much as i wanted to be impressed, fmart was underwhelming.
he is 18 in a league where his competition is roughly 22…
Aside from Doogie Howser, most people generally perform a bit worse when they are far below the average age.
he was 18. There are scouts that watch and make much better assessments to you or I can. I am sure that AROD was semi-underwhelming at age 18….
Actually, ARod was a top prospect since he was in high school.
Fine. Bad person to compare to, but you get my point.
He was indeed a top prospect in high school, but I’m sure that he would have looked “underwhelming” if he was facing AA instead of high school pitching at that age too…
that’s the point, when Arod was 18, he was in high school, looking amazing. Imagine Fernando playing at some high school. He’d be killing. But no, he played in AA, was injured some, and still at least showed he was capable. I’m in the “hang on to him” camp. This kid is going to be good.
You don’t trade position players who made AA at age 18 who can go drill oppo homers. I don’t care what position he ends up playing, you don’t deal that kind of bat.
Hey, he sounds promising.
Must be bogus though. After all, the Mets have no viable prospects, just trash, right? Hey, it must be true, you see it regurgitated in enough posts!
Anyway, with this upside, I think it is Gomez that should be the odd man out. Milledge has the quick bat, and can help right now. Martinez could be this monster stick in a couple of years.
Gomez though, is kind of th eodd man out, and it seems harder to project what he could become (at least from what you read).
If they can package Gomez for an upgrade to the SP (say Garza) they need to do it.
Keeping Milledge for this year, plus Martinez in 2009 or 2010, could be the best LT for the team.
Man, if Fernando could stay healthy and have a monster year in AA/AAA (like DW before he came up, if not Cabrera like!), and could take over for Alou in 2009 (Delgado might be too much to hope for!) it would be sweet.
2 things need to happen probably for this to occur. 1 of course is the breakout, healthy minor league season. 2 is establishing a solid, everyday RF that adds offense (hopefully Milledge).
That way, they would have a reason to bring him up, and wouldn’t have to worry too much about his numbers out of the shoot. ALthough if he destroys AA at 18, the majors at 19 isn’t really a stretch!
An of of Martinez, Beltran and Milledge from 2009 – 2012 say could be very nice.
Dark horse for 2009? THat DUda guy (he’s the 1B, right?)
“Although if he destroys AA at 18, the majors at 19 isn’t really a stretch!”
Are you kidding me?!
There is a HUGE difference in the pitching at AA compared to the Major Leagues. That statement, if you were serious, is just ludicrous.
This kid will put up tremendous numbers if he can stay healthy for a full year in the minor. Forget Santana, let just try to get Haren and keep FMart here!!!
he can’t buy beer legally, and up until a few months ago, he couldn’t even buy a lotto ticket, be patient with him and hopefully he will be able to be slotted into LF next year once Alou is gone
Oh, for the steroid comparisons noted above? If you look at those guys when they came up (Sosa, Palmero, Juan GOne), they were all lean, athletic guys, and Sosa at least was fast. It was later in their careers that they roided up, mostly serving to inflate their HR numbers.
i was just joking around. the comparisons are clearly based on numbers alone not steroids or whatever. but it made me laugh thinking “well lets hope his career doesnt mimmick theirs TOO much”.
let’s consider this, Gomez has a high ceiling according to many, but to me right now, he reminds me a lot of roger cedeno, and we ALL know how he turned out…in a game where 3 out of 10 is amazing, 1 out of 12 prospects panning out is damn near incredible! I say as I have said in other posts, trade gomez for garza or package him and heilman for haren (but it would probably have to be milledge for that)…corner OF is a dime a dozen position to fill via trade or FA…let F-Mart stay on the farm, move the other pieces for top flight SP and maybe make a play for fukodome for RF or something comprable…
REFUGEES!!!! ROUND UP!!!
bNo FTW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11
Trade him immediately. He’s not gritty.
not to mention he has no rings…the guy is not a winner
This was a great blog that can be applied to all of our prospects.
He mentioned Carlos Lee being 22 in AA. Milledge is 22 and is expected to be our starting RF this year (unless he is dealt). Gomez is also going to be 22.
Pelfrey is going to be 24, and it will be his 3rd year in the bigs. It didn’t click for Maine until he turned 26.
The fact is the Mets are aggressive with challenging their prospects, which can hurt their trade value if they struggle initially. However, I feel it will help them in the long run.
I think this is why you see Minaya a bit tentative when it comes to dealing these guys off. You saw him deal off Petit, Gaby Hernandez, and Jacobs a few years back. He also dealt Bannister, Bell, Ring, Lindstrom, and Owens. But he didn’t deal Milledge for Manny. He seems to not want to include Pelfrey in a deal unless it’s for an Ace, and he supposedly is hesitant to include Gomez’ name in trade talks.
We have to trust Omar here. Remember, his background is in scouting, and he has brought us Maine, Ollie, and Gotay when he fleeced the other teams for these guys. Let’s hope he’s right when it comes to Milledge, Gomez, Pelfrey, and FMart.
This is to 2nd Genius’ thought, saw 13 B-Met games this yr.,
12 w/ F.Martinez in the line-up AND I’m STILL waiting to be
impressed! As I recall, in only 1 did he have more then 1 hit
AND THAT was a 2 single gm. In about 6 or 7 gms he went
hitless and struck out ALOT!– He DOESN’T have great speed,
OR a great arm i.e. Gomez.
I know, I know he’s young. He WAS the youngest player on the field everytime I saw him BUT, He looked It!
Before he can contribute AT ALL, he needs a full season @
both 2 and 3 A. Best case, spring 2010.
That’s A LONG way off!!!
As usual Omar is full of flash and dash–And not much substance!!—Chemically enhanced or not Pudge,Gonzalez
and Sammy were all Hall of Fame/ All World TALENTS !
PLUS, they came up w/ a BAD BALLCLUB in Arlington
no less.
How much patience will ANY MET FAN have, even if this kid
arrives in 2010 @ 21 y/o, starts and gives you the #s Sammy
did in his 1st 1000+ABs which durin that time he got traded twice
I just don’t see it w/ this F. Martinez kid.
Baseball talent wise BOTH Millage AND Gomez look better
AND Have the last 2 yrs.
Plus at this point lets stop w/ the whole Omar as genius junk.
All you have to do is examine one deal–Bart Colon FOR
Sizemore,Brandon Pkillips,Cliff Lee and Lee Stevens.
Now tell me again, what a great scout he’s been??!!
Depends when you saw him. He played with a fairly serious misdiagnosed hand injury for part of the season.
people always bring up that trade, and they (conveniently) neglect to mention that the Expos were on the VERGE OF NOT EXISITING. Omar had to make that trade, what the hell is the point of holding on to prospects if you’re going to be contracted?? The expos had a puncher’s chance to contend that season, and Omar went all in and got a big bat (cliff floyd) and the best pitcher on the market (colon). What’s wrong with that? why do people try and buttress arguments with flawed reasoning?
This is what is missing a lot on this blog, CONTEXT.
People love mentioning Escobar, but he blew his knee out. This and the post you mention are two examples.
Ask a Nat fan if they’d like to have Sizemore and
Phillips atop the lineup for the next decade.
Point is if Omar the Great is such a genius hows he
making that trade?
Not thinkin bout the future then BUT now with a team he
can spend like a Billionaire Virgin @ Scores, with a team
who has guys like Pedro, Duque, Wagner, Deldado,Alou
alone tied up for almost 60 Mil. AND on the down-side.
PLUS, Bel-tron in the middle of his prime, Suddenly–
everyone’s gonna worry about 3/4 years f/ now???
No me baby, its been 22 years and I want to see another
parade.
There was no guarantee the Expos were moving to Washington. Like the above poster said, there were talks of contraction. Minaya made those deals to try and save baseball in Montreal. It didn’t work out, oh well.
On the flip side, the Mets are not going anywhere. You just listed a bunch of players who are on the downside, but they’re all coming off the books next year. You need players to come in and replace them. I’d much rather show some patience and develop our own talent than shelling out a bunch of money to a guy like Aaron Rowand who will fizzle out halfway through his deal. Teams hold onto their good players more and more these days. It is essential to long term success that you have a strong farm system.
No move the Mets make this offseason will guarantee a world title. No move. Therefore, I’d rather have some patience and build a model franchise that will compete year in and year out.
Do you really think that a year f/ now with Reyes,
Wright,Maine, Perez And Beltran in or just entering
prime that Freddy,Omar,Fans etc. will sit a watch
not one BUT two young OFers go through the struggles almost all young players go through
While as you said more $ will be coming off payroll
and there are always OFers avail.
I thought the object was to win a title. Also, what?
no other OFers coming through the system?
And you have to stop w/this you cant judge Omar
on this or that.–He gets judge on the totality of his
job –like us all–and in the end that Colon trade was a disaster!!–It would be like if Duquette had traded
Reyes and Wright in another Benson/ Zambrano
move. Think about what that state of this team would be.
Well with Omars helping hand–Thats what kind of condition The Nats are in Now,minus the money to spend. All the more reason why he should have been a little more careful.
Sure, the totality of Omar’s work should be judged, but context is also very important. The Nationals didn’t even exist when Omar made this trade.
You know, it’s funny, everyone likes to claim that you can’t break in young players on a good team. You only need to point to the Red Sox to show that this is bunk.
My answer to you is a resounding YES. A team with that core can certainly handle one or two young players breaking into the big leagues. In fact, I think this is the best time to break in a young kid. Look at Pedroia. He had a rough go at first, but they were able to let him ride it out and he ended up being a valuable contributor to a championship team.
Again, I’d much rather deal with some growing pains than to sign a guy like Tori Hunter, who will not be worth his salary halfway through his contract.
Can’t look at that trade to assess how Omar is as a General Manager. That Expos team had no business being in the wild card or division race. This was possibly their last chance to do so. Omar had a chance to immediately improve the team and give them a chance to win that season. That was really the only season that mattered for him anyways.
I think the Royals, Devil Rays, and others would do the same thing. After so many years of futility, when you get that chance to win, you HAVE to do everything you can to win. Case in point…Mets deadline deals for Kris Benson and Victor Zambrano. This was a team that was under .500 at the time and on the fringes of the wild card race. I think those were desperation deals more than anything else. I don’t think Duquette, in his heart of hearts really believes Kazmir for Zambrano was a great baseball move. I think he thought it was a good move at the time. That team could have traded for Benson and the fans would have been happy enough with the effort (although I never saw Benson as any higher than a #3 pitcher). So don’t bring up “going for it” in Montreal as a knock on Omar. He tried to win and it didn’t work out. How close has that team come since then?
One more point. You’re evaluating Minaya’s “genius” on ONE trade? One that he made 5 years ago for a franchise that was owned by MLB? Good idea.
Not at all babe, I like Omar ! Just don’t think theres anything special about his time here.
He knows how throw Wilpon bucks around but what
else?
Look Willie took ALOT of heat for the collapse but the
guy who built it WAS OMAR!–He sent Willie to battle
with limited starting AND relief pitching NOT The Other
wat around.–A whole lot of money was spent on guys
who couldnot be counted on health-wise and Omar’s
answer was to back that up with Sandy Alomar,Ricky Ledee(again)Brian Lawrance, guys like that.
So far this off-season hes done it again, w/Alou,Easley
BUT worst with Castillo—Spend,spend,spend on guys
whos health is questionable at best.
Thats my point.
He’s done more than spend. He’s spun Kris Benson into John Maine and El Duque (by way of Jorge Julio.) He acquired Gotay for Keppinger. He landed Ollie Perez for Xavier Nady, who he got for Mike Cameron. He hasn’t simply spent money to build this team.
Not to mention that he is slowly building up the farm system. While we’re a bit weak at the top, from what I can gather on the net we have a lot of talent in the lower levels of the minor leagues and in our academies in the Caribbean.
Sure he’s swung and missed as well, but that’s baseball… failure is part of the game.
It’s funny to see you being critical of them signing Alou, Easley, and Castillo when above you stated that the front office should not waste our key players’ prime seasons by breaking in young players during this time.
Take a look at the free agent market, not a whole lot out there.
As for the collapse, there is plenty of blame to go around. Willie, Omar, and the players are all to blame. No one should be forced to shoulder it alone.
To play off your comment from above, the goal is not to win merely A title, but to compete for and win numerous titleS.
I’m not being “critical” of omar re: signing alou,castillo.easley-BUT w/castillo 4 yrs when this yr
there are all kind of posibilities @ 2b ? w/ his legs ?
and alou ? he signs when he has to know we’ll need
another LFer to play half the time? and easley ? just
like valentin, he hits the jackpot-getting max value out of a player off the scrap-heap and immediately signs
him again as if lighting will strike twice.
Again, plenty of OF options-And NO I’m not talkin’
Jones,Rowland or Hunter. But what about a Corey
Patterson or Geoff Jenkins??NO Good?
AND I’ll submit to you that while I was glad to get Benson out of here(Anna not so much) Omar had
no choice! And Duque’s injuryhistory likely cost us
a ring last year and atleast a playoff berth this.
He assed into Maine ’cause he had visions of Jorge Julio as the 8th inning guy when that deal was made.
I’d take Keppinger over Gotay for the long run.
And he didn’t as much “land” Perez as was handed him.Remember, Hernandez was the key to that deal
which in turn caused us to live thru a yr of Green.
While everyone should assume some responsibility
for the collapse, Omar is the Boss!! he put the pieces together! What was Willie to do w/ a staff who couldn’t hold leads or go 5 and a bullpen which was shot in August. This again while Omar fiddled w/ non-sense
lile figuring which job Rickey would get even before
Down was fired and continuing to insist Franco
could still play.
There is no need to go into the ungodly ammount of $
Omar locked up w/ players who did little to nothing for this club.
35 seasons-35 seasons-I’ve seen 1 championship.
Please dont give me the junk “we gotta build to compete every year”. Lets start by winning one and
we’ll go from there.
Yes , you can trade a Martinez because a good organization, lead by a good GM is supposed to already have the next guy coming close behind him.
This, while in a big market you can sign the right FAs
to compete every year.
Jenkins is the last thing we need, another old player. Patterson sucks.
If you prefer Keppinger over Gotay long term we probably should terminate this conversation.
However you view his acquiring Maine and Perez, he got them. He specifically targeted both and got them. Don’t qualify his successes and rail against his failures. I’m not making excuses for his poor offseason last year… he stunk it up.
But Willie could have done a better job as a manager, namely resting guys like Reyes, Beltran, and LoDuca more. Those guys wore down the stretch. Not to mention he could have gotten after these guys a bit more… he admitted this himself in an interview recently.
And what jackpot did Easley hit? I think he got a one year deal for less than a mil. He’s the perfect bench player. Former starter, one time all star, who can play multiple infield positions with some pop off the bench. Vets tend to be better bench options than rookies anyway.
Please don’t tell me you would rather have Nady than Perez. Because that’s just silly. Nady is a nice player, but he really should be a platoon guy and Perez pitched well for us last year.
As for El Duque, whatever. Who knows if we make it that far without him. The rotation was in shambles in ‘06.
The reason why you have one title in 35 years is because of crappy management. The exact philosophy you are promoting is what has caused this franchise to become mired in mediocrity. Signing the Alomars, Vaughns, and Jenkins of the world is NOT the way to build a good baseball team. For the most part, when you sign a free agent you are signing up for his DECLINE years. When you develop talent you will have them while they are on the rise and in their prime. Then you let them walk when they become a free agent if they’re value is inflated, and you plug in the next kid in the pipeline. This is what the Mets need to build.
Signing free agents is not the way to build a ball club.
I need to go back to “let’s win one and go from there.” I seriously laughed when I read that. You just don’t get it… that’s not the way things tend to work and not the way to run a successful franchise.
squad, thank you. Those are my sentiments exactly. People tend to get riled up that Omar’s not out there making “splashes” and “upstaging” people. This dude knows what he’s doing. He’s got the stomach to trade prospects, but he’s got the patience to make sure he gets what he wants in return. I wish more people would realize that…as for Martinez, don’t trade him for anyone. ANYONE. I agree with most of the board that if one of the three has to go, it should probably be Gomez, as he’s mostly projection right now. But the more I hear about this kid, the more I get excited.
Haha, seriously, some of the posts on here boggle my mind. My personal favorite is “how much patience will Mets have…”
I don’t know about anyone else, but I want to see Minaya build the Mets into a premier franchise that contends every year. You do not accomplish this by pillaging the farm system every year. We are entering Minaya’s 4th season as GM, so when you think about it, a lot of the young players he has brought in are still pretty young, especially all of the Caribbean players they have in the academy.
In short, while lacking high level talent, our system has a lot of talent in the lower levels and down in the academies. And when you think about it, Milledge, Gomez, and Martinez are all ahead of where they should be for their ages. So yeah, I prefer patience to dealing a bunch of these guys off for 30 year old pitchers.
Saw the kid in May and June. Again, he looked overmatched
in AA against some talent that wasnot very good.
But hey, Im not rooting against the kid just making a point,
he didnt look special. I hope he becomes an all-star BUT
how can you say Gomez is “only projection” when he was rushed to the majors, stole bases at will and looked like he’ll
be an outstanding fielder w/ a cannon for an arm AND because
of his frame will hit for some power.–While Martinez you wouldn’t trade for anyone? Huh? Not anyone?
RE: Omar, He spends Met Money well !!!
No need to go over the list of his mistakes, we all know them!
I would hold on to this guy. He should be the one prospect that does not enter trade discussion. Everyone else is on the table … this guy’s got to stay put.