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Yesterday, 23–year-old Daniel Murphy had one hit, two RBI and scored a run, while striking out once in four at bats.
Meanwhile, 24–year-old Mike Pelfrey pitched a complete game and moved to 12 wins on the season, while 26–year-old Argenis Reyes, who was 1 for 4, is batting .290 in his last 30 at bats.
The day before, 22–year-old Nick Evans had two hits and scored a run in three at bats.
By the way, Jose Reyes is 25 years old, as is David Wright, both of whom will likely be considered in voting for the National League MVP this season.
In the New York Post, Joel Sherman writes…
“(Last night) was yet another reminder that - forecasts to the contrary - the Mets’ young players are outdoing their Yankee counterparts in 2008…Murphy appeared on no Top-100 - or even Top 300 - prospect lists before the season and Pelfrey - not Hughes or Kennedy - seemed the pitcher most likely to end up back at Triple-A. But here they both are playing major roles on a first-place team…
“The Yankee system got the praise, yet the Mets had enough pieces not only to land Santana, but to sprinkle their roster with youngsters thriving in late August.”
Even the happy-go-lucky Wallace Matthews from Newsday gets in to the act, writing, “Joba who? Phil Whatsisname? Ian Whooziwhatsis,” all while praising, yes, praising, Pelfrey.
…speaking of Newsday, i dig the new web layout, guys…
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Too much praise. Don’t jinx us!!!!
The bottom line that needs to be recognized is that Omar and his team are really doing a good job. Regardless of how people ranked our system. We were able to make a big trade for Santana, traded away Miledge, lost Flores, and we still got kids who are coming up and contributing big time. To all the Omar bashers, this should be a wake up call…
agreed
Hey, who’s the director of player development? Give that guy a raise! And let him in the clubhouse more often!
Another point that needs to be made is that the “window” is NOT closing for this team. They should NOT be dumping a Nick Evans for the likes of David Weathers because (gasp) Perez is a FA, Delgado might not be back, Pedro is in his twilight, etc. There are always players on the way in, and players on the way out. The key is the “core”, and this “core” is relatively young — Santana, Pelfrey (wow), Maine, Wright, Reyes, and even Beltran. They may need to part with Evans or others during the off-season to get (young) bullpen help if the FA market is thin, but they shouldn’t be taking on rentals with an eye toward going “all in” for this coming postseason.
Yes…and I believe that guy was single handedly responsible for getting Murphy. So if in fact Murphy turns out to be something (which I think he will), we can thank you know who.
It’s crazy that you can talk about Murphy being 23, Evans being 22 and just being called up … Pelfrey being 24 and just starting to perform well ….
Then you realize Jose and David are 25 years old and seem like they’ve been here forever. Crazy how you can forget how young these two are sometimes.
They seem like they’ve been here forever because they actually have been here a long time. It is unbelievable that they are only 25. Even with his early injuries, Reyes has played in 720 games, which is only 100 less than 31 year old veteran Brian Schneider, and more than a lot of 29, 30 year olds that start their careers in their mid-20s like most people do.
100 less games than Schneider. Wow … That is NUTS!
In Scheider’s defense (?), he’s at the catcher position where he’s being platooned (only played over 130 games once in a season in his career), but yeah… It’s pretty nice regardless of what our boys Reyes and Wright are doin’.
I’m not sure how no one in the world could see that Ian Kennedy was a stiff. He might be serviceable one day, but I really don’t know what the upside of him is - his stuff is not great, he doesn’t throw very hard… what is it, exactly?
And it seems like a lot of baseball people and fans, myself included, thought this was the year for Pelfrey to break out and win games. I said before the season that he would win 12, and since he’s at 11 now, 14 or 15 seems easily doable.
As for the young position players like Murphy, A. Reyes, and Evans, well kudos, young men, kudos. They are making names for themselves, playing well, and actually propelling this team to (hopefully) a playoff run.
I didn’t think this team had it, but I’m glad I’m being proven very wrong.
Pelfrey won his 12th last night, not 11. As for Kennedy, the reason he got all that hype was because of his MLB debut at the end of last season. He pitched 19 innings and had a 1.90 ERA and everyone was thinking he was going to be the next Maddux. The same thing happened with Bannister last year and the early part of this year. We’re lucky Pelfrey stunk it up so much because if he didn’t, he would have been in the Santana deal.
Pelf just needs to adjust so that he pitches better against the Marlins. Since Willie was fired Pelf is 9-0 in 10 starts with a 2.08 era against all teams faced except the Fish. Against the Marlins he is 0-2 in 2 starts with a 12.28 era 8 Innings pitched 11 runs.
Probably in the case of Pelfry, it would be better to reference his improvement since the firing of Rick Petersen. Pelfry needed to get free of “the system” to find his true self.
Use the Force Pelf . . . let go . . .
Yeah, look at where Humber and Mulvey are… Humber has been brutal in the minors this year, and Mulvey, while better, is not looking Major league ready. Guerra has out performed both of them, but is only in A-ball. We really fleeced them in that deal.
I knew Omar was not gonna trade Pelfrey… he’s made some bad moves with pitchers, but they weren’t ready to give up on Pelf. Last year only his 2nd year of pro ball.
And don’t forget Gomez and his .286 OBP. I think that guy’s in trouble. I thought that last year too. Great skills. No clue.
Excellent insight, but part of the reason Pelf wasn’t included in the deal was because his contract is set so that he makes a million or so, even if he’s in the minors and the Twins didn’t like that.
The Twins are such a fascinating franchise… they refuse to overpay players, they let their free agents walk (Hunter), they trade away so much pitching talent (Santana, Garza), and somehow they still manage to field a good team day in and day out and are contending for their division with a very good record. Unbelievable.
sounds familiar….what’s the name of that team in Miami again?
I’m not really sure what’s fascinating about it, there are other teams that do it, they just scout and develop talent very well.
I think a lot of people (myself included) tend to forget that it’s rare for a pitcher to have immediate success in the majors. Even guys like Volquez struggled during his first 15 or so starts in the majors during his the first three years and Felix Hernandez had a very mediocre 2nd year. Guys like Lincecum and Chamberlin are the exception.
Pelfrey’s success started right around the time he made his 30th start in the majors (which equates to a full season of starts). Guys like Hughes and Kennedy still have yet to get that many starts under their belt so I think any fan of a team with young arms should keep in mind Pelfrey’s timetable for developing into a good pitcher (like when Niese gets his chance).
Not every prospect is going to turn into a dependable starter but they all need to be given a chance to continue their development in the majors (even though it’s painful to watch sometimes).
Also, some pitchers can’t deal with failure that well and never overcome it. Who knows how Hughes and Kennedy will respond? Pelfrey obviously had what it took.
Though I was on the train that thought Kennedy was way over-hyped for three starts, and I believed Big Pelf had a chance to be the top of rotation guy he was marked to be just a couple of years ago with no injuries, I also know that it is still early for both players. I wouldn’t fall into the exact same trap. To say I guess 10 months ago the Yanks were wrong aboutr Kennedy and not think that in 10 months it can reverse would be silly… many great starters, Hall of Famers even, have failures like Kennedy. Nothing about him impresses me but all I know is that I don’t know right now.
Big Pelf is the real deal tho.
Kennedy is the Bill Pulsipher of the trio…the guy with mediocre stuff who is being overhyped so as to keep including him with the other two with more dominant stuff.
Pulsipher actually threw pretty hard when he first came up. It was after he hurt his arm that his velocity suffered.
But Pulse was never in the same league with Izzy and Wilson.
do by that comparison, Joba is Izzy and Hughes is Wilson, right? That sounds about right to me…
we need to get willie back here so those youngsters can be put back in their place on the bench while willie plays his guys (tatis and marlon in the corners and easley at 2nd 5 times a week).
That’s not called “Big Willie Style” is it?
And the clubhouse would have back that funereal pall that made Mets baseball oh, so much fun during the latter months of the Willie era!
lets not be so hasty to judge Hughes or Kennedy because frankly last year and early this year Pelfrey looked stiffish.
Bottom line though, prognosticators of the minors often simply miss out, you hear about the can’t miss this, can’t miss that, I look at a guy like Murphy and think SURE he is not going to hit in the high .300s, but he certainly can be a valuable contributor and every player at the major league level. And given time I think Evans can as well.
The Mets should just role with what they have and let the chips fall as they may in 2008. 2009 should be a very promising year.
agreed. i’d venture to guess a lot of mets fans WANTED to see pelf in the santana deal. turns out he just needed to get his feet wet.
as far as hughes and kennedy go, we will see. Nobody has seen enough of them to make a judgment either way.
Thing I love about Murphy isn’t the numbers he’s putting up, it’s that he’s driving tough pitches to the opposite field, which is a skill that the superprospects usually have to learn at the big-league level, if they learn it at all.
Last night he said that he knows pitchers are going to start wising up to his game and pitching him inside, and that he’ll have to adjust to that, which shows a vateran’s approach to hitting.
They might have lost that game 3-1 without his two-out hit in the first. Clutch hitting in a pennant race while playing out of position. Not bad.
Wallace Mathews?? Wow. I thought he was a Yankee mole at the News in the employ of Hank.
I wonder if Wally Matthews is like that Indians fan in Major League 2….The team is doing so poorly that he bashses them without abandon, but once Rick Vaughn becomes the Wild Thing again he turns his previously inside out jersey right side out, and cheers with everyone else…….Damn front runner.
haha. I remember that character all too well. (Randy Quaid) And in his defense, he wasnt a front runner. He was just frustrated. You didnt see him with a White Sox cap on did you? ; )
Wallace Matthews is the guy you love to hate. In much the same way that Jon Heyman was when he was a columnist for Newsday not too long ago. He loves to stir the pot but in this case he’s taking shots at da Jankees. Nice to see.
And by the way, “the News” is short for the Daily News, not Newsday. Small mistake, i know, but that stuff bothers me. I wouldn’t want you running around sounding like an idiot.
Wally’s ‘positive’ Mets article today would not have been complete however, wtihout the inaccurate suggestion that Minnesota was given a choice between Pelfrey and Humber.
Wally is like any Yankees fan - he’s cranky right now. God forbid he write something positive about Pelfrey without airing his grievances about the Yankees “Generation K, The Sequel.”
Right . . . Newsday, of course.
I read my baseball news on line now, and the tabloids begin to melt into one big blob in my thinking.
I love watching the young guys. it is so much better than watching the older fellas trying to find their old form. GO METS.
looking good.
Willie would disagree with you.
No he wouldn’t. You don’t know what your even talking about. What youngster should Willie have played by didn’t?
No doubt Willie tended to be much more conservative about bringing the young guys into key roles, but to be fair, he didn’t have kids bursting onto the scene like Murphy is doing.