spotlight: jeurys familia pt 2 doible a

ho hum...another start, another dominant performance. in his second start in double a, familia went 7, giving up only 3 hits, 3 bbs and no earned runs. he k'ed 6.

his double a total is now 14 innings of 1 run ball 8 hits, 3 bbs, 12 ks.

and right on cue, kevin goldstein at baseball prospectus has taken notice, essentially taking my initial position - this year was a make or break year for familia's future as a starter. goldstein is very impressed with his increased control and says that familia looks like he could become an above-average starter.

spotlight: jeurys familia (aa - part 1)

this seems like a jeurys familia blog at the point, but he just continues to impress. his debut last nite for the aa binghampton mets is as follows:

7 ip, 5 hits, 2 r, 1 er, 6 k, 0 bb

it bears repeating (not for the last time) that the problems that plagued familia last year were two-fold... bad luck and a higher walk rate. his luck this year has been really good and he has the lowest walk rate of his minor league career.

as paul depodesta, head of amateur scouting and player development for the mets, just stated, familia will prob not be called up to the majors in september. i completely agree with this decision (although there are still 4 months until a real decision needs to be made). familia had made great strides thus far and if there is any hope he can develop into a reliable starter, he needs to continue to work on his command in the minors.

promoted: jeurys familia (in aa)

the last time we spoke (or i spoke and you ignored), we were evaluating familia's 3rd start of the year. since then, he's made 3 more starts, 2 great, 1 not so. his starts (4-6) resulting in the following:
4) 7 ip, 3 h, 0 runs, 3 bb, 8 ks
5) 4 ip, 7 h, 4 er, 1 hr, 1 bb, 5 ks
6) 6.2 ip, 5 h, 1 er, 0 bb, 6 ks

his last start was on may 5 and on sunday he was promoted to aa (in binghamton, ny). as i predicted a may call up is probably wise as the weather heats up in upstate new york. familia's final line in high-a ball was
ip: 36.1
hits: 21
bb: 8
k: 36
er: 6
hr: 1

as we discussed in our first familia post, he was due for a bit of regression this year (with his bad luck) hopefully resulting in some good luck. that has surely come. his babip is a mere .225. his strand rate is over 80%, both career highs. his hr/9 is .25 which is below his career average as well. his k rate is the 2nd best of his career at 8.92 and his bb rate is easily his lowest at 1.98.

we discussed previously the reason we were so confident in his performance this season and believed that it would lead to greater confidence and a may promotion. now that we are at that moment, the question now becomes how he handles the promotion.

jeurys' 1.49 era is not a proper representation of his skills. the jump to aa will make that very clear. the single most important statistic for familia will be his bb rate. he pitches over 6 innings per start mostly due to his ability to limit the free passes. his k rate should continue to be respectable but aa hitters will be much more skilled and patient at the plate.

familia will most certainly spend the rest of this year at aa. and in doing so, a lot of the questions about his future will be answered - can he be a starter or is he destined for the bullpen? his fastball sits around 94 and is a solid offering, but his changeup and slider are nothing special at this point. he needs to maintain his command and control if he has any chance to be a starter in the big leagues. we will find out a lot in the next few months whether he currently has that ability.

spotlight: jeurys familia pt 3

jeurys made his 3rd start of the year for the high-a st. lucie mets yesterday. he pitched 5.2 innings, giving up just an unearned run, 4 hits, 2 bb, and 4 ks. this brings his total for the season to 18.2 innings (in 3 starts), 2 runs, 1 earned, 6 hits, 4 bbs, 17 ks.

his k/bb ratio is about 3 which is a great sign for jeurys who has had his troubles with his bb rate last year. his bb rate early on is about 2bb/9 which is quite similar to his great years in 08 and 09.

jeurys and matt harvey (the 7th pick in the 2010 draft who jim callis from baseball america just called the best pitcher in the minors thus far) form a dominant duo. i predicted a good bounce back season for jeurys due to his high k rate, low strand rate and high babip last year while repeating the same level. i still expect a promotion to double-a in may with harvey once the weather gets nice where jeurys will remain for the rest of the year.

spotlight: jeurys familia start 2

a few days ago i spotlighted mets pitching prospect jeurys familia, who had just made his first start of the high-a season.

he followed up that 7 inn., 7k performance with another gem on wednesday. he pitched 6 inn, with 1 hit, 2bb, 6k and 1 er. reports are that he threw three solid pitches (a fastball, change and slider) with his fastball touching 96.

familia got 7 groundball outs v 3 fly ball outs which is why he does not give up many hrs. the 2bb is a good sign as well.

by my account he has pitched 13 innings, with 2 hits, 2bb and 1er and 13ks. a lot of good signs here

spotlight: jeurys familia

jeurys is a starting pitching prospect for the mets, currently on their high-a team, the st. lucie mets. keith law ranks him as the mets #10 prospect, baseball prospectus ranks him #13 and baseball america has him unranked in each of the last 3 years he's been a pro.

jeurys is 21 years old and won't turn 22 until after this season is over. unlike other mets prospects he has not been rushed through the system, spending his age 18 season in rookie ball, his age 19 season in low-a, and his age 20 season in high-a where he will open up his age 21 season. on friday night, he started his first game of the year and pitched 7 innings with 7ks, giving up just 1 hit and 0 walks.

since his debut in 2008, his k rate has increased each year from 6.62 to 7.32 to 10.19 last year. his era, however, skyrocketed from less than 2.80 in each of his first two years to 5.58 last year. his fip was only 3.89 though and was more consistent with his low 3 fips from previous years. the high era can probably be attributed to his increased bb rate which doubled from 08 to 10, from 2.26 to 5.50. that number though was tempered by his increased k rate and was reflected in his slightly increased fip number.

what keeps his fip reasonably low and what should come back to normal this year is his strand rate, which was around 72% previously but dropped sharply to 60.7% in 2010. his babip also jumped from .273 to .341. finally, the last reason that his fip was reasonably low with all those walks is that his hr rate is only 0.52 and was even lower the previous two years.

the mets front office has taken a mildly approach than the previous regimes (especially tony bernazard who famously tried to fight one of his minor league affiliates) who would promote rapidly if you showed any signs of success. one of the more famous examples of this was fernando martinez and that hasn't worked out so great. the new front office will mostly take a case-by-case approach but should probably allow their raw prospects to enjoy some prolonged success before pushing them up a level.

in jeurys' case, his high era last year should drop significantly if he can keep his k rate high, regardless of his walk rate, simply bc his babip and strand rate should both move towards the norm. if he can get his walk rate back to his career norm of 4.00 at the same time, he could be looking at some gaudy numbers. with some luck even, we could be looking at a sub 3 era, which would result in a nice dose of confidence moving forward.

as it usually is with most prospects i am hoping for the best. jeurys made 24 starts last year, pitching about 5 innings per start. hopefully he can make about 10 starts in high-a ball before being promoted to double-a (with matt harvey perhaps), where they definitely can use some starting pitching help. familia will certainly need to work on his control and command to limit his walks but some scouts have predicted a move to the bullpen anyway once he moves up the system. either way, confidence can't hurt and it seems as though he's well on his way to achieving that early in this season.

....shooting for a 2013 arrival

my mets....

it's been a long time my friends (imaginary friends most likely). i'm looking back at my 2008 mlb 2nd half predictions and i ended up 7 of 8 for my division and wildcard winners. the only problem was that my one wrong prediction ended up being the world series champs.... and the bane of my baseball existence. i chose the mets to win the nl east and the brewers to win the wildcard. at least the brewers did their part and we know how the rest of the story worked out.

well, now it's 2011 and it's a whole other story - and by that i mean the mets won't be in 1st at any point this year. as i write this post, the mets just lost to the phillies 11-0 and stand at 3-3 while the phillies are 5-1. here goes my mets 2011 preview:

we gotta start at the top. i'm hoping that this whole madoff mess forces the wilpons to sell the team but i've been told repeatedly that this will not be happening. it doesn't mean anything if they sell just a minority stake because they own a larger piece of their team than most other owners in mlb. it seems as though they have kept their mouths shut this offseason and stopped with the micro managing. let's hope that this is a new trend.

next up, we have the brain trust of sandy alderson, jp riccardi, paul depodesta and john ricco (the only holdover from 2010). their titles are irrelevant because they are trying to mesh together all phases of the organization into a cohesive unit. john ricco is prob more involved in the business side of things, however. they all make a lot of money and there should be no reason this unit can't be one of the best in baseball.

terry collins seems like a straight shooter. i have nothing bad to say about him at this point, but it's all about winning and making smart decisions in the process. so, let's just say that we'll see what happens.

when it comes to the major league roster, i think the consensus is that their offense can be solid if they can avoid the injury bug that has haunted this unit in the past, while the pitching staff will probably have a hard time repeating their surprising numbers from last year.

bullpen: this unit has the most turnover but that's not really all that important. sandy has done a great job finding some decent options for cheap while also making sure that they were able to retain some depth in the organization after everyone seemingly cleared waivers.

starters: it's a bunch of 3/4 starters. pelfrey is no ace. in fact, i wouldn't be surprised to see him be the worst pitcher of the bunch this year. i'm a believer in dickey and niese should def continue to grow as a solid contributor. chris young is ok if healthy and capuano is fine as a #5. they have no upside so getting average production from the group will be fine with me.

offense: they can be a top 5 offense in the senior circuit, again, if avoiding the dl stints. reyes is in a contract year and is still just 28 with tons of tools. pagan is solid. wright is 28 and has regained his form. beltran has no more knees but he is in a contract year as well and wants to keep playing after this year. bay is on the dl again but will bounce back some at least this year. ike davis is legit - he should hit 20+ hrs. emaus/murphy are unknowns and i don't expect much, but thole is a solid #8 hitter and should be able to post above average obp with limited power. the bench has a solid mix of power and speed. paulino was a great signing (top 5 ba against lhp over the last few years).

defense: pagan and davis can both be gold glovers at cf and 1b, respectively. emaus and thole are both unknowns. as for the rest of them, they should be solid, if not spectacular.

minors: i'm a believer in fmart. i know he has arthritis at age 22 and he no longer can play cf, let alone a solid rf, but he's 22! his bat is quick and his power has come. obviously if you can't play you can't be good but why obsess over things like that. while we're at it, i'm also a believer in reese havens, the other 1st round pick from 2008 (along with ike davis), who finally moved from ss to 2b this past year but is always injured. he's opening the year on the dl once again after having part of his rib removed to help alleviate his oblique pain. we have some decent players in the minors but so do most teams. the mets have nothing that special.

prediction: a 500 team sounds nice right about now. best case scenario is that we stay healthy, stay productive and get santana back at the break. even then, i think the upside is 90 wins at best and an outside shot at the wildcard. worst case scenario is that we are injured, call up our not-so-great minor league backups, trade reyes at the deadline, trade beltran at the deadline (if he's even playing) and decide not to bring back santana bc, honestly, why would we? then we're a 70 win team at best and i'm not sure where we can go from here.

i believe in intelligence (and money). we have the 1st part down now that we've hired 3 smart former gms and we SHOULD have the 2nd part because we're the fucking new york mets.... but who knows what's going to happen with this madoff mess and until then the future looks suspect.

willie's getting the silent treatment

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3407930

mets owners apparently aren't speaking to willie. i don't know where the brash talk from beltran and jeff wilpon went but it's not there anymore. it's easy to talk big when things look promising on paper or when you're on top... but silence when you're in a heap of trouble speaks much louder than words ever could.

let's just say that i see trouble on the horizon for mr. randolph and i, for one, am not averse to this sort of trouble.