Reviewing Initial Minors League Rosters for the Mets Affiliates: Las Vegas 51s

That had to be a great interview...

Reviewing the initial 2015 rosters announced for the Mets 4 full-season affiliates: Las Vegas 51s, Binghamton Mets, St. Lucie Mets, and Savannah Sand Gnats

            Good news everybody, Major League Baseball has begun and Minor League Baseball is on its way! Last season the Mets had 3 full-season teams make the playoffs: Las Vegas, Binghamton (won championship), and Savannah. This year, they might go 4/4, as these rosters are loaded – they’re not a consensus top-5 farm system for nothing. Considering the Mets are carrying an extra relief pitcher for now, with two strong relief options are on their way back from injures (Vic Black and Bobby Parnell, who can rehab with Las Vegas for a few weeks), there will likely be a lot of roster adjustments coming over the first few weeks. It seems unlikely the Mets would hold a top prospect down a level just for the first few weeks of the season – major prospects got their promotions in June during the 2014 season – so these roster adjustments are likely to be minor for now. With full-season minor league baseball set to debut Thursday, let’s take a look at the initial rosters that have been announced for the Mets affiliates. If you’re interested in following along at home this season on MiLB.tv, you can find a summary of the games that will be available for each affiliate here – there are 249 scheduled, including nightly 51s games starting as Mets games end.

Savannah, St. Lucie, Binghamton

Note: I plan to update with official 25-man rosters by Thursday game times

UPDATE: Erik Goeddel has been promoted to take Jenrry Mejia's place in the bullpen - Mejia is backdated to Sunday. More roster updates to come.

UPDATE: Duane Below has stayed behind in XST to get stretched out into a long-man/spot starter role.

UPDATE: MiLB.com has Steven Matz listed as going for Las Vegas Thursday

Las Vegas 51s

            The 51s will be anchored by strong pitching this year, but they have plenty of guys to provide offense in the highest scoring environment in pro baseball. This roster will feature the Mets consensus top-5 prospects at the same time if Brandon Nimmo gets called up in time, and they will all play with Las Vegas at some point regardless. The outfield is currently the weakest link of the 51s, especially with the loss of Cesar Puello to the DL for now, but it should be one of their strengths by the end of the season. Here is the initial roster, let’s check it out.

A Closer Look at Cesar Puello's L/R Splits from 2014

Picture from Adam Rubin/ESPN

            I discussed Cesar Puello's improvements throughout the 2014 season during my top prospect series, but I wanted to take a deeper look at how his L/R splits changed throughout the season. The season is broken down into five parts: his slow start in April, his strong May after finishing his court stuff, an unusual 10-day hitless streak to start June, and then I split the remaining plate appearances in half to keep the samples closer in size - the 4^th group of data includes nearly two weeks missed while Puello recovered from a concussion. I got the data from www.mlbfarm.com, which compiles the info from minor league box scores and gameday.

Table 1 – Puello stat breakdown vs. R. (GB/BIP, FB/BIP, LD/BIP, PU/BIP)

Dates	PA	AVG	BABIP	OBP	ISO	OPS	K%	BB%	GB	FB	LD	PU
4/3-5/5	73	.217	.288	.260	.029	.506	23.2	4.1	62	16	20	2
5/9-5/30	34	.240	.240	.424	.040	.704	2.9	14.7	65	10	25	0
5/31-6/9	18	.000	.000	.222	.000	.222	11.1	11.1	83	17	0	0
6/10-8/4	61	.196	.231	.317	.118	.631	17.7	8.1	51	29	17.5	2.5
8/5-9/1	58	.300	.371	.397	.240	.937	22.4	8.6	46	19	24	11
Total	244	.220	.264	.326	.101	.647	18.4	8.2	57.5	19.5	19.5	3.5

            Even though Puello didn’t hit much against righties throughout the summer, he kept his OBP up thanks to an average walk rate and, as always, a high number of HBP’s. The power started to show up over the last 3 months, although he kicked it into another gear in August. The low BABIP totals could be considered poor luck to an extent, but he was such a groundball machine for the first two months that it’s not really surprising that his BABIP was so low for the first two months. However, the BABIP in the 4^th group does seem a little low, as he had already started hitting the ball for more power off of righties, and had less extreme groundball tendencies.

Astromets Top 83 Mets Prospect Series: 1-9

            For this top prospect list series I tried to include as many players as possible, as I watched a lot of talented Mets prospects in 2014, and was following the progression of those I couldn’t watch. I do not include any Dominican Summer League players here, as I know next to nothing about those guys and they are so far away. I started by separating players into different groups and then essentially ranked those groups. Still, a lot of these players become interchangeable beyond the top 25 or so prospects. Also, there are a number of ’50+ future value’ players (per Fangraphs Kiley McDaniel), so the very top of the list is pretty interchangeable too. I don’t think I missed any obvious stateside prospects, but I apologize in advance for when I did, and I'll address them at the end.

Other entries from this series: 10-15 | 16-24 | 25-33 | 34-45 | 46-55 | 56-62 | 63-74 | 75-83

*All stats listed are regular season only and from Fangraphs; age to start 2015 season listed; pitchers roles are based on what they did in 2014, not what they might do in the future

51s Pitching Takes Advantage of Over Aggressive Isotopes Hitting

Las Vegas 51s @ Albuquerque Isotopes

September 1, 2014

Noah Syndergaard @ Zach Lee

Teams	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9		R	H	E
Las Vegas	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	0	3		5	11	1
Albuquerque	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0		0	4	2

Win: Lannan (3-2, 6.75 ERA); Loss: Lee (7-13, 5.38 ERA); Save: Germen (6)

MiLB.com Boxscore

The Highlights:

Pitchers

Noah Syndergard (4.60 ERA) – 2 IP, H, BB, SO, 4 GO: 1 FO, 32 Pitches (20 Strikes)

John Lannan – 3 IP, H, 2 SO, 6 GO: 1 FO

Giancarlo Alvarado (7.29 ERA) – 2.2 IP, H, 2 BB, 2 SO, 3 GO: 1 FO

Gonzalez Germen (2.38 ERA) – 1.1 IP, H, 2 GO: 1 FO, 2 IR – 0 S

Batters

Matt Reynolds – 1-4, RBI (40), SF, SO

L.J. Mazzilli – 1-5, SO

Allan Dykstra – 1-3, BB

Andrew Brown – 2-4, SO, GIDP

Brandon Allen – 1-4, R, SO, GIDP

Taylor Teagarden – 2-4, 2 R, HR (14), RBI (39), SO

Cesar Puello – 2-4, 2 R, RBI (37)

Daniel Muno – 1-4

Recap:

            Noah Syndergaard and the 51s bullpen took advantage of some overly aggressive hitters on the last day to walk away with a shutout, their seventh of the season. Thor was only to be limited to about 40 pitches Monday afternoon, so 51s manager Wally Backman chose to lift him after two innings and 32 pitches. John Lannan came in for the next three innings and pitched as well as he has with Las Vegas this year, perhaps as well as he has for any team in his lost 2014. The 51s offense finally broke through for a run in the 5^th and 6^th inning, but I know I wasn’t the only 51s fan who was worried when Giancarlo Alvarado came in with only a two run lead to start the 6^th. Fortunately, despite being customarily wild (only 23 of 43 pitches for strikes), Alvarado was as effective as he had been all year. Alvarado left some trouble on the bases when he was removed with two outs in the 8^th, but Gonzalez Germen would eventually come in to clean things up. Before Germen came in, Wally went to Jack Leathersich for one batter, who would walk on seven pitches. I don’t understand why Leathersich got the quick hook, as the outcome of this game is meaningless, but that’s Wally for ya.

Mazzoni Reaches Double Digits in Strikeouts but Bullpen Blows Lead Late

Las Vegas 51s @ Albuquerque Isotopes

August 29, 2014

Cory Mazzoni @ Chris Reed

Teams	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9		R	H	E
Las Vegas	0	0	2	0	0	3	1	0	0		6	11	2
Albuquerque	0	0	1	0	0	2	1	5	X		9	10	1

Win: Martinez (1-0, 1.93 ERA); Loss: Germen (3-1, 2.53 ERA); Save: Garcia (5)

MiLB.com Boxscore

The Highlights:

Pitchers

Cory Mazzoni (4.67 ERA) – 6 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 10 SO, HR, 79 Pitches (57 Strikes), 3 GO: 3 FO, (1-3, R, 2B (1))

Batters

Matt Reynolds – 2-5, RBI (39), SB (14)

Andrew Brown – 2-4, 2 R, 2 HR (21), 3 RBI (66), BB, SO

Taylor Teagarden – 2-4, 2B (7), BB, SO, GIDP

Cory Vaughn – 1-4, R, SB (7), SO

Cesar Puello – 2-3, R, HR (6), 2 RBI (35), BB

Recap:

            Cory Mazzoni was great over 6 very efficient innings Friday night, but the Albuquerque Isotopes came back against the 51s bullpen late to win 9-6. Mazzoni was fun to watch, as he worked ahead in the count and mixed up his pitches very effectively throughout the start. Both of his secondary offerings were very effective against Albuquerque, and he ended up with ten strikeouts on the night. Mazzoni didn’t really make a mistake until the 6^th inning, when a first-pitch fastball was deposited over the fences in RF with two outs. He was close to getting out of his most stressful inning of the night, but instead gave back two of the three runs the 51s had tacked on in the top of the frame. Still, Las Vegas got one run right back and held a 6-3 lead heading to the bottom of the 7^th. The Isotopes would scratch together a run off of Lannan in the 7^th and then five off of Gonzalez Germen in the 8^th, on two homeruns.

51s Offense (gifs)