Every year Baseball America rates each team's top 10 prospects based on "projections of a player's long term worth after discussions with scouting and player-development personnel." How do these professionals project a player's long term worth? Probably some combo of qualitative and quantitative observations, but no one knows the exact science (assuming there is one).
We are going to try to put some numbers with these rankings for the pitchers. Seven of the 10 Mets prospects are pitchers. 6 Starters and 1 Reliever. They are Mike Pelfrey, Philip Humber, Joe Smith, Kevin Mulvey, Deolis Guerra and Jon Neise. Alay Soler was released from the Mets last Tuesday, so we are going to leave him out of our review. We have gathered these players’ minor league stats (and college stats if they were scholars) and added a few calculations of our own to see just how promising these players are. Sure, some scouts can say Deolis Guerra has the Best Changeup, but what else is going on down in the farm? Below is a ranking of the 7 pitchers and are comments about each of them.
In our review we looked at the Players experience (college and minors), their age, ERA, IP, HR/9, BB/9, K/9, WHIP and DICE (Defense Independent Component ERA). For those who need a refresher, DICE was invented by Clay Dreslough in 2001 and covered in this SaberMETrics article. DICE is a formula that takes the effect of Defense out of a pitcher's ERA.
Our #1 Met's pitching prospect, to no one's surprise, is Mike Pelfrey. His AA numbers last year were very good. His 10.5 K/9, 3.5 BB/9, and 0.3 HR/9 were outstanding. His DICE was 2.24, lower then his ERA, which is a nice sign. Pelfrey did give up 60 hits in 66 innings, which is why his WHIP is at 1.30. For such a high prospect you would like to see the WHIP be lower.
We love Pelfrey's ability to keep the ball in the park his high K/BB ratio. He should be the 5th starter this year and he has been projected to be a #2 starter or even a #1.
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Mike Pelfrey | ||||||||||
|
Year |
Team |
Age |
Level |
ERA |
IP |
HR9 |
BB9 |
K9 |
WHIP |
DICE |
|
|
| |||||||||
|
2003 |
Wichita St |
19 |
NCAA |
2.49 |
104 |
0.8 |
1.3 |
8.4 |
0.91 |
2.67 |
|
2004 |
Wichita St |
20 |
NCAA |
2.18 |
115 |
0.2 |
1.9 |
9.8 |
0.95 |
1.68 |
|
2005 |
Wichita St |
21 |
NCAA |
1.93 |
139 |
0.3 |
1.9 |
9.2 |
0.90 |
1.97 |
|
2006 |
St. Lucie |
22 |
A+ |
1.64 |
22 |
0.4 |
0.8 |
10.6 |
0.86 |
1.50 |
|
|
|
22 |
AA |
2.71 |
66.1 |
0.3 |
3.5 |
10.5 |
1.30 |
2.24 |
|
|
|
22 |
AAA |
2.25 |
8 |
1.1 |
5.6 |
6.8 |
1.13 |
5.00 |
|
|
NY Mets |
22 |
MLB |
5.48 |
21.1 |
0.4 |
5.1 |
5.5 |
1.73 |
4.09 |
|
|
| |||||||||
|
Majors: 1 Season |
5.48 |
21.1 |
0.42 |
5.1 |
5.5 |
1.73 |
4.09 | |||
|
Minors: 1 Season |
2.43 |
96.1 |
0.37 |
3.1 |
10 |
1.19 |
2.30 | |||
Our #2 Mets pitching prospect is Philip Humber.
|
Philip Humber | ||||||||||
|
Year |
Team |
Age |
Level |
ERA |
IP |
HR9 |
BB9 |
K9 |
WHIP |
DICE |
|
|
| |||||||||
|
2002 |
Rice |
19 |
NCAA |
2.78 |
110 |
0.7 |
3.5 |
10.6 |
1.21 |
2.75 |
|
2003 |
Rice |
20 |
NCAA |
3.3 |
128 |
0.8 |
2.7 |
9.7 |
1.10 |
2.98 |
|
2004 |
Rice |
21 |
NCAA |
2.27 |
115 |
0.6 |
2.9 |
12.1 |
1.08 |
2.08 |
|
2005 |
St. Lucie |
22 |
A+ |
4.99 |
70.1 |
0.8 |
2.3 |
8.3 |
1.31 |
3.03 |
|
|
|
22 |
AA |
6.75 |
4 |
0.0 |
4.5 |
4.5 |
1.50 |
3.50 |
|
2006 |
GC Mets |
23 |
Rk |
6.75 |
4 |
0.0 |
2.3 |
15.8 |
2.00 |
0.25 |
|
|
St. Lucie |
23 |
A+ |
2.37 |
38 |
1.0 |
2.1 |
8.5 |
0.87 |
3.18 |