When a player is 26 and playing in AA you have to try to take their accomplishments with a grain of salt. Even when they are hitting: .317/.474/.590 and even when they were a former first round pick. The expectations on Allan Dykstra are expectedly low. He’s not supposed to be much beyond a AAAA player at this point. Yet… I am starting to wonder.
Obviously, 20 doubles and 12 homers is nice and 52 RBI in 67 games shows he’s hitting consistently. Even the 62 strikeouts doesn’t bother me so much as power hitters usually whiff about once per game. What people may not have previously noticed are the 59 walks.
Back in 2009, when Dykstra was still a top prospect for the San Diego Padres he only hit .226 but he walked 104 times in 125 games. 2010 and 2011 saw a return to more typical 1:2 (BB:K) ratios. This year, he’s on pace to hit 22 home runs and walk 110 times. This is no small feat and doesn’t seem to be caused by pitchers intentionally walking him. I expect Dykstra to tear up pitchers in the PCL and serve as Davis’s backup in 2014… but at this point, by the end of 2014… he could become an option as a starter.
AAA:
Wilmer Flores is on a hitting streak – Find the last game without a hit.
Ike Davis is showing an improved eye – He’s certainly not K-ing as much as he did in the majors and he has 16 BB’s to 14 K’s in the minors.
Jacob deGrom is the right kind of pitcher for Vegas – He’s got a heavy sinking fastball and thus far he’s really shined in his first three starts. Notice the 9.0 GO/AO ratio for his start in Vegas.
AA:
Cesar Puello does everything… except walk – You want a flaw… that’s the flaw… oh, and a connection to Biogenesis.
Noah Syndergaard 2 for 2 in AA – His second outing was in some ways nicer than his first. He’s now got 16 K’s in his first 11 IP.
A+:
Jayce Boyd showing some power? – He’s up to .391/.391/.630 in Port St. Lucie… you’ll notice a lack of ANY walks.
Kevin Plawecki is keeping up – He’s no longer on his CRAZY pace from earlier but he’s certainly looking like he’s going to be in AA sooner than later.
Should we pay attention to Dustin Lawley? – He’s a future Util player in my mind but his 21 doubles, 5 triples and 16 homers in 76 games make me wonder if he could be more.
Matthew Bowman up 2 levels in one year? – He’s killed it in the FSL, looking even better than he did in the SAL… is it time for AA?
Rainy Lara, in case you were wondering – He’s pitching fine in Port St. Luce, not better than Bowman though.
Full Season A:
Gabriel Ynoa is proving me right – I hesitantly included Ynoa in my top 20 and it’s looking like he belonged.
Steven Matz is alive – Through 64 minor league innings without an injury!
Short Season A:
John Gant for real? – I’m gonna say no. I saw him pitch and he’s mostly, “Meh” but he’s certainly been the best starter for Brooklyn thus far.
Akeel Morris, a future closer? – I’m gonna say yes. He’s got Leathersich numbers on top of better raw stuff.
Rookie 1:
Champ Stuart could be a draft steal – He’s a great athlete with supposedly raw tools. Those raw tools have led to 9 walks in 9 games, a stolen base and 2 triples.
Rookie 2:
Ivan Wilson: The young outfielder is off to the best offensive start of anyone on the GCL Mets… and there are some big (prospect) names.
I watch Josh Satin bat and I see someone who has a clue. Is Alan Dykstra similar? It sounds like you think Dykstra is better.
Flores is putting together a good season and his value is going up. Sandy should have a nice choice on what he can get this winter for either Murphy or Flores. Let Flores keep growing on the farm.
If you were to project to Summer 2014, Who do you see deGrom being better than in the current Met rotation?
Is Summer 2014 too aggressive for Syndergaard?
Is Jeff Walters someone to consider for the bullpen in 2014? is he due for a AAA promotion?
Ike who?
Satin is not Dykstra. Satin is way more of a contact hitter. Dykstra is more likely to have a .250 BA with a solid OBP where Satin would be closer to .280. Dykstra has more power and Satin has more value on the bench as he can play 3rd and 2nd.
Collins saying he’s set to bring up youth SCREAMS Flores.
I don’t know that I’m a deGrom believer yet. I see him being a 6th man in the rotation and fighting Gee and Hefner for a spot.
Walters is fine. I don’t see huge upside. I would send him up to AAA but it’s really not good for pitcher development so he could possibly skip it.
Ike Davis will be back and I hope he brings his old bat.
So as soon as Murphy starts hitting enough to move him, Flores can come up.
I say let Bachman come to manage mets. Collins is not a handler of pitchers which is one of the important jobs of managing. what is this 100 pitches and out comes the pitcher . I played minor league and we pitched 125 or 130 before taking out. if Harvey was allowed to pitch 120 pitches he would probably have about 12 to 114 wins. ridiculous taking any pitcher out unless he says he is tired. talk to keith hernandez he will tell you the same thing and also ron darling
Flores has an 11-game hitting streak, although in his last five games he’s 5-21 (.238).
He just finished a 36-game streak where in 156 PA he posted a .361/.387/.578 line with a .400 BABIP. One thing I’ll be focusing on is how he does outside of this monster hot streak. Flores seems capable of these extended stretches of great hitting but the thing I worry about is his ability to be “good” when he’s not going “great,” if that makes any sense.
I don’t recall a slump where he’s been useless. He seems to always be able to get on base or at least drive runs in.
RBIs, really?
63 RBI in 79 games
As Brian notes in far more detail, RBIs are a team stat, not a player stat. Period.
C’mon – RBIs are a direct function of how often your teammates get on in front of you.
Gabe Kapler had 146 RBIs in 139 games one year in the minors. It didn’t mean he was a good player, it meant he came up with a ton of guys on base in front of him.
David Wright was better at driving in runs last year than Hunter Pence. But Pence had more RBIs because he came up with 79 more runners on base than Wright did. Wright had 182 PA with runners in scoring position while Pence had 239
We can’t possibly know much of anything about Flores as a ballplayer just by his raw RBI total. It’s a poor way to judge a player.
My point is that he’s never been completely dead (statistically) this season. He’s always provided some sort of statistical contribution. There are plenty of players (Cory Vaughn, Ike Davis and even David Wright) who are so bad in slumps that they provide nothing.
Good answer!
I like how you’re lumping in David Wright with Cory Vaughn and Ike Davis.
I am. Because I remember David Wright slumping.
We had no 1B prospects, now we have Satin with on base streak in the majors, Davis returning? in AAA, Dysktra tearing up AA, A+ has Jayce Boyd, and at some point you have to think our first round pick will turn around.
It’s odd, because Dykstra makes you wonder if he could actually be a solid major-leaguer, and yet you hear absolutely NOTHING about him, either from the team or from prospect watchers. What’s this, his third year at AA? Weird.
And I’m the only one that thinks it’s crazy how many really good hitting performances are happening on the farm right now? I say that strictly in the sense that the Mets systems’ hitting prospects were pronounced dead before the season even started. It will be interesting to watch their progress the rest of the way and see if it is sustainable (and transferable to higher levels) and if that changes some writers’ tunes on the Mets system as a whole when the offseason rankings come out.
Do minor league stats transfer to the major leagues for “non prospects”? Interesting question. Might make an interesting article. Satin is off strong, just like Kirk before him and Turner before him. Then the league gets a book on them and they come back down to Earth. A “prospect” has the natural talent to adjust but for the “non prospect” it is beyond their ability, or is it? Just because one is labeled a prospect doesn’t mean he is major league material, it just means he will get more of an opportunity because the organization has more money invested in the player and he “shows” more tools. I think that promotion should be based on merit, and that Satin, Brown, Lutz, Torres of the world be given a chance when the need arises. The odds are that they probably won’t be your future but they can at least help your present.
http://www.fangraphs.com/fanpdetails.aspx?playerid=sa454379&position=1B/DH
It seems that the projections for what he might do in the majors are pretty bleak.
I’ll want to look into this more, but my immediate impression is that projections for minor leaguers tend to undervalue core abilities.
We see this somewhat in Satin, and his OBP. He gets probably 30% of his offensive value from a great batting eye. That translates into the major leagues and as a result the rest of any “normalizing” stats get effected.
I would bet that Josh Satin keeps his OBP above .365 at the least, possibly above .375. If he could run, just the least little bit, I’d be screaming to move him to 2B and have him bat leadoff.
But I digress. I don’t know enough about Dykstra to know if he has that talent. A cursory look at his stats indicates most of what he does well turns out to be transitory.