I went to an actual Met game for a change. It was a mistake as the Mets lost 8-4 but the highlight of the game for me was seeing the minor league update and hearing that Cesar Puello had collected three hits the night before.
It’s likely that you’ve heard Puello’s name before but it might be more for his unfortunate connection to Ryan Braun and Alex Rodriguez than his baseball play.
Puello jumped into my prospect radar in 2010 when he hit: .292/.375/.359 for Savannah and stole 45 bases. He followed that up with a slightly less impressive year in Port St. Lucie but (as he picked things up at the end) I still had high hopes. 2012 was a lost year to injuries and by 2013 he had basically slipped off my prospect radar.
We are 52 games into his 2013 season and he’s hitting: .326/.401/.606 in AA and he’s slugged 13 home runs and stolen 17 bases. That’s a lot to be excited about… if not for the looming suspension.
What do the Mets do? Puello could possibly skip AAA and join the club at this point, or he could be promoted to Las Vegas and taste some more difficult pitching, but what would be the point. Any day now the MLB will hand down a suspension of 50 games to Puello as part of their misguided witch hunt of Ryan Braun. What would be the point of a promotion? He’s going to lose all of his momentum and he may have never actually used PEDs. Sigh… It’s still nice to see the Mets having a player who might project into the 2014 outfield with an impact bat.
AAA:
Josh Satin promoted – AND IT’S ABOUT TIME!
Wilmer Flores still on a hitting tear – His batting average is up to .303 which has raised his OPS to .824.
Zack Wheeler stumbling towards promotion – He’s not been 100% pretty on his final starts but I would get him the heck out of Vegas ASAP.
AA:
Travis Taijeron promoted and succeeding – We’ll see if he keeps it up in AA. He’s closer to the median age so success here would mean a lot more.
Rafael Montero is too good for AA – There is nothing for Montero to prove at this level. He’s given up only 11 hits in his last 20 IP (3 Games).
Jack Leathersich is better – If Montero seems to have AA hitters over-matched, Leathersich has them utterly baffled.
A+:
Noah Syndergaard waiting for the call – AA is just a phone call away.
Jim Fuller LOOGY? – Fuller was part of a Savannah trio a few years back that included Brandon Moore and Mark Cohoon. He’s had some injury trouble since but he’s healthy again and he’s A) Pitching well against everyone and B) DESTROYING lefties.
Full Season A:
Brandon Nimmo has one strike against him – He’s doing well but he K’s too much.
Gabriel Ynoa would like to be promoted – He’s definitely ahead of the competition at the Low-A level.
yeah, but isn’t he the only minor leaguer to be caught up in the BioGenesis scandal?
As you might have read, yes.
Witch hunt against a tested positive doper? I hope Braun gets 100 games (I think the rule should be changed to 1 year and all stats removed from the books) for being the lying cheating fraud he is. If Puello comes up in this with evidence, then he’s a doper, and cheater, too. He gets his time, and then I’d dump him from the team completely. Someone needs to take a real stand against these rotten miscreants.
We apparently differ on the impact of PEDs and what should be done.
In general, I’d argue that Braun has no official positive test on record as the test that was positive needed to be voided. There is no positive test associated with ANYONE in the Biogenesis case and the MLB has thrown away their own ethics to pursue the case. I would say Selig sees Braun as a glaring failure and wants to suspend him before he retires.
Fact is that players have cheated since games existed. I don’t care if they cheat.
Frankly I find the MLB’s actions in paying for testimony far more troubling than using PEDs.
I’d say. Why not cork bats? Scuff balls? Throw broken glass in the outfield? Doping is the biggest fraud against athletic competition there is. When’s a good age to get the kids on the juice? 10? 12? Certainly in time to make key traveling teams and showcases. I can’t wait to see how physicians will respond.
Braun doped and found a stupid technicality that had nothing to do with the testing to get off. Like Lance Armstrong, he’s a full fledged doper and cheater. Maybe you can have a special league for such schmucks.
Returning a positive test is not the only way one can be found as a doper. Possession alone is all that it takes. I would also add that even in a court of law, circumstantial evidence carries as much weight as direct evidence. If we return to Armstrong, the single most tested athlete in world history, you will see he has 100s of in and out of competition negative tests…yet he doped non stop for a decade.
I find your acceptance of cheating and cheaters absolutely reprehensible.
Guess I’m reprehensible… I won’t lose sleep over not caring if Ryan Braun doped.
Does anyone else agree with me that the larger issue is that the MLB bribed Bosch?
I have been a Met fan since 1962. I loved collecting the cards and seeing the stats on the back. Baseball records mean a lot to me. They are a history of the game, a link to the past and a goal to surpass. In the 90’s the records began to fall, good players became great players and PED’s came on the scene. It shattered my faith in the game. PED’s ruined the integrity of the record books, and I despise that.
The larger issue is not “bribing” Bosch, it is PED’s in baseball. The players involved will get their due process but baseball needs to make every attempt to eliminate PED’s. I do care that players cheat.
I guess I don’t care as much about the integrity of the players as the integrity of the league itself.
I’d be cool if a player attached a litteral cannon to his arm.
Nope. I won’t agree with you.
It starts with the players and whatever other evils accrue along the way need to be dealt with separately.
I have a zero tolerance policy for cheaters. Braun, Payrod, & Co. … give ’em all 300 game suspensions on the first finding.
My guess is that should be enough to end this joke.
Id make it an even 324, just to have it be 2 years (by the way, cycling has a 2 year initial suspension so it has precedence), vacate all records, implement a policy of returned salary to the league for additional PED testing and investigation, and put a salary limit on future earnings, until a player establishes for 2 years that they are not doping against the highest standards imaginable. That Melky Cabrera piled up an MVP-level record while doping, got caught, served a lousy small suspension and was then re-upped with a major contract is disgraceful. The present policy still provides ample room to cheat and get caught with nary a skipped beat.
Your indifference toward cheaters is reprehensible.
Absolutely. This whole BioGenesis scandal is very fishy. Not only is there no hard evidence that any of the players received or took any of the drugs alleged. It is all either easily fabricated or hearsay. If Major League Baseball tries to suspend these players, the MLBPA will take them to court and likely win, since THERE ARE NO POSITIVE TESTS and NO HARD EVIDENCE.
That’s absolutely ridiculous. I encourage you to read “the secret race” and follow the bouncing ball that brought Armstrong down. Not a single positive test. The shady doctor, with notebooks and code names is well proven ground in doping cases. If Braun attacks Bosch, then why did he pay them 15k$ for his “expert advice” in preparing his “defense”—or was that a bribe for silence? Colon is in the notebook and tests positive, Grandal in the notebook and tests positive, Cabrera is in the notebook and tested positive…if anything smells fishy that does…oh yeah A-Rod admits to doping and is in the notebook. Why do you figure that is?
It’s pointless to argue either side at the present moment until we see the file, which I imagine we eventually will. If they have evidence, then the world should come down like a ton of bricks.
Like I said above, even in a court of law where the bar is much higher, circumstantial evidences carries the exact same weight as direct evidence.
Agreed with everything except Montero and Leathersich. Montero should stay at AA until he gets more consistency on his slider and Leathersich needs to stop walking 5 guys eveyr 9 innings. For Montero, practicing the slider is easier with the grip and denser air afforded at Binghamton though he can definitely dominate AA hitters on fastball command and changeup feel alone. Right now as is, he’ll give up a whole bunch of homers pitching for the Major League club because his fastball is dead straight. Leathersich is K’ing guys like a beast and I expect him up this year but the 5 walks per 9 innings is less than ideal. If he’s walking 5 per 9@AA, what would he do at a higher level? 7 or 8?
[…] Puello is a Mets farmhand who may get a cup of coffee in Queens before all is said and done. He’s tearing up the Eastern League with […]
Travis T … here’s a guy that gets no respect because he’s too old.
Look at his numbers against the backdrop of the other players in the leagues he’s been playing in. At every level, his OPS has been in the top 10 if not top 5. He can only play against the other teams on the field; if SA wants him in A+ as a 26 year old, it’s hardly his fault.
Other than 182 ABs in St. Lucie, all this guy has done is absolutely creamed the ball. Streaky? Yes. He needs to be more consistent. But the Mets have been giving this guy no credit, and my guess is because he’s an 18th round pick.
FREE TRAVIS!
Just as a side note … and looking at those incredible numbers once more …
in 772 ABs, 39 HR/142 RBI. Those are the most invisible nearly 40 HRs any Met has put up the equivalent of roughly a year and a third (especially since some of them have occurred at definitely difficult parks).
Completely with you in that. Id like to seem him in Flushing by Sept if he continues raking.
Sorry, I also disagree strongly about PEDs and cheaters in sports.
It isn’t enough these guys have been gifted with a talent and get overpaid to play a kid’s game really well, then go ahead and cheat on it to make even more? If we continue to look the other way with cheaters in sports, what does that teach kids? That said…
They should not have double standards to cheating in baseball period.
Once major stars like Braun get suspended 85-100 games (like that will ever happen, especially to media darling Braun) the cheating might stop.
They should also wipe all the records broken by the Big Three cheaters-or Big Six, or whatever you want to call Bonds, McGwire, Clemens, Palmeiro and Sosa. At least, that’s what I would do if I was Commish…*shrugs*. I hate cheaters…
on Mets prospect topics:
Yay on you on the HAIL SATIN wagon and he’s up! I hope he’s up for good, except TC has an unhealthy love for Ginger. I hope Puello’s breakout is genuine, it be nice for one of the hitting prospects of this franchise make it good.