Looking back at minor league predictions

At the beginning of the year, I wrote this piece, where I noted five of the more under-the-radar pitching prospects in the Mets system to keep an eye on in 2014.  The players I identified were: Casey Meisner, Robert Whalen, Robert Gsellman, Chris Flexen and Marcos Molina.

Now that the season has come to a close, and we’ve been in a projection-reviewing mode here at Mets360, let’s take a look back and see how each of those players performed and developed.

1. Casey Meisner

The lanky 6-foot-7, 190-pound Meisner struggled a good bit at the beginning of the season for the Brooklyn Cyclones, but after July 23^rd, pitching to the tune of a 1.53 ERA the rest of the way over 35.2 innings.  In his last five starts of the year, he didn’t walk more than one batter and struck out double-digits twice.  In that span he lowered his ERA from 6.75 to 3.75.  The 19-year-old Meisner is still very much a project, but you can see the flashes of a potentially impact arm written all over him.  When Kevin Cassidy of friends-of-the-site Amazin’ Avenue saw Meisner pitch on August 26^th against the Staten Island Yankees, he charted his fastball at around 92 mph with good command.  As he fills out and gains strength, we can expect to see a few extra miles-per-hour added on, which should make this pitch a deadly one, especially with the effective velocity effect of Meisner being 6’7”.

On the season, Meisner struck out 9.67 batters-per-nine, and walked just 2.60-per-nine.  His 3.75 ERA was paired nicely with a 3.18 FIP and his BABIP against (.342) and LOB% (64.8%) suggest that good luck wasn’t in play to improve some of his numbers, although in short-season ball, there’s plenty of good old random variation at play, so the numbers are all to be taken with a grain of salt.  That being said, Meisner didn’t catapult himself into the upper echelon of Mets prospects, but he’s someone that certainly deserves Top 20 list consideration.  If he can continue his progress in 2015 at Savannah and perhaps even St. Lucie, don’t be surprised to see Meisner be someone who shoots way up lists in 2016.

2. Robert Whalen

Robert Whalen burst onto the scene with a terrific season in Kingsport in 2013, when he struck out more than a batter-per-inning and had an ERA of 1.87.  Whalen continued his success in 2014, appearing in 11 games and making 10 starts for the Savannah Sand Gnats, and three additional appearances (two starts) with Kingsport.  With Savannah, Whalen’s strikeouts went down a tick, but the walks held steady, and while his ERA went up a little to 2.01, RA/9 actually decreased from 3.25 with Kingsport in 2013 to 2.60 with the Gnats in 2014.  So that’s the good news.

The bad news is that Whalen missed a significant portion of the season (about two months) when he got an infection in his throwing hand and had to be hospitalized.  He was released from the hospital after just a few days, but had to stop throwing for a few weeks.  After a few rehab appearances with Kingsport, Whalen posted a 2.13 ERA in 42.2 innings the rest of the way.  His strikeouts, though, were well down post-injury, at just 7.46 per-nine, opposed to 9.45 per-nine before the injury, so perhaps there was some effect left over.

3. Robert Gsellman

For anyone wondering (because I know I was) it’s pronounced Gazelle-man.  While I was down in North Carolina for the summer, Brian Joura, reader Metsense and I got together and saw the Sand Gnats play the Hickory Crawdads.  Gsellman was the starter.  My immediate reaction to watching him pitch that afternoon was that Gsellman was Dillon Gee if Gee threw 90-93 with a sinker.  He’s not a guy who is particularly overpowering or who is going to miss bats quite yet, but he has a good feel for all three of his pitches (fastball, curve and change) who gets groundballs like it’s nobody’s business.  In 116.1 innings this year, Gsellman allowed only two homeruns.  He allowed one homerun to every 250 batters he faced.  Even in a pitcher-friendly environment like the South Atlantic League, and specifically Historic Greyson Stadium, that is impressive.

Gsellman finished the year with a 2.55 ERA and a solid 2.71 K:BB.  At 20 years old, he’s already 6’4” tall and 215 pounds, so it’s hard to see him putting on too much more bulk and becoming a more powerful pitcher.  What he looks like at this point is a middle-to-back of the rotation guy who could be a solid contributor.  He’s far from the most exciting guy in the system, but he’s the type of guy that is nice to have.  It should be interesting to see if he can take the next step forward at St. Lucie in 2015.

4. Chris Flexen

The now 20-year-old Flexen was another one of the exciting arms that the Mets sported in Kingsport in 2013 who made the journey to Savannah in 2014.  Like Whalen, Flexen dealt with some injuries this year, but unlike his counterpart, his injuries were much more severe.  Flexen underwent Tommy John surgery at the end of July and had bone chips removed from his elbow.  He was struggling with the Sand Gnats, pitching to the tune of a 4.83 ERA, with his walk rate more than doubling and his strikeouts plummeting.  It’s easy to say that some of Flexen’s numbers might be skewed if he was pitching injured, but looking at his game log doesn’t support that claim too much, unless he pitched hurt the entire year, which is possible.

You have to imagine that 2015 is going to be somewhat of a lost season for Flexen’s development, as he will just be rehabbing for a good chunk of the year from the surgery.  Flexen reportedly threw a fastball consistently in the mid-90s before the surgery, and with the way that Tommy John surgeries go now, there is not a need to excessively worry about the aftermath.  A 14^th-round pick in 2012, Flexen was considered a steal at the time, with scouts pegging him as a 5^th-round talent out of high school.  He is still young, and I hold out hope that he can still develop into something special, but for now, it’ll probably be best to reassess in a year when he has a few rehab appearances under his belt.

5. Marcos Molina

It’s hard to say that a prospect that made the organizational Top 10 list before the season was the guy who broke out in the biggest way, but in Molina’s case that might be true.  The 19-year-old Molina tore up the New York-Penn League with the Brooklyn Cyclones, posting a 1.77 ERA with a K:BB of over 5.  His 93-95 mph fastball is paired with a promising changeup and “improving” slider for a three-pitch mix that allowed him to dominate this season.  Jason Parks, who ranked Molina on the Baseball Prospectus Top 10 list for the Mets (the only major list to include Molina in the top 10) said this before the season: “If the [then] 18-year-old were available for inclusion in the rule 4 draft, the highly athletic 6-foot-3, 190-pound righty would be considered a first-round talent.”  If that is true – and the season he put up certainly seems so, it seems like the Mets got a steal when they snagged Molina as an international free agent in 2012 for $100,000.

The main issue with Molina is his funky mechanics, which will likely need tinkering as he progresses through the system.  He has a low arm slot and what has been described as a “slinging” delivery.  He carries with him some risk, but a very high reward.  How he handles the transition to full-season A ball in Savannah next year should be interesting, if nothing else.

So overall, I’m actually quite surprised at how good these were.  With the exception of Flexen and his Tommy John Surgery, all of the pitching prospects highlighted made strides in the right direction.  Only Molina really enjoyed the breakout season of the bunch, but the important thing to remember is that none of these pitchers have even made it to Hi-A ball yet, and are a long way off.  Doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy watching them progress over the next few seasons.

Joe Vasile is a broadcaster residing in Paramus, NJ.  He is the voice of Wilkes University Football and Basketball for ESPN Radio in Williamsport, PA.
Follow @JoeVasilePBP