A few weeks ago Dominic Smith was starting to show some additional power and was on a real roll. It had reached the point where I began to wonder if Smith might push Lucas Duda into the trade market by season’s end. Then Duda’s back began to break down and with Eric Campbell’s presence in the majors immediately began to irritate Met fans. It seemed like the stars could align for Smith to make the jump from AA into the majors.
Instead, the Mets have acquired James Loney as a stop-gap and Smith will continue his course of activity in Binghamton. The reason, is that Smith began to badly sacuffle just before Duda’s injury cropped up. He finished April on a strong note and finished with a .754 OPS, despite a slow start to the year. Now in May he’s only managing a .676 OPS, despite starting the month on a roll.
There is one major positive development in Smith’s game and that is a major drop in strikeouts. Smith struck out 21 times in April and has struck out only 11 times in May over the course of almost 20 additional at bats.
Seeing Loney will be interesting for Met fans, as Smith has often been compared to the contact oriented first baseman. My hope is that Smith turns out to be more of a John Olerud-type hitter once he puts it all together. We can only hope that his hitting gets back on the right track soon as he seems to be doing nearly everything wrong lately.
AAA: Las Vegas 51s
Gavin Cecchini is making the most of a limited May – With only 12 games played this month, he’s making noise and could be an option at short if Asdrubal Cabrera should ever get hurt.
Don’t look now, Brandon Nimmo is hitting – We’ve grown tired of waiting for Nimmo to develop but his contact, patience and overall play might finally be worth watching.
Travis Taijeron belongs in the majors – With Juan Lagares and Alejandro De Aza there is no room but he’s earned his shot as a bench contributor.
Sean Gilmartin is back on track after an ugly outing – On 5/24/16 he had a very poor outing, the worst of his Met career, but 5/29/16 he was back to old habits.
Josh Edgin remains in a holding pattern – He’s ready to return to the majors as soon as one of the bullpen arms loses their spot.
AA: Binghamton Mets
Robert Gsellman is looking pretty mediocre – He started the year much better than he’s pitching now. He’s doing alright… but he’s looking more like a AAAA player than a MLB starter.
Tim Peterson recovers after ugly AA debut – He came up, got rocked for 6 runs and 7 hits. His second outing was a much improved 2 IP with 1 hit and 4 strikeouts.
A+: Port St. Lucie Mets
Amed Rosario is looking more like a hitter and less like a swinger – More walks and less strikeouts. Rosario’s promotion should not be far away.
Corey Oswalt needs consistency – He’s still one of the better pitching prospects in the system but his success seems to fluctuate pretty wildly.
A: Columbia Fireflies
Patrick Mazeika is still a hitter to watch – He’s definitely one of the top three hitters for the Fireflies. It’s good to have him back.
Vinny Siena needs to stop striking out – He’s started hitting again but he’s just not a good enough hitter to warrant his K-rate.
David Thompson hurt – It’ll be good to see Thompson and Mazeika in the same lineup. Hopefully that happens soon as he was placed on the 7-day DL (retroactive to 5/20/16).
Who remembers Andrew Church? – With three forgettable campaigns, since being drafted by the Mets 48th overall in 2013, but he’s pitched his first game in Low-A and it went pretty well. 5 innings pitched, 2 hits and 9 strikeouts.
Think you’re missing the main issue with promoting Smith, they’d have to put him on the 40 man roster sooner than they want to. I believe the Mets will have to do that next year so unless you think he has a good chance to stay, it really makes no sense.
Smith was never an option to replace Duda at this point. Compared to Conforto, he’s lacking in at-bats and not the same caliber player. Now if he can recover from this slump and get back to business, there may be a cup of coffee waiting for him in September and possibly even a position battle in Port St. Lucie next spring.