In exciting International Free Agent moves, Elian Soto (younger brother of Juan Soto) has a commitment to join the Mets in the upcoming IFA period. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. made some waves about this stating that Elian (at 15) is hitting the ball harder than his older brother did at the same age. This is obviously high praise from a well respected slugger and should get Mets fans excited.
With the disappointing 2021 draft, it would be great to see the Mets making a big splash internationally, but it will be interesting to review the new rules set once the players and management begin to actually negotiate. Players like Soto will do a lot to reestablish confidence in a farm system that seems to have little talent below the Mets Top 5.
While we are talking about newcomers to the team, we also need to mention some players who the Mets are saying farewell to. You may have not seen it when the Mets recently trimmed their minor league systems but quite a number of players from the Mets Top 50 prospects were released to become free agents. Today we will review some of the players the Mets let go who were held in reasonably high regard.
Wagner LaGrange, OF: The 13th ranked prospect in my own end of season rankings, he factored as a future 4th OF with limited hopes of ever becoming a full-time player. Lagrange doesn’t have a ton of speed or power but has a steady and consistent hit tool and solid defense. Two skills that are highly valuable in bench players.
On a deep team with more legitimate prospects a player like Lagrange would never crack the Top 20 but, being fair to his consistent hitting, he very much earned his way up to 13th in the system. That being said, the Mets will be able to endure without Lagrange who was already set to overcrowd the AAA outfield with Khalil Lee (7th Overall), Nick Plummer (9th Overall) and Carlos Cortes (10th Overall) also on the squad. This is the kind of departure that makes me sad because I saw a major league future and now he’s gone.
This is also troubling because the last time I felt this way about a departing player who simply never got their shot it was Colin McHugh and he’d go on to have a couple dynamite seasons.
Franklyn Kilome, RHP: Less surprising and heartbreaking than Lagrange, Kilome was never going to stay with the Mets. He had failed to impress in his short auditions and never truly blossomed into the player the Mets had hoped for when they traded for him. My postseason rankings for him placed him at 14th overall in the Mets system because there is still life in his pitches and bullpen stars sometimes breakout late.
It seems less likely that he will suddenly develop the elusive control tool he’s always lacked but stranger things have happened. I do think we will see him pitching at the major league level somewhere in 2022.
Luis Carpio, SS/2B: Ranked 24th there is a lot less hype to Carpio than the first two players on my list. Carpio’s ceiling was that of a defensive utility player with limited hitting potential. Carpio always seemed to hit just enough to not fall off the radar but never quite enough to move that high in the rankings. I’m not sure you’ll ever see Carpio in the majors but he’s still got a shot if he signs with another team.
Yoel Romero, SS/3B: With more hitting talent and less fielding talent, Romero also had only a snowball’s chance in Hell of making a major league impact. Because of a lack of depth, he still managed to rank out as the 45th overall prospect in the organization. He’s another player who has only a slim shot of catching on with another squad and staying in baseball.
David Thompson, 3B/1B: Listed here as an honorable mention, Thompson’s 2021 was resurgent and he even played well in offseason ball but the ship has sailed on his prospect status. He’ll get a job with a team looking for a AAA slugger but he doesn’t have much major league potential.
Important to note: Harol Gonzalez and Juan Uriarte were on this list but have already been re-signed.
Harol Gonzalez, RHP: Many scouts don’t have Gonzalez anywhere near their Top 20, especially after he missed the 2021 season but he has too many solid seasons in the minors to ignore. His injury remains one of the greater disappointments of my 2021 minor league coverage as the Mets could have really used a solid inning eating starter at various points in their season.
You always do a solid job, Dave. Thanks.
I think it’s pretty telling that the Mets best two outfield prospects are basically castoffs from other systems.
Trading a guy like Crow-Armstrong for 50 games of Javy Baez is the kind of move smart teams aren’t supposed to make anymore. I mean, if you are chasing a ring, it’s understandable. The short-term vs. long-term calculation changes when you are a true contender.
Oh well.
Lagrange was a solid minor leaguer. If there is an injury to an outfielder on the Mets then Lee or Plummer will be promoted the there isn’t depth the minors in the outfield so Lagrange would have been a good fit in Syracuse. Sorry to see him go.
The Soto signing will be very exciting if it comes to pass.
I’m trying to get a full scouting report on Soto but I’d project him to be in the Top 10 of the organization regardless and likely a name for the Top 5 based on pedigree and hype alone.
Elian Soto, we hardly knew ye
“The Washington Nationals will land Elian Soto, the younger brother of Nats slugger Juan Soto, sources confirmed to The Athletic. Elian Soto wouldn’t be able to sign with the team until January 2023, pending changes to Major League Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement.”
That’s no sweat off our apple, Other Brian.
Our middle school team is pretty strong this year, and we don’t need no 15 year old no matter what his name is
“Elian Soto wouldn’t be able to sign with the team until January 2023”
So is this going to be like college athletics where we see a player declare his intent and change his mind a gazillion times?
It’s certainly been a strange story, particularly in how the “intent” has been leaked/reported.
A couple of points on the minor leagues:
– It has come to be realized Mauricio isn’t a shortstop defensively. So, while the Mets signed Lindor for ten years, there really isn’t a shortstop anywhere in the top 30 or even 40 prospects with the Mets. With Simon Juan an outfielder, they have many others now and Baty and Vientos are already taking fly balls during games. Too, Mauricio shows a great ability to roam on popops and centerfield may very well be his future. But, ace pitcher, shortstop and catcher are very shallow in depth. And now with Nimmo hiring Boras… that’s a bad sign. The depth is more necessary.
– There’s a drill for everything, except making contact. Even weak contact is better than missing. The SF Giants last year made it a point of cutting down on their strikeouts, and presto: they won 30 more games the previous full season. I have in mind a whole bunch of guys that if they could cut their strikeout rate by 33%, they could have a big league future: Rincon, Palmer, Lee, Newton, Mauricio are just a few. I hope the new Eppler regime will care more about the bat meeting the ball than the Alderson regime did. I don’t mean to be targeting Alderson, but his philosophies have stunk over the years and we learned by his replacing Chili Davis mid-season last year that he never learned this. Shame on a smart man like that to not self evaluate.
I won’t touch the Alderson “hitting philosophy” stuff, though I recall it vividly upon his arrival at the beginning of the Lost Decade. Dave Hudgens and hunting strikes.
Mauricio should be playing CF in a fall/winter league.
The Nimmo situation is frustrating — and typical of Sandy. You don’t wait for the contract to only have one season left before extending a guy. You make the call 2-3 years in advance, when it benefits both parties. Sandy waited too long on Jake, too. It’s just not something he has ever done well. Interestingly, Lagares was his Big Try in this area and that didn’t work out so swell: maybe an abject lesson for Sandy?
When Conforto was being discussed a year ago, I wrote to Brian directly and opined that I thought they should be extending Nimmo. He agreed — because sometimes, every once in a while, we do that.
I do think that Nimmo’s injury history makes him a particularly tricky player to extend.