Discussing Ronny Mauricio, Tyler Stuart, Jose Peroza and other minor leaguers

With the major league club floundering, what better time to have a discussion on the Mets’ minor league system?  Here’s an email back-and-forth between me and our guy on the minors, David Groveman.

Brian:  Ronny Mauricio hits 26 HR in AA at age 21, follows that up as the MVP of the Dominican Winter League, follows that up with a strong Grapefruit League season and follows that up by raking at Triple-A.  And with the graduation of Francisco Alvarez, Brett Baty and Mark Vientos from their prospect list, MLB.com has Mauricio as the Mets’ fourth-ranked prospect.  Do you agree with this ranking?  It seems low to me, although I’d be happy after the recent graduations if the Mets still had three prospects better than Mauricio.

David: Mauricio is the top prospect in the organization at the moment (assuming you remove the graduates). You can make an argument about Kevin Parada or Alex Ramirez but those arguments will not win with me. Parada has shown solid play in High A but has yet to perform above the level and Mauricio is dominating AAA and is less than a year older. Ramirez is essentially Mauricio of two years ago but already playing a position he’s capable of. The only possible reason you could rank him lower than either of them is defense which is a result of the Mets front office being blind to the obvious solution of moving Mauricio into the outfield. There is no argument for ranking Jett Williams higher.

Now the Mets have had a couple of players performing well who were not so loudly heralded as Mauricio. Do you lend any credence to the success of a pitcher like Tyler Stuart? Right now he’s pitching like the best starting pitching prospect in the organization.

Brian: The knock on Stuart coming into the year was that while he was big and threw fairly hard, he didn’t have a lot of swing-and-miss stuff.  Well, he has 61 Ks in 49 IP here in 2023.  The big issue for me is that he’s 23 and in A-ball.  It was reasonable to start him in A-ball.  But he absolutely needs to be promoted now.

With the injury to Calvin Ziegler and the so-so performances of Dominic Hamel and Blade Tidwell, the Mets desperately needed a feel-good story from a pitching prospect.  Stuart is definitely giving the club that.  But they need to find out if it’s just an older guy dominating less-experienced hitters while performing in a pitcher’s park or if there’s real potential MLB talent here.

He wasn’t on my radar coming into the season but he’s definitely there now.  He wasn’t on your Spring Training top 50 list, either, so you must be pleasantly surprised with his performance, too.  Who else besides Stuart has been a good surprise for you here in mid-June of ’23?

David: I mean there’s Matt Rudick but I can’t believe in a 5’6” outfielder who came out of nowhere. Instead let’s take a minute to talk about the season we’re getting out of Jose Peroza. He’s 22 years old and doesn’t have a particularly athletic build but he plays good defense and has an OPS over .900 on the year. Freed from the Cyclone’s stadium (which I happen to love and enjoy) his power is becoming much more relevant and his contact and eye were already pretty good.

The other player I’d like to mention is Stanley Consuegra. He was a highly touted (though second tier) international signee who had quietly dropped into the middling tiers of the rankings but his 2023 has shown he can hit and, even in Brooklyn, show some power. He could break out in a big way once he reaches Binghamton.

Right now, the Mets should be sellers but imagining the team rebounds to playoff relevance and trading for a player becomes part of the plan do you have any trade targets in mind and whom you might offer in a deal?

Brian: Unlike Stuart, both Peroza and Consuegra were on my radar coming into the season.  Peroza really finished 2022 on an up note, with a .968 OPS in his final 254 PA.  He’s continued his hot hitting in Double-A but he’s really getting the “Binghamton Bump,” with an OPS .316 points higher at home.  But he has had fewer road PAs and in his last 10 road games he has a .988 OPS with 7 XBH in 44 PA.  He’s mostly a 3B although has played some 2B, too.  Definitely a guy to watch.

In my preseason top 50 piece, my line on Consuegra was that he had serious boom or bust potential.  I was disappointed – but not surprised – that the Mets sent him back to Brooklyn to start this season.  He’s got 16 XBH in 147 PA while playing his home games in a tough hitter’s park.  That’s enough for a promotion.

As for trades, the big white whale is Shohei Ohtani and I’m on record for doing whatever it takes – outside of Alvarez – to make it happen.  The specifics of other deals don’t really interest me that much.  It seems much more interesting to debate if this is the time to make a deal where you trade real prospects – not the org fillers that were sent to the Giants in the J.D. Davis deal last year.  It seems either answer is reasonable.  The good news is that the Mets have time before they have to answer one way or another.  If they don’t start stringing some wins together, it makes it harder to deal a Parada, much less a Baty that an Ohtani deal would likely require.

Why don’t you wrap this up by including your take on trades in general for the Mets and rumored deals like Parada for Edwin Diaz’ brother and any others that you might have heard or imagined.

David: I can’t argue with your statement on the Ohtani deal but do have a line in the sand when it comes to numbers of prospects. If the Angels are asking for Baty, Mauricio, Parada or Ramirez I won’t argue… so long as it is just one of them. Vientos and onwards I’ll package in a bigger deal but those big four are too valuable to just part with for a rental. More importantly, the Mets need to have a legitimate chance of doing something to make a trade worthwhile.

I’ll circle back to the Angels in a second. The deal of Parada for another Diaz brother is intriguing but in the words of Glengarry Glen Ross “Coffee is for closers” and closers are for winners. If Diaz were healthy the Mets might have a handful more wins right now but the season failure has come down to poor starting pitching and a lack of production from Francisco Lindor, Jeff McNeil and Starling Marte. The closer is not where my attention lies.

Now, trades are not my specialty, and they get pretty silly pretty quickly but that’s also where they get fun.  So, let’s end this thing with a touch of insanity. Here is an impossible and likely terrible trade offer. The Mets trade Mauricio, Parada, Ramirez, Vientos, and Eduardo Escobar for Ohtani, Mike Trout, Anthony Rendon and Carlos Estevez.

The Mets get: The best player in baseball who instantly improves their lineup and rotation in one fell swoop. Ohtani would likely only have a shot of staying in Queens if he manages to win a World Series in 2023 but the lineup would give him a good shot at it. The Mets also get Trout still in the prime of his career and able to further bolster the middle of their order and the Angels/ closer who can extend the bullpen in the absence of Diaz.

The Angels get: Salary relief in spades. The team clears almost $100 million per year from their yearly salary in one deal. They get three top tier prospects with strong impact potential, a DH candidate who could still round into a 40-home run per year player and a placeholder infielder for the 2023 roster.

The trade has an awful impact on Steve Cohen’s wallet, especially if he wants to retain Ohtani and Alonso in the offseason but it’s also just some levity from a blogger. Perhaps I should stick to opining on prospects and over-valuing Patrick Mazeika and Hayden Senger.