Mets Minors: Does the AFL mean anything for Jett Williams and Drew Gilbert?

The Minor League Seasons are in the past the Major League playoffs are in our present and the minor league blogger is left with covering the Arizona Fall League.  The Arizona Fall League serves two major functions for baseball prospects. First, it serves as a launching ground for players who may be ready to make a divisional jump or showcase to their club that they deserve a good look in Spring Training and the second is to give players who were injured for substantial parts of the regular season a chance to showcase their talents.

This latter track is the one the Jett Williams, Drew Gilbert and (to a lesser extent) Jacob Reimer are on. The Mets send players to the Scottsdale Scorpions along with the Blue Jays, Giants, Pirates, and Tigers and the level of play is somewhere around AA+. There haven’t been enough games to read anything into the overall performances but it should be known that this is a league hitters have excelled in.  Currently the Scorpions own a team OPS of .900 and while Williams is above it by a considerable margin (1.200), Gilbert is considerably below it (.321).

Does this mean anything? No. Gilbert has played only 3 games and has a BABIP of .100 while Williams owns a .500 mark in the same statistic. Williams also has a double and two triples in his three games which, while great, still means nothing. The only things that really matter is that they are healthy and playing and that by the end of their time in the AFL their numbers look solid.  One troubling number that might mean something is the errors. Scottsdale has been lousy in the field and Williams has two errors in three games to show for it while even Gilbert owns one.

All of this cracks up to saying, there are two players the Mets have in the AFL this year who are worth keeping tabs on. Why are we talking about the Arizona Fall League when the Mets are in the playoffs? Well, there isn’t much for the minor league guy to say.  The 2024 Mets have exceeded all logical expectations and have gotten tremendous years from likely and unlikely sources.  So what follows is a series of articles I came up with that didn’t have enough meat on them to write a full post on.

Mark Vientos is Far More than his Detractors Claimed

Early in the season I was on a game chat and brought up Mark Vientos performing well in AAA. I never expected him to be as serviceable in the field as he’s proven but I kept pointing out that he looked like a 30-40 home run hitter and that I refused to fully give up on him.  Someone scoffed, referring to Vientos as having a future as a meaningless home run hitter in the Japanese leagues.

Now, between AAA and the majors, Vientos has clubbed 33 home runs and this includes periods of time he was annoyingly under-utilized. His future with the Mets seems secure even if we aren’t quite sure (partially due to Pete Alonso) where his positional future lies.

Return of the Living Prospects

The Mets had lots of prospect injuries beyond Williams and Gilbert. Ronny Mauricio lost the entire season, Calvin Ziegler went down early and lets not forget the winner of the “Will He Ever Play Again” awarded, Matt Allan. The Mets have a number of players currently injured who will possibly be returning in 2025.  Now, Allan is a bit of a joke and cannot be counted on for anything but players like Mauricio and Ziegler are more interesting.

Ronny Mauricio, like Vientos, has no clear defensive home but his bat looked very tempting in 2023 and he was on a tear in Winter Ball before he was taken by injury. If the Mets see Alonso depart, then what makes sense is to see Mauricio battle Brett Baty heads up for the starting position at third. If Alonso stays put, Mauricio should try again to learn the outfield where his issues fielding balls in the dirt should be less of an issue.

Calvin Ziegler is more distant but is a higher impact pitching prospect in a farm system that doesn’t have the star pitching potential of old.  Ziegler will probably be once more sent to Brooklyn if and when he’s healthy but I expect the Mets to be ready and eager to promote him up the ranks with any sign of success there.

Can the Mets Trade for Pitching this Offseason

There have been a few names of note dangled into the winds thus far and the Mets are surely eager to expand their rotation as Sean Manaea, Jose Quintana and Luis Severino are all at the end of their contracts (Manaea almost guaranteed to opt out of option). Do the Mets have the players to make a move on Devin Williams of the Brewers, Bryce Miller of the Mariners or even Tarik Skubal of the Tigers (if Detroit decides to blow it all up)?

The Mets prospect trade chips are sadly none too good. While they do have a few tempting major league ready guys in Christian Scott, Jose Butto, Tylor Megill and David Peterson there aren’t many blue chip names without tarnish to headline a deal for a star young pitcher. Anyone who suggests a Mets deal for one of the above without Jett Williams in it, is simply not being realistic and a player like Skubal is simply not on the table for who we have.

Now, Skubal should and could be on the table for a team like… say Baltimore who have a ton of blue chip prospects and need to improve their pitching but a deal with Brandon Sproat, Ronny Mauricio, Jett Williams and Ryan Clifford seems like it wouldn’t make the Tigers bite.  Is there a deal for Williams or Miller that the Mets could make? Maybe. There’s very little front of the rotation talent in the free agent pool and the Mets have a lot of money to spend, even with them eyeing Juan Soto.

Some of Those Free Agent Options:

Shane Bieber (30), Walker Buehler (30), Corbin Burnes (30), Max Fried (31), Sean Manaea (33), John Means (32), Luis Severino (31), or Blake Snell (32) – can opt out of remaining one year, $30MM*