All-Purpose Internal Call-Ups/Promotions Thread

[Guest Rotblatt]

I figure we could use a thread for this. I've had a hard time tracking the movement of my Tides and it might be nice for anyone who doesn't want to wade through minor league game recaps to get to the juicy bits. More importantly, we've made a few notable promotions.

20 YO Lastings Milledge, who started off in a big old slump but has come on strong for the last two months, is being promoted to AA Binghamton. A line: 232 AB, .302 AVG/.385 OBP/.418 SLG/.803 OPS, 18 SB, 13 CS, 19 B, 41 K

He will be joined by 22 YO Philip Humber, who has nice peripherals but otherwise doesn't seem to have done much to earn a promotion. 70.1 IP, 4.99 ERA, 1.31 WHIP, 65 K, 18 BB

24 YO Brian Bannister will be promoted to AAA Norfolk. 109 IP, 2.56 ERA, 1.08 WHIP, 94 K, 27 BB

19 YO Gaby Hernandez will be promoted from Hagerstown to A St. Lucie. 92.2 IP, 2.43 ERA, 0.96 WHIP, 99 K, 30 BB

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Humber I'm sure will do fine. He had a long layoff with the contract and all and prolly just needed some compettition to get going again. The dude the Tigers picked just ahead of him, Justin Verlander, was killing AA and made an emergency big-league start last week (and lost).

Gaby Hernandez (3rd round selection last year) looks pretty impressive too. IIRC, he was one of those guys who was expected to have gone to college but chose to sign.

[MFS62]

Humber's promotion got delayed a bit.
I read that his plane out of town got cancelled/ rerouted because of the hurricaine.

Better safe than sorry, I say.

Later

[smg58]

Other than Humber, the others aren't surprising. I'd like to see more performance out of Milledge (and less caught steals) before I feel confident about him on this level. I'd have preferred to see Humber earn his jumps, especially when we have guys like Juan Padilla being blocked by guys like Danny Graves.

[smg58]

Also, it's interesting that Petit didn't get promoted with Bannister. It's not unusual to promote somebody you're considering dealing. It's not likely that the Mets will want two starting pitchers in April 07 with a year or less of MLB experience, so dealing one of them make sense, and touting Bannister at this point tells you which one they really want to keep.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I dimly suspect the Mets might keep Humber, Bannister, and Petit on slightly different clocks just to avoid Generation K comparisons.

I doubt it, and it's a wrong reason, but I wouldn't be shocked.

[Guest SI Metman]

Seo, Bannister and Ishii all started on Saturday. I was half expecting Seo to be called up to take Ishii's spot in the rotation, but it didn't happen.

[Guest ABG]

Verlander made his first start for Detroit recently--he was picked one spot ahead of Humber.

Now maybe it's just that Verlander is much better, but more likely its that Detroit's made a decision that he can be pushed up a bit because of his college seasoning. In short, I have no problem pushing Humber a bit here, even if his A ball numbers don't really warrant it on the surface.

[Frayed Knot]

In an 'Ask BA' column just following their new 'Top-100' prospect list I submitted a question about the high pitching draft picks from last year. Specifically, since they had Neimann (4th overall to the DRays) somewhere in the top 30 or so, Humber (3rd, Mets) around 50-something, and Verlander (2nd, Tigers) not on the list at all, I asked about the large discrepancy since they were drafted consecutively and all signed at about the same time and came in essentially cold this season.
Their answer was something along the lines of thinking that Neimann's ceiling was higher (although they admitted to not taking his pre-draft injury into consideration) than Humber's and that they considered Verlander to be not nearly as good as either and the most likely to wind up in the pen.

So Verlander then went out and tore up high-A ball, ripped through AA, and got himself into the majors prior to mid-season.
Go figure.

[smg58]

That's the thing with prospects. Sometimes you know right away, and sometimes you don't. And sometimes the experts get it way wrong. It looks like the Tigers judged correctly in drafting Verlander, but the Anderson Hernandez for Matt Ginter deal that looked good for them in April now looks criminal in our favor.

[MFS62]

Since his promotion to St. Lucie, Dante Brinkley is hitting.365.
I hope he gets to at least AA this year, so the analysts can stop saying that he was "too old" for his league. This is still only his first full season league. He was signed after his Junior Year in college. Last year, he was making the adjustment to the wooden bat. This year he looks like he has adjusted well.
The guy can RAKE!
I think he has the potential to put up Ron Gant numbers in the majors. (He's a left fielder)

Later

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

The Anderson Hernandez deal was for Vance Wilson, not Matt Ginter.

Ginter was dealt for a lefty reliever, whose name I'm forgetting. Collyer, or something like that.

[Guest Rotblatt]

]The Anderson Hernandez deal was for Vance Wilson, not Matt Ginter. Ginter was dealt for a lefty reliever, whose name I'm forgetting. Collyer, or something like that.

Yup, it was 26-year old lefty Steve Colyer and he had been doing pretty well at Norfolk for us, but he hit a rough stretch recently.

Total line: 4-2, 1 SV, 5.67 ERA, 1.63 WHIP, 27 IP, 31 K, 19 BB, 2 HR

Ginter, by the way (whose loss I lamented quite bitterly at the time) had the same trajectory for Detroit--started off strong, then fell off the table.

DET: 5.47 ERA, 1.46 WHIP, 24.2 IP, 10 K, 6 BB, 5 HR
TOL (AAA): 2-1, 3.22 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 22.1 IP, 18 K, 3 BB, 3 HR. Those numbers include a nice start against Norfolk where he got a no-decision due to an even better performance by Seo.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

I didn't like the loss of Ginter either, especially with the subsequent injury to Trachsel or Benson. (I forget which one happened when.) As it turns out, it hardly matters. I haven't given Matt Ginter a thought all season.

[smg58]

My apologies on mixing up the Detroit deal, but given the way Vance Wilson is hitting, Anderson Hernandez doesn't look like any less of a steal. Either way, my point was that nobody saw Hernandez' value as a prospect shooting up the way it has.

My one complaint about the Ginter deal is that it highlights the problem with overloading your system with righty relievers on the bubble, as Steve Phillips loved to do and Minaya hasn't gotten away from yet. Nobody gets enough of a chance to prove themselves, there's always a "proven" mediocre veteran like Danny Graves to block the way for younger guys, and they get shuttled back and forth often enough to run out of options. As a result, pitchers like Pete and Tyler Walker and Dan Wheeler now produce for teams who gave up nothing to get them from us. And I can't help wondering if we could have kept Jason Bay had Phillips not insisted on getting back Jason Middlebrook in addition to Steve Reed.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Your point is understood.

But Anderson Hernandez is a former top draft pick who certainly was viewed as still having the potential to turn the corner. Obviously the Tigs lost heart.

I doubt anyone from the Mets would have bet the farm that Hernandez could change his vector, but they were sure willing to bet Vance Wilson.

I'd say Wilson plummeting is the more surprising post-script to that deal.

[MFS62]

Other factors in why the Tigers traded Hernandez are:
They have two other young infielders who they liked better than him, who are now both with the big club; Shelton and Infante
Brandon Inge doesn't hit when he's behind the plate, so they needed someone to back up Pudge.

It was a deal to fill a need and they dealt from strength.

I don't think it had anything to do with losing heart.

Later

[seawolf17]

And I think Omar was more than happy to get rid of another member of the "old guard" around Shea Stadium.

[Guest Rotblatt]

Mientkiewicz activated, Daubach sent down to AAA. Ring joins him and Juan Padilla comes up.

I can't wait to see what Padilla pitches like. I've only seen choppy internet footage . . .

Dougie did well in his rehab assignments. Hopefully he'll get hot for a while. God knows we could use it.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Count me relieved at the return of Doug F. Mientkiewicz.

Anderson deserves all the respect in the world for doing as well as he did during our Dougless period, but I can't take many more Wright-on-base, Anderson-stepping-to-the-plate-and-we-need-an-XBH-to-tie-this-thing moments like last night in the 7th inning.

Mets were 7-8 without DM available, btw.

[Elster88]

Not that Doug is a huge improvement.

[Guest SI Metman]

The B-Mets called up LHP [url=http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/app/milb/stats/stats.jsp?n=MacLane%20%28W%2C%208-5%29&pos=P&sid=milb&t=p_pbp&did=milb&pid=449774]Evan MacLane[/url] to take Humber's spot in the rotation. He pitched 5 innings of no-hit ball on Sunday for St. Lucie.