Who wants to be a Met? (2017 draft)

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Amatuer draft starts 1 month from today and "mock drafts" out there suggest the Mets are romantically linked to Minnesota high school righty Sam Carlson, described as a "broad-bodied workhorse."
Hi, Sam.


Also, maybe UC Irvine 2B/OF Keston Hiura


Also maybe UNC SS Logan Warmoth
[fimg=600]https://cdn.d1baseball.com/uploads/2016/05/16125228/Logan-Warmoth.jpg[/fimg]

"Perfect Game" mock draft has Mets w/ Missouri RHP Tanner Houck and his tongue:

[Edgy MD]

Warmoth
Hiura
Carlson
Houk

Man, Carlson just looks like he's just dreaming of meeting the other Cobra Kai guys after gym and giving the new kid a swirlie. "Welcome to Burnsville, geek!"

[Frayed Knot]

Mets draft 20th, 59th, 97th, and then every 30th pick after that.
I demand they draft the guys who'll never get injured for their careers. Shirley that's part of the scouting report; if the box next to 'Gets Injured a Lot' is checked, simply pass him by.

[Edgy MD]

Well, one thing that's surely in the scouting report is high school pitchers are high-risk players.

Especially Ward Melville High School pitchers.

[Frayed Knot]

A HS righty has never gone #1 overall (Josh Beckett = #2) but that may change this year with Hunter Greene, a slugging SS who also throws 102

Ward Melville was known as a big lacrosse school back in my day.
If we wind up with any of the above they've got the potential to be the best Sam, Keston, Tanner, or Logan we've ever had.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

John Sickels new mock draft also has the Mets going with Minnesota high school righty Sam Carlson

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Gimme gimme gimme the best available honkballer.

Is that an "Eaters" on Hiura's jerz? The UC-Irvine Eaters? How am I just learning of this?

[Benjamin Grimm]

I just looked it up. The team's name is officially "Anteaters".

I think that would have been better on the uniform than "Eaters".

[Benjamin Grimm]

Also, that logo looks more like ICU than UCI. The "I" is clearly stacked on top, which implies (to me, at least) that that's the first letter I should be reading.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Indiana Christian U is suing them

[Frayed Knot]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I just looked it up. The team's name is officially "Anteaters". I think that would have been better on the uniform than "Eaters".

That trend -- giving your team's nickname a nickname and slapping it on your uniform (your uni if you will) -- is one that's been developing for years now. I suspect it's from copying oh-too-hip ESPN
sportscasters who use names like that constantly as if doing so makes them seem intimately familiar with the team. The NHL's Colorado Avalanche getting dubbed 'The Lanche' was an early example.
Fortunately the Expos never saw fit to stitch 'Spos across their chest and even the ever-experimenting Astros never reverted to 'Stros.
It also at times extends to proper names as fans of 'Nova' and 'Cuse' (Villanova, Syracuse) could tell you. Lately it's become ultra-trendy to call the city of Cleveland simply 'The Land' as if the back half
of the city name is enough to identify it. Not sure how Portland and Oakland feel about that, but it's their fault they're not cool enough to have LeBron James.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Well we did see the D'BACKS this week. BTW, I hated their Game 1 and 3 get-ups but the blue-trimmed ones for the middle game seemed to me a nice-looking way to do modern and overdone.

[Frayed Knot]

I guess that was the one where Gary and Keith were discussing whether it was teal or turquoise.
Gary said the Arizona media guide insisted the trim was teal although I certainly think of turquoise first as a desert blue while associating teal more as a marine shade.

[Edgy MD]

Frayed Knot wrote: Benjamin Grimm wrote: I just looked it up. The team's name is officially "Anteaters". I think that would have been better on the uniform than "Eaters". That trend -- giving your team's nickname a nickname and slapping it on your uniform (your uni if you will) -- is one that's been developing for years now. I suspect it's from copying oh-too-hip ESPN sportscasters who use names like that constantly as if doing so makes them seem intimately familiar with the team. The NHL's Colorado Avalanche getting dubbed 'The Lanche' was an early example. Fortunately the Expos never saw fit to stitch 'Spos across their chest and even the ever-experimenting Astros never reverted to 'Stros. It also at times extends to proper names as fans of 'Nova' and 'Cuse' (Villanova, Syracuse) could tell you. Lately it's become ultra-trendy to call the city of Cleveland simply 'The Land' as if the back half of the city name is enough to identify it. Not sure how Portland and Oakland feel about that, but it's their fault they're not cool enough to have LeBron James.

The compound-nickname thing may be a latter-day trend in some circles but it has long history in the NBA where teams with polysyllabic names created desperate challenges for uniform designers and headline editors alike, so teams like the Knickerbockers, Seventy-Sixers, Trailblazers, and Supersonics, were the Knicks, Sixers, Blazers, and Sonics pretty much from the start.

[Benjamin Grimm]

It probably goes all the way back to the Philadelphia Athletics being called the A's, if not further.

[seawolf17]

Seawolf Toby Handley leads the nation in triples with 8 and has a .351/.484/.619 slash line. Was drafted by Houston in the 33rd round last year but didn't sign. Have to figure he gets the call from someone in the middle rounds this year.

[Frayed Knot]

Baseball Prospectus ranks their draft prediction by most interesting name.
I thought only we did that? Maybe BP, like Gary Cohen, reads this place and steals our ideas.

They assign Hans Crouse (RHP from a Calif HS) to the Mets, a player they say sounds like the 'villain in an action movie about a tough, street-wise cop who saves the day with guile and wit'




1st round goes off Monday at 6PM, just as we're ready to drop the puck at home vs the defending WS champs.

[Edgy MD]

[Editor's note: This article originally played on the name Luke Heimlich in this spot, but we decided to remove that section based on recent news surrounding Heimlich.]

That's weird, I thought. I wonder what that's about.

And so I looked it up, and you know what? It's all bad.

[Benjamin Grimm]

The Oregonian wrote: As a teenager, Heimlich pleaded guilty to a single charge of sexually molesting a 6-year-old female family member. Heimlich registered as a sex offender in Benton County after arriving at Oregon State. When he was cited in April for missing an annual update, it put the case in Oregon court records for the first time. OSU's top pitcher was 15 years old when the crime occurred in his family's home in Puyallup, Washington, according to court documents obtained last week by The Oregonian/OregonLive through a public records request. Juvenile court records in Washington, unlike in Oregon, are not automatically confidential.

The article also describes him as an "ace left-hander who statistically is the nation's best pitcher and is among the top prospects in next week's Major League Baseball draft."

I imagine this has to affect the draft, but how? If he's as talented as the article implies, would all 30 teams pass on him round after round? It's hard to believe that he won't get drafted. But that's a PR nightmare.

[Chad ochoseis]

Frayed Knot wrote: . Fortunately the Expos never saw fit to stitch 'Spos across their chest and even the ever-experimenting Astros never reverted to 'Stros.

The Metropolitans, on the other hand...

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

More recent MLB.com Fake News Draft has Mets taking a different RHP, Nate Pearson of Central Florida Junior College who "pounds the zone" with 97mph fastballs, if you know what I mean.

The other guys we've been linked to falling to lower projected spots. There is also word that we like California high school first baseman Nick Pratto, but most Fake Drafts having him gone when 20th pick comes around. Pratto is famous for a walkoff hit in the Little League World Series and is also good enough to be a pitcher.

[Frayed Knot]

Chad Ochoseis wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: . Fortunately the Expos never saw fit to stitch 'Spos across their chest and even the ever-experimenting Astros never reverted to 'Stros. The Metropolitans, on the other hand...

Yeah but at least no one (to my knowledge anyway) has ever attempted to dub them the 'tans and even the Wilpons haven't dreamt up putting that on a uniform.

[Benjamin Grimm]

BECAUSE THEY'RE TOO CHEAP!

AM I RIGHT PEOPLE?

[Frayed Knot]

Jim Callis (mlb.com) in his latest (last?) 1st round mock draft throws out the possibility of a rarity among 1st pick projections: a HS 1st baseman. But, of course, that wouldn't be a novelty for the Mets (see: Smith, Dominic)
Specifically Nick Pratto of Huntington Beach, CA [L/L, 6' 1" - 195] who he describes as "the best pure hitter among preps in the draft" where the 20th overall pick is his "absolute floor".
Reportedly a good bat, good glove, good athleticism, the big question, as it is for all 1st basemen (I've seen no suggestion that he'll play anywhere else except maybe as a pitcher) is how much power eventually develops.
Born during the first week of the 1998 ML post-season -- a point by which some of the crew here were already chatting with each other via the interwebs -- feel free to insert your "I feel old" line here.

Other possibilities include:
Texas HS OF Tristen Lutz -- big power, big arm, CF now but probably a corner OF later
David Peterson, LHP, U-Oregon -- 6'6"/240, big K guy whose stock increased this year when his previously high walk rate plummeted: K/BB this season = 107/6
UCLA RHP Griffin Canning -- smallish for a pitcher (6' 1" - 190) has the "full arsenal" of pitches
and the previously mentioned Logan Warmoth (SS UNC) or Keston Hiura from UC Irvine although positional (2B? OF?) and health questions (elbow) make Hiura tough to project.

Edited June 9, 2017 by Guest

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Sure can eat, though.

I like the sound of the Oregon lefty (at least over the Oregon State one), but I'm starting to feel like, as far as power pitchers go, I like the odds of human elbows holding up better against 6-foot-and-shorter guys throwing their hardest than against big-ass, pumped dudes throwing their big-ass, pumped hardest.

[Edgy MD]

Draft projections fall apart pretty quickly, but a small amount of consensus seems to be building around Pearson. He says he isn't surprised that he hit three digits in a bullpen for scouts, that it was always there, but he doesn't unleash it, because he's a starter and he's trying to preserve his strength.

When speaking about his stuff, he says "velo" a lot, which strikes me as a little off. Anyway, just look at this babyface trying to look like a badass.

[fimg=500]https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/3JvoJWgQuKerC0_37VbCst1rcg8=/0x0:449x303/920x613/filters:focal(135x9:205x79):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/55086483/np.0.png[/fimg]

Don't let that face fool you, though, as it sits atop a Syndergaardian frame of 6'6" 240. Just reading that makes me want to send him for an MRI, and if he went, we'd get a nice 3D image of the screw he already has in his elbow.

He keeps it in the zone with the big four pitches, but the breaking stuff isn't weaponized yet. I say, if you throw 100 with command, just having off-speed stuff is a weapon.

Here he is terrorizing JuCo hitters. That's a curious motion he has—not quite from the windup and not quite from the set.

lfI1UBfJOUA

He's the first ballplayer I've ever read as saying "Growing up, I was a Rays fan." Really? OK, Nate!

[Frayed Knot]

An index of players likely to be drafted early on from John Sickels' site.
Should be a good tool to play along at home during draft time.

MLB is advertising that the draft starts at 6PM but it's looking like it really gets underway at 7 so it'll be happening during game time.
At six they're merely doing the pre-draft show to lead up to the draft since it's not like there's any time to talk between picks

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Two more Fake Drafts have us going with LSU Righty Alex Lange (Keith Law); or high-school lefty [crossout:cn8bbq4g]Steve J.[/crossout:cn8bbq4g] Trevor Rogers (Baseball America)

[Edgy MD]

Rogers, a cross between Steve Trevor and Steve Rogers, had been mostly scheduled to go between 10 and 14 to my reading.

6'6" lefty or no, high school pitchers are high-risk players.

[Frayed Knot]

#1 - Twins - Royce Lewis - HS SS
Not one of the pair expected to go #1 & #2, but a "legitimate #1 pick" says Jim Callis

#2 - Reds - Hunter Greene - HS RHP
The SI cover boy and all-around solid citizen

#3 - Padres - MacKenzie Gore - HS LHP
3rd straight HS kid

#4 Tampa Bay - Brendan McKay - 1B, U Louisville
with Greene, the pre-draft favorites to go 1st and/or 2nd

#5 - Atlanta - Kyle Wright - RHP - Vanderbilt

#6 - Oakland - Austin Beck - HS OF