Expect to see the Mets’ top pitching prospect in Flushing next month: When rosters expand on Sept. 1, the team plans to recall 20-year-old righthander Jenrry Mejia, an organizational source told the Daily News.
Mejia’s role will be determined by the Mets’ position in the standings. If the team finds itself in wild-card contention, it will use the rookie as a late-inning reliever. If the Mets are buried and looking toward next season, they will put Mejia in the rotation to see how he fares in that role against major league lineups.
– Andy Martino, N.Y. Daily News.
Look: It’s pretty much immaterial because the Mets are not going to be in Wild Card contention come September. And that the team would even be considering that possibility and discussing it with the press speaks to its apparent disregard for reality. The Mets are currently 8.5 games out of the Wild Card with six teams ahead of them and an offense that has posted a .598 OPS since the All-Star Break. Probably not going to hack it.
But all that said, what the krod? Late-inning reliever? Really?
I mean… didn’t that just happen? Does no one remember two months ago, when the Mets still had their best pitching prospect toiling away in their bullpen, yielding too many baserunners to be trusted in tight spots? Does someone in the Mets’ front office actually think that the 27 1/3 Minor League innings he has pitched since then have fixed all that?
Because, well, wow. I mean, I’ll allow the possibility that the Mets’ company Web filters block baseball-reference.com, but my browser shows me that Mejia, in 20 1/3 innings in Double-A, has yielded a 1.33 WHIP. That’s a lot of baserunners.
He has been good, mind you, pitching to a 1.77 ERA and whiffing more than a batter an inning, but the traffic problem that mercifully dispatched him from the Major League roster in the first place hasn’t really gone anywhere.
Martino’s article says that some members of the Mets’ front office see Mejia’s future as a late-inning reliever, and I buy that. I don’t necessarily agree but I’ve read that before.
But there is absolutely no doubt that a top-flight starter is more valuable than even the very best relief pitcher, and so Mejia should be given every opportunity to succeed as a starter before he is transitioned into a bullpen role. At the very least, allowing him to work on his secondary arsenal over multiple-inning stints as a starter would make those pitches more effective if and when he needed them in relief.
The guy is 20 years old. 20. Twenty. 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20. And he’s the Mets’ best pitching prospect. Hell, now that Jon Niese has graduated to real-live pitcher, Mejia is really the Mets’ only pitching prospect to speak of at the higher levels of the Minors.
It’s like they’re putting all their eggs in one basket, and then vigorously shaking that basket.
In the Bronx last night, Joe Girardi saw an opportunity to pull Phil Hughes after only 84 pitches and took it to help work towards keeping Hughes to his proscribed 170-innings limit. Comparing Hughes and Mejia is not fair for a bunch of reasons, plus the Yankees haven’t exactly been perfect in their handling of young pitchers over the past few years.
But at least they have a plan. Mejia will, in all likelihood, throw fewer innings this year than he did last. Part of that is because he spent time on the Disabled List (though he did so in 2009 as well), part of that is because of the bullpen experiment that it seemed everyone in the world except the Mets’ front office and manager thought was a bad idea.
Tedquarters 