The Mets have a prospect on the team that is starting to get noticed, and he turns 20 in October. And this time, we are not talking about a teenage hitting machine, we are talking about a teenage pitching machine. This pitcher is none other than Jenry Mejia and he could be as much as household name as Fmart is very soon. He started this season in St. Lucie and he pitched 9 games, 50.1 innings, and had an ERA of 1.97. During that time he walked only 16 batters, while striking out 44. He was then promoted to AA where he has also had success with a 3.74 ERA over four games and 21.2 innings, walking nine batters and striking out 9. (And those stats are very inflated because his first three starts were incredible at the AA level, his last start was rough with 6 ER in 5 IP). A sign to look for this season then is to see how his numbers really
play out from this point in terms of walks and strikeouts. Throughout
his career so far, the more K's he has compared to BB's is a reason for
his success and is also a sign of a good pitching prospect.
Last year he pitched in the Gulf Coast League and the New York Penn league where he had a 2.89 ERA in 14 games and 71.2 innings pitched where he walked 26 and struck out 67. The year before he played for the Mets Dominican Summer League Team where he had a 2.47 ERA in 14 games and 7 starts in 43.2 innings pitched with 27 BB and 47 K.
Beyond the stats though he has three noted pitches that are causing him to get noticed. His first is his fastball which has been clocked as high as 97 miles per hour, and that was last year so he could still be getting stronger. He also has changeup that is in the mid 80's that is has been reported as above average and his curveball, as of last year, was in the mid 70's and has been used as a once in a while type of pitch, something that he needs to work on.
Mets Minor League Blog has the best story about him though. They talk about he first started to play baseball when he was 15 years old. In other words, he is a prospect at the age of 19 but he didn't start playing until he was 15. Things look good about Mejia as he is a very interesting prospect to follow. He is a gem in our farm system that is generally underated.
