213 Miles From Shea

The Mets will try to put last night's disappointment behind them with a series victory today against the Brewers as Jon Niese gets the start against Yovani Gallardo. In case you didn't know, last night, down 2-1, the Mets bats put together a strong rally to put the boys from Queens up 6-2. However, the pen immediately gave the game back and the Mets ended up losing 7-6.

On the season Niese is 4-5 with a 3.75 ERA. In his last four starts he has pitched 26.0 innings with a 1.38 ERA. He has been really fantastic this season developing into a solid station in the Mets rotation. Last season he made one start against the Brew Crew and it was forgettable as he tossed 2.2 innings allowing 6 ER. The Brewers have the following numbers on Jon:

Morgan 4-8

Weeks 4-5, 2B, HR

Braun 1-3

Fielder 1-4

The Brewers will call on Gallardo tonight who is 8-2 (League Leader In Wins) with a 3.72 ERA. In his last 5 starts he has pitched 33.0 innings with a 1.64 ERA. So both pitchers today are on a hot streak going into the game tonight. Last season he was 1-0 in two starts and 12.1 innings of work against the Mets with an ERA of 5.11. The Mets have the following numbers on Yovani:

Reyes 5-10, 2 2B, 3B

Pagan 1-7

Beltran 1-3

Bay 1-8

Let's Go Mets!

The Mets play game two tonight against the Brewers. Last night the Mets beat the Brew Crew by the score of 2-1 as Capuano gave the Mets an excellent start and Beato, Izzy and Krod all gave an inning of re-insuring relief. A win tonight will make it 4 straight for the Amazin's as they continue their journey back to the .500 line. In tonight's game Pelfrey will get the start as he goes up against Randy Wolf.

Pelfrey is 3-4 this season with a 5.56 ERA. His last start was forgettable as he allowed 7 ER in the first 3 innings of work against the Pirates, before the Mets scored 9 unanswered runs and eventually took that game. He would finish that game with 2 additional scoreless innings and he looks to channel Pelf the Ace tonight in Milwaukee.Last season he made one start against the Brewers where he pitched 7.1 innings and allowed only 3 ER on his way to a no decision. The Brewers have the following numbers on Big Pelf:

Morgan 3-17

Nieves 3-14

Fielder 2-7, 2B

Hart 1-7, HR

Kotsay 0-6

Braun 1-3

The Mets batters will get a go at Randy Wolf tonight who is 4-4 on the season with a 3.69 ERA. He has been better than his season numbers in his last four starts where he has logged 24.2 innings with a 2.92 ERA. Last season against the Mets in two starts he pitched 12.0 innings allowed 4 ER (or a 3.00 ERA) where he received a no decision in each. The Mets have the following numbers on Wolf:

Reyes 11-39, 2B, 2 HR

Beltran 11-34, 4 2B, 3 HR

Hairston 4-13, 2 2B, HR

Bay 5-10, 3 2B, HR

Pagan 4-8, 2B

Let's Go Mets!

The final rounds of the MLB Draft happened today where teams are selecting their final 20 players for the 2011 MLB Draft. It is rare, but sometimes gems are found deep in the draft. If you want to see results from the first two days, click here. The following are the Mets 31st to 50th pick:

31. (942) Chad Zurcher – SS U Memphis

32. (972) Carlos Leyva – SS Cal St. Dominguez Hills

33. (1002) Tyson Seng – RHP U Oklahoma

34. (1032) Jacob Lugo – RHP Centenary College

35. (1062) Chasen Bradford – RHP U Central Florida

36. (1092) Ryan Hutson – 1B U Texas San Antonio

37. (1122) Craig Missigman – RHP Olympic High School

38. (1152) Dustin Emmons – RHP University of California Riverside

39. (1182) Charles Thurber – OF U Tennessee

40. (1212) Alexis Mercado – C Otay Ranch High School

41. (1242) Mark Picca – LHP U Texas Arlington

42. (1272) Gregory Pron – OF U West Florida

43. (1302) Jacob Decker – SS Piedmont High School

44. (1332) Clint Sharp – RHP Howard College

45. (1362) Andrew Marra – RHP St. Thomas of Villanova Secondary School

46. (1392) Richard Ruff – RHP Quincy U

47. (1422) Cole Limbaugh – RHP Childersburg High School

48. (1452) Malcom Clapsaddle – RHP Sante Fe CC

49. (1482) Sean Buckle – LHP Woodrow Wilson High School

50. (1512) Edward Rohan – C Winthrop U

And the Mr. Irrelevant for the baseball draft this year was pick number 1530 for the Philadelphia Phillies who drafted Kolya Stephenson, a RHP from Ocean City High School in NJ.

This week MLB released an update on All Star Ballot votes for the fan population portion of the game. This is generally when I like to to start looking at where the votes stand because players with unusually active April's drop off and it generally becomes clear at this point who is leading due to popularity, who is leading due being an amazing player and so forth. If the voting ended today, the starting lineup would be:

C – Brian McCann, Atlanta Braves

1B – Albert Pujols, St. Louis Cardinals

2B – Brandon Phillips, Cincinnati Reds

3B – Placido Polonco, Philadelphia Phillies

SS – Troy Tulowitzki, Colorado Rockies

OF – Ryan Braun, Milwaukee Brewers

OF – Matt Holliday, St. Louis Cardinals

OF – Lance Berkman, St. Louis Cardinals

The one above that really bothers me is SS. Jose Reyes is third, with 774,000 votes, about 11,000 votes behind Rollins who is in second, and about 700,000 votes behind Tulo. Reyes is close enough to Rollins that he'll eclipse him, but being behind him right now shows the popularity contest portion, which no is denying, of the vote, as Reyes leads the league in hitting. He'll make the All-Star team at this rate no doubt, it's just frustrating, but I already vented about this once this season, so I'll try not to do it again.

The Mets start a 10 game road trip tonight against the Brewers, as the Amazin's look to build off of their last two wins. Back on Sunday, the Mets beat the Braves in prime time by the score of 6-4, where Dickey gave the Mets a great start and the bullpen made things more exciting at the end of the game, but it was ok because the Mets ended with the win. Tonight Chris Capuano gets a start against his old team and goes up against Shaun Marcum.

Chris Capuano is 3-6 this season with a 5.19 ERA. He had a good run for essentially all of May with the exception of one start, but struggled in his last start in the beginning of June where he allowed 5 ER over 6 innings of work. I would provide some numbers about him vs his old team, but he was a member from 2004-2010, so his stats against the team as a whole may no longer be relevant. Here are some stats against the current players on the Brewers:

Counsell 3-6

Gomez 1-2, 2B

Kotsay 0-2

The Mets bats look to get a quick jump on Shaun Marcum tonight who is 6-2 this season with a 2.78 ERA. In his last three starts he has pitched 21.0 innings with a 3.43 ERA, which is mainly being influence by one bad start where he allowed 5 ER in 6 innings of work. Marcum, a former Blue Jay in his first season away from Toronto, has never faced the Mets in his career and very few Mets have numbers against him:

Bay 1-3

Hairston 1-3

Harris 0-1

Let's Go Mets!

The MLB draft is done with its first 30 rounds now and below is a list of the Mets picks from the 2011 Draft Class. Additional notes are hyper linked.

1. (13) Brandon Nimmo – OF Cheyenne East High School

1C. (44) Michael Fulmer – RHP Deer Creek High School

2. (71) Cory Mazzoni – RHP N.C. State

3. (101) Logan Verrett – RHP Baylor

4. (132) Tyler Pill – RHP Cal State Fullerton

5. (162) John Leathersich – LHP UMass Lowell

6. (192) Joe Tuschak – CF Northern Senior High School

7. (222) Cole Frenzel – 1B Arizona

8. (252) Daniel Muno – SS Fresno State

9. (282) Alexander Panteliodis – LHP Florida

10. (312) Matthew Budgell – RHP Woodbridge High School

11. (342) Christian Montgomery – RHP Lawrence Central HIgh School

12. (372) Kenny Mathews – LHP Diamond Bar High School

13. (402) Robert Gsellman – RHP Westchester High School

14. (432) Xorge Carrillo – C Arizona State

15. (462) Phillip Evans – SS La Costa Canyon High School

16. (492) Bradley Marquez – CF Odessa High School

17. (522) Jonathan Clark – CF Lee University

18. (552) Travis Taijeron – CF Cal Poly Pomona

19. (582) Dustin Lawley – CF University of West Florida

20. (612) Mason Robbins – CF George County High School

21. (642) John Gant – RHP Wiregrass Ranch High School

22. (672) Casey Turgeon – SS Dunedin High School

23. (702) Jeffrey Diehl – C Cranston High School West

24. (732) William Shepherd – 1B Texas

25. (762) Andrew Reed – LHP Terre Haute South Vigo High School

26. (792) Casey Hauptman – RHP University Nebraska Lincoln

27. (822) Randy Fontanez – RHP South Florida

28. (852) Jharel Cotton – RHP Miami Dade CC South

29. (882) Joshua Ake – SS Hunterdon Central Reg High School

30. (912) Jacob Hansen – LHP F.P. Walshe High School

With the 101st pick of the 2011 MLB Draft, the Mets selected another college pitcher in Logan Verrett, a Right Handed Pitcher (RHP) from Baylor University. Verrett hails from Texas and was not drafted out of high school. What makes me excited about Verrett are three Big 12 records that he holds:

K/BB – 4.14

BB/9 – 2.30

K/BB (Career) – 3.83

Mainly, what is looked at for a college pitcher, outside of raw skill is control. Can they control their pitches while still getting batters out? Well in the college level Logan Verrett is doing that, and doing that very well. While the other pitchers they Mets have chosen were power pitchers, Verrett is a control pitcher. His fastball sits at around 90's, he mixes in a slider and has a changeup that is in the 70's. Here are some of his college numbers:

2011: 7-5, 2.87 ERA, 100.3 IP, 95 K

2010: 5-3, 3.28 ERA, 90.2 IP, 97 K

2009: 7-1, 5.13 ERA, 54.1 IP, 64 K

In 2009 he was mostly used in relief, and since that he was mainly used as a starter. His K's stand out, especially vs innings. The key for Logan moving up in the system will be if he can make the adjustments necessary for the higher levels of play. Will he still be able to keep the ball in the zone while keeping runners off the base? Time will tell.

No surprise here. After drafting two high school players in the first round and the supplemental round, the Mets went with a College player with their second round pick at overall #71. Cory Mazzoni is a pitcher for N.C. State and is a power pitcher with a mid 90's fastball and as some articles have described him online. “devastating” off speed stuff.

The draw for Mazzoni is probably his raw skill set right now (like his fastball), and his age. he will be turning 22 in October, and he has enough experience that if he performs well in the minors, he is the type of player that will spend 2-3 years instead of 3-5 years before maturing up. Here are some of his college numbers over the last couple of years:

2011: 3.30 ERA, 114.2 IP, 6-6, 2 CG, 1 SHO, 137 K

2010: 5.20 ERA, 91.2 IP, 7-3, 89 K

2009: 6.57 ERA, 38.1 IP, 1-5, 30 K

When he came in, he was mainly a relief pitcher and then in his second year he became a starter for the Wolf Pack. The number to look at for him is his strikeouts. In his first year, just slightly below one per inning, in his second year, very close to one per inning, and in his final year, he was well above one per inning. I would guess he will get a shot to start in the Mets system, but with the strikeout numbers, him in the pen wouldn't be bad either if he can't cut it as a starter.

Now that its been over 12 hours since the first day of the 2011 MLB draft has ended, I've been able to collect and reflect on some thoughts about the draft, and refined my opinions that were posted in haste last night. Mainly, I was concerned about Fulmer for sign-ability reasons, but over at Metsblog, Matt Cerone had a quote on his twitter feed of Fulmer saying that before he was looking forward to playing with Nimmo for Arkansas, but now he is looking forward to play with him on the Mets. This makes me wonder if this might be a both sign or both leave situation, if that Fulmer, who was fairly similar to several High School pitchers left on the board when drafted, if by selecting him the Mets were hoping to get him sign by already drafting one of his future teammates.

DePosta said something else last night that was telling, that he wants high risk / high reward type players early, not the safe ones. I have to agree with this here. There is a general feeling that the Mets and Harvey will pan out, which gave the Mets to be risky with this years draft picks. If both of the players pan out, than this was a fantastic situation, if not, we also know that they were high risk (so its better than when a safe pick fails).

I have a few other general reactions, one of which surrounds Javier Baez who added this tattoo before the draft. I'm not sure if I'm impressed or disturbed by that level of cockiness, but it helps calm any fears about his sign-ability.

I'll probably expand on this point after the draft but the Rays did well with their 10 picks, considering their first two picks were players that should have been drafted before the Rays picked. That system is going to be stacked.

Well round two starts now, let's see what other surprises await the Mets!

The not surprising part of this pick was that Fulmer is a hard throwing pitcher. The surprising part of this pick is that Fulmer is another High School player, and he will be a tough sign, and as the MLB Draft show put it, a lot of that has to do with a teammate of his committed to the University of Arkansas as well (same with the Mets earlier pick tonight as well, interesting). Fulmer was named the Big All – City Baseball player of the year this year and he did by being a talented pitcher and by putting together a good season at the plate. He is known for his fastball which can hit the mid 90's and also has a good curveball as well (maybe one of the best for High School Pitchers in the draft). Like all high school pitchers, he has a lot of raw talent, but he is going to need some work to become an effective pitcher. Here are some baseball statistics for the Mets second first round pick:

2011: 10-2, 3 S, 0.72 ERA, 127 K, 68.1 IP

2011: .436 BA, 130 AB, 6 HR

2010: 7-1, 1.15 ERA

2009: 6-1, 3.09 ERA

So from his stats, he looks good, and his numbers reflect what you think you would see from a high schooler who has been clocked as high as 97 mph. I am concerned about his sign-ability, but if the Mets can sign him, he will be interesting to watch in the Mets farm system.

Other Notes:

Baseball America had him at 45 in their top 200

He pitched a 5 inning no-hitter where he struck out 14 batters (and 5 innings there are only 15 outs).