7/28/10

Cutnpaste: - Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Jon Niese, Jeff Francoeur, Sean Ratliff... and Rest

Kirk Nieuwenhuis:


7-28 from: - link  - CF – The 22-year-old Mets farmhand has hit .298 with 32 doubles, 16 homers and 58 RBI in 86 games at Class AA Binghamton His .876 OPS fits perfectly in the No. 2 hole for this power-packed lineup. Can you say so long Beltran?





Jon Niese:


7-28 from: - link  - SP—Jon Niese, 23, Mets - No one will confuse Niese with a future ace, but with four average-or-better pitches he's been a steady contributor all season. The lefty (along with knuckleballer R.A. Dickey) has helped ease the Mets' frustration of getting nothing from John Maine or Oliver Perez. Niese goes to his excellent curveball for strikeouts, but he's made progress with his fastball, cutter and changeup, too. Since the break: Niese pitched seven, one-run innings against the Giants and followed that by allowing three runs (on three solo homers) in five innings to the Diamondbacks. Overall he has 10 strikeouts and four walks over 12 innings.



Jeff Francoeur:



7-26 from: - link  - owed 1/$5 (arb. eligible): Despite consistently being the worst rightfielder in baseball for several years, Mets fans are convinced he would be make a good fourth outfielder on a championship team. He's practically Endy Chavez's cousin: no plate discipline, no speed, mediocre power, average fielder, average contact hitter.



Sean Ratliff:



7-13 from: - link  - The Stanford product has had an interesting year thus far, first posting strong totals in the Florida State League (where he made the All-Star team) only to advance and crush the Double-A Eastern League as if it were the easier level. In 25 games with Binghamton he has already crushed seven bombs with a .327 AVG. While the FSL is not an easy hitting environment, the difference in the level of pitching alone makes this sequence improbable. Nevertheless, Ratliff has shown the kind of ability that made him a 4th round draft pick in '08. He's flashed tremendous power from the left side, good enough speed to cover center field and tremendous splits (.329/.381/.567 against LHP) which was historically an issue for him. His game is almost like a scaled-down version of Captain Kirk. Unfortunately, also like Nieuwenhuis, Ratliff's troublesome K:BB is still a serious issue and the main reason why I don't see this extraordinary success lasting all year. But he does have the talent to remain at a high level and is definitely showing enough as a CF prospect to garner a lot more attention in Mets prospect circles.


Rest:



7-28 from: - link  - Jerry Manuel’s Mets lead the league in number of appearances that have come on zero days rest. This isn’t much in the way of news for Mets’ fans. Pedro Feliciano takes fewer days off than the postal service (26 times he’s worked on zero days rest). It’s happened 93 times in total for New York, 89 for Cincy, then no other team is over 80, with Tampa Bay, Colorado, Atlanta, and Houston all sitting at 75 or more.

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