The honors keep piling up for Mets Double-A prospect, Cesar Puello. He’s in New Britain preparing for the Eastern league All-Star game tonight, fresh off being named the EAS Player of the month for June. While he possibly could be facing a 50-game suspension for his apparent connection with the Biogenesis clinic, he’s continuing to get noticed by our friends over at Baseball America. Just days after announcing him and former B-Met teammate Rafael Montero as two of the top 10 breakthrough minor leaguers this season, Puello’s name is also on BA’s midseason All-Surprise team.

As we’ve said here multiple times, the 22-year-old outfielder is finally putting together his raw talent of power and speed into one combination, and is currently hitting .323/.385/.572 with 15 home runs and 55 RBIs for the Binghamton Mets. What Matt Eddy mentioned in his one-liner about Puello that I hadn’t given much thought to is that he could make a run at the Eastern League Triple Crown.

He’s currently second in batting average, but is almost 20 points behind the league leader, Mark Minicozzi of Richmond (.341 BA). However, he’s only two homers behind Ryan Schimpf (17 HR) of New Hampshire for the lead, and is 13 RBIs behind Jesus Aguilar of Akron. While he’s a bit off the pace in both the batting average and RBI race, Puello has displayed the ability to make up some ground in a hurry, and his .441 batting average in June is proof of that.

In case you haven’t seen it in our MMN Featured Video section, take a look below of one of the shots Puello hit in last night’s EL Home Run Derby:

(photo credit: Gordon Donovan)