On today’s Prospect Notebook, Ben Badler of Baseball America highlights seven prospects, with one of them being Binghamton Mets outfielder, Cesar Puello.
The right-handed hitting prospect has been putting together a nice all-around season in Double-A, hitting .305/.369/.508 with five home runs, 24 RBIs, 21 runs scored, and nine stolen bases in 33 games played. Puello has been in the New York Mets minor league system since the 2008 season, and the organization has been waiting for him to use the skills he has and start to put everything together.
Here’s what Badler had to say about Puello:
“Puello has been a frustrating prospect. He’ll show flashes of brilliance, plus raw power, an above-average arm and the speed that helped him steal 45 bases in 109 games there years ago. Yet he’s never been able to have that breakthrough that some scouts had expected from him. Until, perhaps, this year.”
Badler also noted that there has been a marked improvement in Puello’s approach at the plate, as well as his swing, which has led to more power production from him.
With the lack of production coming from the current major league outfielders, many are excited about what Puello has been able to do against Eastern League competition. There is plenty of interest as to what the Mets decide to do with him the rest of this season. Before 2013 got underway, it seemed like the brightest outfield prospect was Brandon Nimmo, but it’d be quite a while before we saw him get close to the bigs. Fortunately, Puello has started to figure things out, giving the Mets hope that there is more major league-caliber outfield talent in their farm system.
Yeah Puello & Vaughn so far have shown vast improvement this year and both are making more contact at the plate…B-Mets manager Pedro Lopez has moved both players up in the batting order.
I like Puello…my next Prospect Pulse is actually on him and will be up on Wednesday.
Thanks for reading! I agree with you. They’ve both taken big steps in their development. Vaughn was actually just named the Eastern League Player of the Week, so people are starting to take notice.
No Prob, thanks for writing 😉
Looking forward to it
I always liked Puello. He has good combination of power and speed. And only a few years ago he was ranked inside BA’s top 100 prospects. The one big concern with him was he never turned his potential into results, so it’s great to see him tearing up AA.
I’m becoming more & more impressed with Puello. I just hope he’ll be able to cut down on the K’s. Think he’ll blossom into our version of Viciedo? I gotta question where he is right now from a defensive standpoint and I can’t help but to wonder if he’s better off in LF.
Thanks for the article. It is good to see what is coming up through the system.
Personally, I am one who believes much of the Mets OF situation is solved. Look at the young names: Lagares, Valdy, MDD, Kirk, Vaughn, Harris, and Puello.
I firmly believe there are a couple major league OFs in that batch who will hit at the upper level. Vaughn has impressed me with Puello right there with him. Add in what Lagares did at AAA and it shows the youth is promising.
Now if Collins would only play a couple of the guys on his roster to see what they can do.
Puello has range and a cannon arm and he projects to be a plus defender in RF. He can actually play CF as well but RF will be his home in the majors.
Puello is much more talented than Viciedo ….dare I say it “5 TOOL”…LOL…hopefully he fulfills his prominse though
Hopefully, either Puello or Vaughn will be able to breakthrough and claim 1 of the Mets starting corner OF spots next season with FA Shin-Soo Choo at the other corner and MDD & Lagares sharing CF.
LF Vaughn
CF Puello/Lagares
RF Stanton
I can dream, can I? 😀