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Matz Only Met To Make SAL Top-20 Prospect List

By Former Writers

October 2, 2013 2 Comments

matzsally

As proud as I am of Steven Matz, this is somewhat confusing: Baseball America ranked their Top-20 Prospects in the SAL League and it looks like he’s the only player from the Mets organization to make the list. So Gabriel Ynoa, Kevin Plawecki, Dilson Herrera, or Brandon Nimmo making this list — and although I could see reasons for each, it’s just slightly disappointing. Matz was ranked at #20, by the way.

That being said, Matz had himself a heck of  a year behind his electric fastball and improving curveball. Here’s what BA wrote about him:

Led by control artists like Gabriel Ynoa (the league’s pitcher of the year) and Luis Cessa, Savannah walked 267 batters all year. Only one other SAL team walked fewer than 400. Matz didn’t paint corners as much as Ynoa or Cessa, but he did throw plenty of strikes while showcasing three potentially plus pitches: an 89-94 mph fastball that touched 96 as well as an intriguing curveball and changeup.

The big question for Matz is health. His 106 innings this year came after he threw fewer than 30 in his first three pro seasons as he dealt with an extremely lengthy recovery from Tommy John surgery.

Well, it was certainly a big step for Matz to pitch this year in its entirety to prove to everyone that he could. He seemed to get stronger as the year went along, pitching with more confident and more zip on his fastball — which makes perfect sense. He jumped up a few prospect lists with a dominant year that saw him pitch to a 2.62 ERA in 106.0 innings with 121 strikeouts.

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  1. Dave in Spain