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Mets Other First Base Prospect: Jeremy Vasquez

By John Sheridan

April 23, 2018 No comments

Entering the 2018 season, the debate for the Mets future at first base hinged on two players: Dominic Smith and Peter Alonso.  The debate between the two presented a clear philosophical debate about what is and who should play first.  Lost in this debate between Smith and Alonso is the Mets 2017 28th round draft pick Jeremy Vasquez.

After being drafted last year, Vasquez was assigned to Kingsport where he just mashed.  In 36 games, he hit .296/.394/.511 with eight doubles, seven homers, and 30 RBI.  While not completely unexpected, Vasquez’s production was a pleasant surprise, and quite possibly an early indication the Mets landed a sleeper in this draft.

So far this season, Vasquez has backed up his terrific play in Kingsport with a terrific start to the season with the Columbia Fireflies.

In 16 games, Vasquez is hitting .308/.472/.481 with four doubles, a triple, a homer, and 13 RBI.

His OBP is the second best in the South-Atlantic League, and it is driven by a very good eye at the plate.  So far this year, Vasquez has drawn the most walks, and he has a 25.0% walk rate.  The high rate may be somewhat inflated due to the variables we see in small sample sizes, but it should be noted as a professional, Vasquez sports a very good 15.6% walk rate.

If his walk rate wasn’t impressive enough, consider so far this season he has seven more walks than strikeouts.  Again, this is not that much of an outlier as last season in Kingsport, Vasquez only had four more strikeouts than walks.

Looking at his stats against his competition, Vasquez is arguably the most productive first baseman in the South Atlantic League.  Among first baseman, he is second in batting average, slugging, doubles, and RBI, and he leads all first baseman in triples, walks, OBP and OPS (.953).

With production like that, it is only a matter of time people begin to take notice.

Now, is it too soon to enter him into the conversation with Smith and Alonso?  Absolutely.  That said, we have seen Vasquez repeat the terrific start to his professional career in Kingsport with his being the most productive first baseman in the South Atlantic League. If he is able to maintain this production through St. Lucie and into Binghamton, much like how Smith and Alonso once did, we will see Vasquez push his name into the conversation.