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Nido, Rivera Among Mets Prospects Chasing Batting Titles

By Michael Mayer

August 25, 2016 3 Comments

Photo Credit: Ed Delany

Photo Credit: Ed Delany

St. Lucie Mets catcher Tomas Nido entered the 2016 season with a career .249 batting average in 748 minor league at bats. The 22-year old was praised by Mets farm director Ian Levin after a great spring training saying he “could be become the next guy”.

The Florida State League All-Star has certainly become a guy to watch out for and currently leads the league with his .310 average. His closest competition for the batting title is the Dunedin Blue Jays infielder Richard Urena who is hitting .305 but was promoted to Double-A earlier in August and isn’t expected back in the FSL.

In 2015, the St. Lucie Mets had three players; Jeff McNeil (.312), Dominic Smith (.305) and Matt Oberste (.301) finish in the top five in the league for hitting. St. Lucie hasn’t had a player win the batting title in the FSL since outfielder Corey Coles did so in 2006 when he hit .341.

Atop of the Pacific Coast League leaderboard are two Las Vegas 51s in T.J. Rivera and Brandon Nimmo battling it out for the leagues best average. Rivera, who’s at .347 right now, is hitting .314 for his minor league career and has finished only one season (.289/2011) hitting under .300. Nimmo is batting .342 for the 51s and is 13 hits short of his career high (130) that he set in 2013.

Binghamton Mets infielder Phillip Evans had a stretch last week in which he went 16 for 23 in five games and is hitting .329 in 310 at bats in Double-A. The 23-year old is having a breakout season with career highs in OPS (.816), home runs (7), doubles (27) as well as his overall .314 average between Bingo and St. Lucie.

Unfortunately for Evans, he doesn’t currently have enough at bats to qualify for the Eastern League batting title. Evans is currently 51 plate appearances shy of qualifying with the B-Mets having 12 games left. The leader right now in average is .332 by Portland Sea Dogs outfielder Aneury Tavarez.

The last Met minor leaguer with a chance at a batting title is infielder Andres Gimenez who they signed for $1.2 bonus last year out of Venezuelan. It’s an outside shot for Gimenez who is batting an impressive .350 but Franklin Rollin, is currently hitting .383 to lead the Dominican Summer League. The 17-year old Gimenez does lead the league with his .469 on-base percentage.

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