Baseball America revealed their top 50 midseason prospects today, as was compiled by J.J. Cooper. Both Noah Syndergaard and Travis d’Arnaud appeared on the list, at numbers 23 and 25, respectively. Of course, both of these minor leaguers were key components to the off-season trade Sandy Alderson made with the Toronto Blue Jays that sent R.A. Dickey north of the border.
Each top prospect has a small blurb below there name, and here’s the one on Syndergaard:
Improved breaking ball has made his mid-90s fastball an even deadlier weapon.
Syndergaard, who started the season in High-A with the St. Lucie Mets, has since taken his talents north to Binghamton, continuing to impress in Double-A. After compiling a 3-3 record, 3.11 ERA, 64 strikeouts, and 16 walks in 63.2 innings pitched with St. Lucie, Syndergaard got promoted to the next level following the Florida State League All-Star game in Dunedin, Florida; his old stomping grounds in the Jays organization. Since moving up, he’s continued to show why he’ll soon become the top Mets prospect in the organization. In three starts for the B-Mets (18 innings pitched), he’s 2-0 with a 1.50 ERA, and 23 strikeouts against four walks.
On the other hand, Travis d’Arnaud has been sidelined since April with a fractured left foot after fouling a pitch off it. While he has a world of potential, it’s staying on the field that’s been the problem:
When healthy, he’s top catching prospect in minors, but healthy months are few and far between.
In 36 at-bats before getting sidelined on April 17th, d’Arnaud was hitting .250/.429/.472 with one home run, eight RBIs, and five doubles for the 51s. This is no doubt a frustrating injury for the top catching prospect; he missed significant time last year with a knee injury, ending his season prematurely in June. He’s currently rehabbing in Port St. Lucie. There is no timeline yet for his return, but the New York front office is still expecting to see d’Arnaud in the majors some time this season, likely as a September call-up.
Congratulations to both Noah and Travis on this honor! Hopefully we’ll see both of them in Flushing very soon.
They shafted Puello.
He got a different honor that I’m going to chat about this afternoon, so make sure you come back!
I feel like our boy is being blacklisted by some of these MLB “insiders” until all of the Biogenesis stuff shakes out. That sucks for him. The good news is that while they are undervaluing or ignoring him, if he keeps producing, they won’t be able to much longer…and he’ll be producing in Queens. That would be a very good thing come June 2014.
You got that right. Hopefully all of the Biogenesis stuff ends up not affecting him (suspension-wise). As long as he produces, that’s all I care about.
how does a guy who never plays get on this list?
d’arnaud is the new reese havens
Yeah I saw the breakout list. IMO, he should have been top 50. They are dinging him for Biogenesis. These clowns rank Christian Yelich far ahead of Puello and I’d bet anything Yelich doesn’t end up half the player.
No doubt. But they don’t have the balls to admit it.
I’m no expert and I don’t know for a fact, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that the reason d’Arnaud is on the list is because the people who created it made the list based on talent evaluation and prospect evaluation and not on hating Sandy Alderson and wanting to criticize his every move. That certainly might account for it.
See, a freak injury resulting in a broken bone doesn’t change the measure of his talent from where it was 2 months ago.
I do want to learn more though and since you seem to have a firm grasp on who does and doesn’t belong on this list, could you quickly roll off the list for me of the other players here who are injured or have been in the past year so I can know who else also doesn’t belong. Real quick, just off the top of your head.
Guys who never play shouldn’t be given any accolades in the minors. Bottom line is d’Arnaud is a cross between Reese Havens and Fernando Martinez. Enough hype already. Reward guys who are actually producing.