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Prospect Spotlight: Erik Goeddel Quietly Having Solid Year in Binghamton

By Former Writers

July 24, 2013 No comments

Erik-Goeddel

The Binghamton Mets are enjoying a fantastic year in 2013. The Double-A affiliate of the Mets are currently 63-38, leading the EAS Eastern Division by a hefty 11-game margin, and easily have the best record in the league. How have they been doing it? Players like Cesar Puello and Allan Dykstra are having breakout seasons. The pitching staff has also been fantastic; Rafael Montero paced the starting rotation before his promotion to Triple-A, while Logan Verrett has followed his lead. Jeff Walters currently leads the Mets organization with 27 saves, and is one off the B-Mets single season record, set by Jerrod Riggan back in 2000.

While Binghamton wouldn’t be having as good of a year without the performances of these players, it takes a well-rounded team to be as good as they are. That’s where Erik Goeddel comes in. He was a 24th round pick out of UCLA in the 2010 MLB draft and has quietly produced on the mound throughout his professional career. He’s currently 9-3 with a 3.90 ERA, 1.37 WHIP, 94 strikeouts, and 41 walks in 94.2 innings pitched. His nine victories have him tied atop the EL leader board with Verrett and Matt Packer of Akron for the league lead.

Kirk Cahill had the privilege of watching Goeddel in action for the B-Mets on Sunday against New Britain. He had a lot of good things to say about the right-hander from Hillsborough, California:

I was pretty impressed with Goeddel. I went into the start assuming he was a destined to be a reliever based on everything I’ve read on him. I’m not so sure about that now. He has a good fastball with really good sink when he keeps it down in the zone. The ballpark radar gun wasn’t working, but I’ve read that he’s 91-93 with the fastball. The problem with his fastball is when he throws it above the belt it really flattens out, which is what lead to the two home runs that were hit off of him. He also throws both a curve and a slider. I had read his curve was the better breaking pitch; he certainly throw a lot more of them.

However, I liked his slider better. It was a tight pitch with late movement; I wish I knew the velocity from the radar gun. His curve tended to be loopy and easy to read out of his hand, but every once in a while he snapped off a really good one. He threw maybe a handful of change-ups, and none were good. Lefties are hitting almost .050 points higher off of him, so developing that change is a necessity as a weapon against them. If he can get a feel for that change, I think he can stay in the rotation and be a back-end starter. If not, I think his fastball could play up as a reliever and be a real ground ball inducing weapon.

Well, there you have it, folks. A big thanks to Kirk for giving us a first-hand analysis of Goeddel from his most recent start. A few of us discussed our thoughts about the right-hander in this past week’s edition of Boom or Bust. I’ll be interested to see how he finishes 2013 in the Eastern League, with this set to be the most innings he’s pitched since being drafted by the Mets.