As he’s been doing for all of the Major League Baseball teams, John Sickels at Minor League Ball of SB Nation has been going through his pre-season top-20 prospects per team, and evaluating how they’ve done to this point in the season.

You can see the original top-20 list before this season right here. The top three spots are taken by Travis d’Arnaud, Zack Wheeler, and Noah Syndergaard, in that order. His updated post and comments can be found here.

What was of most interest to me were his comments toward the end of the article. While it’s been a solid year for the Mets minor leagues and prospects, there have been plenty of injuries that have put back some players. d’Arnaud is an obvious example, but Michael Fulmer, Jeurys Familia, and Luis Mateo have all missed a significant chunk of time. Also, Brandon Nimmo, Gavin Cecchini, Domingo Tapia, Cory Mazzoni, and Cory Vaughn have all spent time on the seven-day DL.

I assumed Cesar Puello wasn’t on his pre-season top-20 list, and I wondered whether or not he would designate a little time specifically for him. As usual, Sickels didn’t disappoint me:

The gaping hole in the pre-season list is Cesar Puello, of course, who was relegated to the Grade C/others section. I had seen him flail helplessly at too much breaking stuff to rate him more highly, even though I respected his tools. But here he sits at .328/.405/.550 with 24 steals in Double-A. Sometimes the tools guys figure it out. Of course, there’s the little problem of Biogenesis. . .I don’t know how you account for things like that.

There lies the elephant in the room. The Biogenesis suspensions should coming hot and heavy real soon, and rumor has it he’s preparing to accept a deal. Reports say outside of Alex Rodriguez and Ryan Braun, as many as nine other players could be looking at 50-game suspensions.

To finish his analysis, Sickels also mentioned a bunch of Mets prospects who are having solid years, and his overall thought of where New York’s system ranks against the rest of baseball:

Jayce Boyd has had a good year down in A-ball, but the offensive curve for a first baseman isn’t an easy one. Right-handers Rainy Lara, Gabriel Ynoa, and Matthew Bowman has also had strong seasons, along with lefty Steven Matz. Akeel Morris, John Gant, Miller Diaz, Chris Flexen, and Robert Whalen are some current short-season arms to watch for 2014.

Overall, I don’t see the Mets as having an elite system. They need to add more hitting depth and the current returns from Nimmo and Cecchini are disappointing. God knows what will happen with Puello. However, I love Syndergaard, Dominic Smith from the 2013 draft adds an impact bat, and there are enough live arms that the system doesn’t count as empty, either. I had them ranked 12th pre-season and middle-of-the-pack still seems about right.

This is a solid analysis of the Mets system. I also think they currently rank in the top half, but to enter the top-10 systems in baseball, they’re are going to bring in more bats. Hopefully, Nimmo, Cecchini, and Smith are able to develop into what the organization thinks they can. At least, I’m sure the front office is hoping that.