Well, we’ve entered the Top 10 of our mid-season rankings, so things are getting serious…
The traditional scouting scale, which ranks players on a scale of 20-80 (abbreviated at times without the zero), can summarize how we feel about a player in an easy to understand format. Now, for those of you unfamiliar with the scale, you’ll see two numbers — something like 30/60, which isn’t a fraction, but rather a representation of their present status and their potential. The number on the left represents their current standing, while the number on the right shows what they could become. For a further explanation on what the numbers mean, I strongly encourage you to check out these links (Scouting for Batters and Scouting for Pitchers) which I will leave on each post going ahead in this series. With that being said, I really hope you enjoy our work going ahead, and any and all questions and comments are appreciated.
10. Jack Leathersich, LHP
Height: 5’11”
Weight: 205
Age: 23
Bats/Throws: Right/Left
Fastball: 60/60 Curveball: 50/55 Control: 40/50 Makeup: 50/55
There’s no shortage of love for Jack Leathersich around these parts — and it shows in our rankings. Leathersich was ranked at No. 16 during the off-season for a number of reasons, and he demonstrated a lot of them early in this season when he completely owned the Eastern League. He struck out an insane 55 batters in just 29.1 innings, resulting in a 16.9 K/9 rate, which isn’t even his career high. He was still walking a few too many batters for everyone to jump on his bandwagon, but he held hitters to a .181 average to work around that.
At that point, I was adamant about the Mets calling him up to the MLB level instead of promoting him to Triple-A, because I had a bad feeling about what pitching in Las Vegas would do to his habits. And lo and behold, Leathersich, a fly ball pitcher, struggled in the dry air world of the PCL. The same point can be brought up about Rafael Montero, but that’s another story… in any case, Leathersich looked to compensate for everything by being too fine — and has thus returned to walking a lot of batters. Has that dampened my expectations for Leather Rocket? Not at all.
See, he has held his K/9 rate steady at 15.1 in Triple-A, and opposing hitters are still batting only .231 against him. He still has that “funky” delivery, which I just find to be effectively deceptive, and above-average stuff with a good fastball and curveball combo. He has still allowed just five home runs in 127.2 professional innings — and owns a career K/9 rate of 15.3 over that span. If Leathersich can improve on his command and cut down on those walks, he shows the potential to be an MLB closer, and has drawn comparisons to Billy Wagner based on his size. You won’t see me raining on Leathersich’s parade, who I assume will be a September call-up and compete for a spot in the MLB pen in 2014. I know some people are going to be down on Leather Rocket being ranked so high, but the Mets don’t often groom players who could be MLB closers (and left-handed ones at that) and are already so close to the Major Leagues.
MMN Mid-Season Top 25 Prospects
10. Jack Leathersich
11. Kevin Plawecki
12. Rainy Lara
13. Cory Vaughn
14. Gabriel Ynoa
15. Domingo Tapia
16. Steven Matz
17. Jacob deGrom
18. Matthew Bowman
19. Vicente Lupo
20. Hansel Robles
22. L.J. Mazzilli
23.Luis Mateo
24. Amed Rosario
25. Ivan Wilson
(Photo Credit: Gordon Donovan)
I’d like to see Leathersich called up soon. Our bullpen has been possibly our biggest shortcoming this season. There’s a pretty good chance most of the players currently pitching relief for the Mets won’t be back with the team next season. So the Mets should start to bring up some young guys to see if they’re going to factor into our future plans. The White Sox did just that last season and it worked out pretty well for him. I think they had 5 rookies in their bullpen at one point. Sure they only had a middle of the pack bullpen last year, but they got an idea of what they had going forward.
I guess the plan was for Familia & Edgin to be fulltime members of the 2013 pen – then injuries derailed Familia’s season while Edgin has been inconsistent.
Jake DeGrom, Cory Mazzoni, Eric Goeddel, Jack Leathersich, Logan Verrett, Jeff Walters and Chase Huchingson all look like future bullpen pieces that probably will debut within the next calendar year. Of course, DeGrom & Mazzoni may have rotation potential too or could be traded.
As for Leathersich, while he’s a nice prospect, there’s no way he’s currently # 10 in this deep system. He should be in the # 15 to # 20 range but certainly behind pitchers with a much higher upside such as Ynoa, Matz, Tapia or C Kevin Plawecki. Probably the most questionable choice on the entire list, imho.