As I hinted yesterday, Cesar Puello has earned the honor of being named MMN Player of the Week today! The current Eastern League Player of the Week just destroyed all opposing pitchers that he faced.
The outfielder hit .500 in 24 at-bats last week, slugging five home runs, two doubles, and collecting 13 RBIs. This past week included one multi-homer game, six multi-hit games, and four multi-RBI games. Needless to say, whatever was thrown over the plate, he crushed it.
I’ve already mentioned this, but it’s worthy to note Puello currently resides in the top-10 of Eastern League hitters in six different offensive categories (batting average, OBP, Slug%, home runs, RBIs, stolen bases).
Puello has been with the Mets organization since 2008, when he played rookie ball for the Gulf Coast Mets as a 17-year-old. He showed his raw talent at the plate, in the field, and on the base paths there, and also with Kingsport and Savannah over the next three seasons. His solid play earned him the honor of being named MLB’s 77th highest prospect by Baseball America prior to the 2011 season. He fell off the radar a bit over the next two seasons in Advanced-A with the St. Lucie Mets, but he’s back to turning heads as a 22-year-old with the B-Mets.
His ability to hit for average, power, and show above average speed has scouts saying this is the type of player they envisioned the outfielder turning into.
Sandy Alderson mentioned Puello during his interview with Mike Francesa on WFAN yesterday:
He’s very young…he’s always been a five-tool guy, a five-tool projection, but not necessarily five-tool performance. This year he’s put it all together and has been phenomenal over the last couple of weeks. Now he’s on the roster. We put him on the roster last year because we wanted to protect those five tools.
As Sandy said, Puello is on the 40-man roster. Alderson also stated he wouldn’t be opposed to bypassing Triple-A and promoting players from Double-A straight to the majors. Outside of Puello, a guy like Jack Leathersich comes to mind, as well.
If Cesar continues to hit, we could be seeing him making landfall in Flushing a little sooner than we are all anticipating, as long as he doesn’t eventually get suspended from the Biogensis scandal.
Congratulations on getting two awards this week, Cesar! As long as he keeps doing what he’s doing, he’ll be collecting many more of these honors in the near future.
(photo courtesy of Gordon Donovan)
Matt, Joe D and I had a disagreement on the mother ship about where Puello is or will be considered on the list of Mets prospects and how he might be viewed around the league.
Seems to me this was a guy who was a top 10 prospect at a very young age, had a down year and is now absolutely raking, with power, still at a very young age. Am I crazy to think that without the cloud hanging over his head he’d be a top 7 guy? Maybe top 5? And again, absent the cloud, wouldn’t he be exactly the guy the Marlins would want included (with arms) in a package for Stanton?
Judging by what he’s been doing this season, I think he should be in the top-10 conversation for sure. The combination of his age and production have gone off the charts in AA. I’m not sure if the Marlins would bite with him in a package for Stanton (without the cloud), only because they would want to go for it all with the best prospects the Mets have.
Thanks Matt. I guess I’m surprised Puello isn’t one of the best at this point. Combination of age, skills and power.
Quite frankly, I’d like to see what he can do in NYC so keeping isn’t a bad result.