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Player Watch
#17: Help Wright Away
by Jonathan Leshanski
July 27, 2004
It’s not very often that I believe all of
the hype but sometimes as a fan you really hope that everything
that you have heard is true. This last week I went in person to
look at some prospects that have been billed as can’t miss
ballplayers that are playing in Triple A.
Obviously from looking at the title of this piece one of the players
that I went to check out was New York Mets’ uberprospect,
third baseman, David Wright. The others belonged
to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays who have a farm system that is just
loaded with talent. Since Tampa is not a serious contender even
for the Wild Card I don’t see them trading away many of these
young players this season but rather stockpiling these players for
the future when the team seems to be more of a contender. In any
case they have a good group of players who will be getting at least
a cup of coffee in the bigs in the very near future – including
shortstop B. J. Upton and outfielder Johnny
Gomes.
With that in mind I headed to Norfolk, Virginia and Harbor Stadium
to watch the Durham Bulls (Tampa Bay’s AAA affiliate) match
up with the Mets’ top-level farm team the Norfolk Tides on
Monday and Tuesday last week. Norfolk took both of the games that
I saw and on the field they had the better play but it wasn’t
the final score that I was looking at. What I was looking at were
the players who will be the next generation of Major Leaguers.
The first of these was David Wright, who was called
up just a few days ago and was expected to be at Shea in time for
the game against the Expos. Up until recently David was cutting
a swathe through the minors and even at AAA he hit over .300 in
his first few weeks. However he has struggled a bit against AAA
pitching and I wonder if he might be overmatched at this point in
the Majors.
While Wright had a rough time with the bat during the series with
Durham, going just 1 for 10 with a single RBI, his glove work was
mostly superb as he made plays time and time again that current
Mets third baseman Ty Wigginton would have struggled making. That
doesn’t mean he’s a gold glove caliber player yet -
he did make an error while I watched.
Is he ready for the big leagues? Probably not. In keeper leagues
he’s almost certainly worth stashing away but his value is
probably more than a year down the road.
On the Tampa front the team is loaded with exciting
young players who are just not ready for full time major league
jobs. The most hyped of these is B.J. Upton a dynamic
shortstop who played with David Wright in high school and he reminds
me a bit of Miguel Tejada, with his power and quickness with the
bat. He also struggled a bit over this two game set managing only
a single hit in Durham’s losses. He’ll be a definite
keeper for the future and looks a lot better to me than most shortstop
prospects that I have seen - and both Tampa and the scouts seem
to think he’s something special too.
However the player that I was most impressed with was outfielder
Johnny Gomes. Gomes has good power, covers the
field adequately and seems to be learning how to hit for average,
which is a good thing since he’d project to be about a .200
hitter if he were to be called up today (based on the MLE system).
Since Tampa’s outfield is so full he could be trade bait if
Tampa were to decide to make some moves but I suspect that he’ll
stay in AAA and the get a little more seasoning (not to mention
save the team a little money) until 2005. He’s worth a flier
in for next year but should be a locked in player for 2006.
While the players in Tampa may need to wait, the Mets believe themselves
to be serious contenders now and that means it’s the ‘Wright’
time for the Mets to see what David has to offer. I don’t
expect a rookie of the year campaign and I think those expecting
Wright to be the savior of the New York Mets are likely to be disappointed,
but he’ll be more than adequate defensively if the team manages
to swing a deal that moves Ty Wigginton either to another team or
to first base. He has the hitting background to be a successful
Major leaguer though fantasy players probably will not be well served
by him this season but would do well to keep an eye on him down
the road.
For a more indepth look at David Wright click
here!
Jonathan can be reached with comments/questions or suggestions
at: jonathan@athomeplate.com
or leave some feedback in the forums
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