Tag Archives: Erik Goeddel

2010 Mets Draft Class Autographs

Posted by on 8 June 2015 Comments Off on 2010 Mets Draft Class Autographs

Generation TJ?

Full list of 2010 Mets draft picks

Five years after the bulk of Generation K was drafted, the whole bunch was coming up bust. Whatever excitement had been building was gone as each player would miss significant time due to injury before being dealt away for practically nothing. What does that have to do with 2010? As it turns out, the Mets’ 2010 draft class was loaded with stud pitching. And serious injuries. But that’s where the similarities end.

1 Matt Harvey 3 Blake Forsythe 4 Cory Vaughn 5 Matt den Dekker
6 Greg Peavey 7 Jeff Walters 8 Kenneth McDowall 9 Jacob deGrom
10 Akeel Morris 11 Adam Kolarek 24 Erik Goeddel 30 Josh Edgin

Matt Harvey didn’t exactly excite the fanbase when he was drafted number 7 overall in 2010. A high risk/high upside pick, Harvey was coming off a somewhat problematic stint with UNC after being drafted 118th overall out of high school three years earlier. The talent was there, but could he figure out how to use it? Harvey impressed at every level but somehow never attracted much hype in the minors. That all ended in 2012 when Harvey made his MLB debut and quickly became the Mets’ ace. A month into the 2013 season, Harvey was a hobby hero; his autographs commanded $100 due to their high demand and relative scarcity. When he finally signed his 2011 Bowman Platinum autographs two years late, Matt Harvey was one of the biggest sports figures in New York City. And then he broke.

Harvey wasn’t the first pitcher from this draft class to go through Tommy John surgery and he wouldn’t be the last. Just a few months after the draft, 9th round pick Jacob deGrom, a converted shortstop, went under the knife. After missing a year, deGrom followed Harvey’s path through the minors, quietly impressing with even less hype than the fallen ace. As a 2014 without Harvey loomed, deGrom was almost forgotten among a trio of hot young pitchers starting the season in AAA. Scouts gave deGrom high marks, but most people saw the bullpen in his future. When spots in the rotation opened up in mid-May, Jacob deGrom made it clear that he was not destined for a relief role. Matt Harvey returned to the rotation in 2015 sharing the ace role with the 2014 NL Rookie of the Year.

The bullpen had its share of surgeries in this draft class as well. Minor league closer Jeff Walters had Tommy John surgery in 2014 after setting the AA Binghamton saves record in 2013, and then Josh Edgin, a rare bright spot in some awful Mets bullpens, went down in 2015. This opened the door for Erik Goeddel, a 24th round pick due to signability concerns. Four Tommy John surgeries, two top starters, and two relievers who have contributed at the major league level. Not bad. And that’s not counting Akeel Morris, who is still in the low minors, or Greg Peavey, who was lost in the Rule 5 draft. So what about the bats?

The Mets went with three position players after picking Harvey, catcher Blake Forsythe and outfielders Cory Vaughn and Matt den Dekker. Forsythe was dumped off in the beginning of the 2014 season after ominously being assigned to Binghamton without being issued a number. Vaughn was promoted to AAA after being the most ineffective Binghamton outfielder at the plate and looks like he won’t get any further by the time he becomes a minor league free agent. And Matt den Dekker watched Juan Lagares take over as the Mets’ starting center fielder while recovering from a 2013 spring training injury. While he still got a chance to prove himself in 2014, den Dekker would start the 2015 season with the Nationals after being dealt for bullpen help.

Five years later, Generation TJ has already surpassed Generation K with one more arm still developing. The bats never came around, but with these arms, who needs bats? Right, the 2015 Mets…

2015 Mets Card Spring Preview

Posted by on 13 March 2015 Comments Off on 2015 Mets Card Spring Preview

Still short a shortstop but plenty of pinstripes

This is it, the year all of our suffering has been leading to. 2015, the year the Mets will finally win! Or at least that was the plan. With some serious questions and a lot of the expected improvement coming in the form of returning or rebounding players, the 2015 Mets aren’t exactly inspiring confidence beyond maybe being in the hunt for a second Wild Card spot, or at least a winning record. 82 wins or bust!

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2014 Mets Debut Autographs

Posted by on 16 June 2014 Comments Off on 2014 Mets Debut Autographs

The Mets dump the youth movement

A few weeks ago, the fans were clamoring for Juan Lagares and Wilmer Flores to get regular playing time and for the Mets to call up some of their top pitching prospects. Sure enough, Lagares and Flores got into more games and Rafael Montero and Jacob deGrom made back-to-back debut starts against the Yankees. A month later, Lagares is on the DL, Ruben Tejada has seen a resurgence, Montero was sent down to AAA where he hit the DL, and deGrom is still chasing his first big league win despite some outstanding starts. On top of that, a slumping Travis d’Arnaud was sent to AAA, where he is actually doing quite well. So much for the youth movement… While the kids are away, Bobby Abreu has been seeing regular playing time, Daisuke Martsuzaka is back in the starting rotation, journeymen relievers Buddy Carlyle and Dana Eveland were called up from Las Vegas to aid an exhausted bullpen, and Taylor Teagarden took over for d’Arnaud and started his Mets career off with a grand slam, the kiss of death for Mets newcomers. Through all of this, the team, well, has not been good. With no impact prospects looming on the horizon and no money available to bolster the Mets’ meager payroll, there’s not much to be optimistic about. How about them Cyclones?

Curtis Granderson Jose Valverde John Lannan Bartolo Colon
31 March 2014 31 March 2014 31 March 2014 2 April 2014
Chris B. Young Kyle Farnsworth Bobby Abreu Eric Campbell*
2 April 2014 2 April 2014 22 April 2014 10 May 2014
Rafael Montero* Jacob deGrom* Buddy Carlyle Dana Eveland
14 May 2014 15 May 2014 31 May 2014 2 June 2014
Taylor Teagarden Dilson Herrera* Erik Goeddel* Dario Alvarez*
10 June 2014 29 August 2014 1 September 2014 3 September 2014

*MLB Debut

Previous Editions

Age before prospects

The Mets spent freely (relatively speaking) in the offseason and it looked like it paid off with 15 wins in April. Despite Curtis Granderson not hitting, Bartolo Colon occasionally getting shelled, and Chris Young missing more than half of the month due to injury. A week into May, the Mets were 16-17 coming off being swept by the Marlins, so maybe things weren’t working out quite so well after all. Cast-off veterans Jose Valverde, John Lannan, and Kyle Farnsworth were called on to shore up a bullpen left in shambles when Bobby Parnell joined the TJ club, but Lannan has already been sent away and Valverde and Farnsworth won’t be far behind. This team needs some fresh faces, so of course they called up Bobby Abreu, shown here when his face was fresh in 1997. That makes two of this year’s new additions with autograph cards from 1997. Time to give some of the kids in Vegas a shot at the big leagues.

7 July 2013 – Binghamton Mets at New Hampshire Fisher Cats

Posted by on 8 July 2013 Comments Off on 7 July 2013 – Binghamton Mets at New Hampshire Fisher Cats

Dude, where’s my strike zone?

The Fisher Cats brought out the big guns for this game

Coming off a pair of close games and a blowout win, you might expect a decent performance in game 4.  Then again, your SAT prep class may have taught you how to complete this sequence: one-run win, one-run loss, 11-run win, …  Sometimes, life follows predictable patterns.

Box Score

One of the few breaks the B-Mets would catch in this game

Like last night, Daniel Muno started things off with a ground ball to the shortstop.  Unlike last night, the play was made without incident.  Josh Rodriguez managed to beat out the throw for an infield single, but that would be the last Binghamton baserunner until Muno came up again in the third.  Like Rodriguez, Muno would be stranded at first.

Erik Goeddel was never really expected to get this far.  Drafted out of college in the 24th round, Goeddel was a longshot to succeed as a starting pitcher into the high minors.  His performance, while not stellar, has been consistent at each level and has even gotten him a Bowman autograph card (something that Rafael Montero can’t boast, though Reese Havens and Brad Holt can and we’ve seen how they turned out).  If he continues like this though, he could be on a trajectory more like Brad Holt than Rafael Montero.

Tovar knows how to position himself

Goeddel made it through the first two innings without incident, largely due to getting balls put weakly into play, like a pair of pop flies to Wilfredo Tovar in the bottom of the first.  His fastball was steady at 92mph, but his command was erratic from the start.  The Fisher Cats could count on at least three balls in every at bat, a fact they took advantage of with two walks in the bottom of the second.  This continued into the bottom of the third when Goeddel loaded the bases on three more walks for Clint Robinson.  You may remember Robinson from his 3-run home run off Noah Syndergaard that accounted for all of New Hampshire’s scoring in their 14-3 loss.  Nobody was terribly surprised to see him hit a grand slam this time.  Goeddel escaped the inning on two strikeouts and a groundout to Tovar, but things were not looking good.

Allan Dykstra, after going 0-4 with 4 strikeouts the night before, put the B-Mets on the board with a solo shot in the 4th.  Travis Taijeron would do the same in the 7th, with 10 straight outs between them.  While not quite as bad as the 12 straight outs in the previous game, the lack of sustained offense on either end kept the Mets in a big hole.  One that kept getting deeper.

Wilfredo Tovar was removed from the game for unknown reasons in the 4th, with Daniel Muno shifting to shortstop, Josh Rodriguez taking over at second, and Richard Lucas entering the game at third.  Rodriguez’s range to the left was quickly tested by a ground ball he couldn’t get to, but the inning ended without incident.  Two walks in the 5th set up a big rally for the Fisher Cats, with an RBI single chasing Goeddel from the game.  Goeddel’s fastball was still sitting at 92, but he just couldn’t get it into the strike zone.  His 75mph curve had more success, but Goeddel kept going back to the fastball and paid the price.  Ryan Fraser picked up where Goeddel left off with two more hits driving in three more runs and the game starting to get out of hand.

And then the bottom of the 7th happened.  Taijeron’s home run in the top half cut New Hampshire’s lead to a mere 6 runs.  That’s a reasonable amount to negate in one inning, as the Fisher Cats would go on to demonstrate.  Two walks, a HBP, and two home runs was all it took to knock Fraser out of the game.  For the second night in a row, Adam Kolarek was called in for mop-up duty, though this time with a 10-run deficit instead of an 11-run lead.  A single and a home run later, we were back where we started.  Which was an Andy Burns solo home run.  Can’t anyone on this pitching staff give up fewer than 3 runs?

Meanwhile, the B-Mets offense wasn’t quite ready to give up.  A wild pitch followed by a single by Daniel Muno chipped away at the Fisher Cats’ lead in the top of the 8th.  It would all come down to the 9th, but the Mets would need three outs to get there.  The solution would come in the form of a familiar face from years past.

Pedro Feliciano: Arm still attached

Pedro Feliciano wanted the ball day in and day out.  In his days in the majors with the Mets, he set the team’s record for appearances in a season and then set out to break his own record.  He broke himself in the process, as the Yankees found out when they signed him to a two-year contract and gave the Mets a compensation pick that they turned into Michael Fulmer.  Feliciano never pitched for the Yankees; his overuse finally caught up to him once he changed uniforms.  With nothing to lose, the Mets brought Perpetual Pedro back on a minor league deal to see if he had anything left.  What he has is an 83mph offering that isn’t going to miss many bats but can result in outs on balls in play.  Feliciano retired the Fisher Cats in order in the 8th on 10 pitches.

Xorge Carrillo with the final RBI of the night

The Mets wasted little time in the 9th setting things up for a comeback.  Three singles loaded the bases with one out for Xorge Carrillo, who drove in a run with yet another single.  A passed ball on a swinging strike two to Richard Lucas advanced the runners and brought in another run.  Lucas would strike out, leaving it up to Daniel Muno.  With the score 16-5, Muno grounded out to leave the series even at two games and 31 runs apiece.