If Franklin to the Mets, What Pitchers to Root For Coming Back?

== Way Out in Front, But So What … ==

Rumor mill says the quasi-official most likely landing spot for Nick Franklin is the New York Mets.

Reportedly the Mets need a shortstop, and are making a determination as to Franklin’s fitness to fill that spot on a daily basis.

This we know: the Mariners did not clear a path for Franklin to become the next shortstop even though the need was there.

This we don’t know: whether the Mariners did the above because they did not think Franklin could hack it or because Brad Miller came along and they concluded that Miller was more advanced with the glove and the bat.

In the alternate universe in which there is no Brad Miller and Spock has a goatee, is Franklin still playing shortstop every day?  If we only knew …

Guess the Mets want to know too.

===

But let’s just say that Franklin passes the Metropolitan scrutiny, and get shipped to Queens.  Reports are that the Mariners want a high-end pitching prospect back.  That may sound strange, but with Danny Hultzen in semi-permanent limbo, there is a pretty significant gap between the current MLB-ready crop and the “next generation” still in its teens (Luiz Gohara, Victor Sanchez, Tyler Pike, Edwin Diaz, etc.).

So we ran the Mets through the ol’ Spectometer to see who jumped out.  We tried to limit our search to guys older than the Mariner teen crew.  The names that came up are ranked by Spectometer “composite” rating.

Year	Age	Lvl	HR%	BB%	XBH + BB%	ISO	K%	PSA+	Conv+	Comp
		Age Arc	Goal < 1%	Goal < 6%	Goal < 14%	Goal < .100	Goal > 20%	Strong prospect > 100
Logan Taylor	21	“+1”	0.00%	7.20%	12.80%	0.070	28.00%	141	125	166
Steven Matz	22	“+2”	0.98%	8.80%	13.45%	0.082	27.63%	126	122	148
Rafael Montero	22	“-1”	0.97%	5.67%	11.51%	0.091	23.99%	134	112	147
Noah Syndergaard	20	“-2”	2.33%	5.93%	13.14%	0.133	28.18%	135	109	145
Cory Mazzoni	23	“+1”	1.50%	6.74%	13.11%	0.108	26.22%	130	114	144
Luis Cessa	21	“+1”	2.05%	3.54%	10.80%	0.122	23.09%	138	106	144
Gabriel Ynoa	20	“0”	1.66%	2.95%	8.67%	0.105	19.56%	137	106	144
Jack Leathersich	22	“-1”	1.10%	16.54%	21.69%	0.100	37.50%	99	143	142
Michael Fulmer	20	“-1”	0.00%	9.89%	12.64%	0.039	22.53%	112	127	139
Octavio Acosta	22	“+1”	1.52%	6.60%	12.69%	0.106	24.37%	126	111	137
Rainy Lara	22	“+2”	1.17%	4.85%	11.65%	0.101	20.00%	125	105	130
Matthew Bowman	22	“+1”	1.53%	6.70%	13.60%	0.118	22.22%	117	103	120

I promise I picked the names off the spreadsheet based on the numbers and age-arc before consulting any top prospect lists.  I was not familiar with any of them. Happily, the Spectometer concurs with most of said lists.

• Snydergaard is their Taijuan Walker.  No. 1 in both Baseball America and mlb.com ratings.  Just 20, but dominating AA.  Obviously at the very top of the list, and, therefore, probably unattainable.
• Montero is the guy the New York press started speculating about regarding Franklin.  No. 3 in both BA and mlb.com.  Would the M’s swap for another New York prospect named “Montero”?  Considering his excellent season between AA and AAA at 22, maybe.  Notice that he hit the benchmark in every column.
• Leathersich is the only reliever I left on the list, and only because of his mind-blowing strikeout rate as a lefty.  Walks a ton — a really massive ton — but otherwise, wow.  Interesting, anyway.
• Matz was old for his level, but he’s been battling injuries since being drafted in the second round in 2009.  After Syndergaard and Montero, the lefty is the guy Mets watchers seem most excited about.  But one season at Low-A at age 22 isn’t much to go on (though it does coincide with what the scouting reports say about the guy).
• The rest are all interesting, but not top-10-in-the-organization interesting.  And poor Logan Taylor isn’t getting any Met-fan love at all.  Maybe they should take notice.

===

Montero-for-Franklin?  Well, you can’t reject a trade just because the name and the city correspond to a rotten deal in the past.

This Montero is obviously polished and got 16 strong starts in AAA last year after dominating in AA in the first part of the season.

And the Mets are posturing that they won’t give him up for Franklin.  So maybe that indicates it would be a fair deal.

I’m sure from our side, most folks would want more for Franklin than a prospect pitcher, but is his market value going to get more than that?  It probably depends on how good he looks at shortstop, and if it looks like he can hit with more authority right handed (as we’ve been through at length).

We’ll try to look at Met hitters as soon as we can.