Dawgs in the Minors

[Drebin]

Cole Gordon is your AA Northeast League Pitcher of the Month. His stats for the month of August:

26 IP, 8 H, 0 ER, 5 BB, 30 K

 

[PineGroveBully]

Not bad for a guy that nearly gave up baseball and was about to take a real job before coming back for a final year.

 

[engie]

Who remembers when half the board was freaking out about Mangum's early struggles as he changed his approach for a little more pop?

Now in AA Northeast league(essentially 1/3 of overall AA):

7th AVG
24th OBP
21st SLG
23rd OPS
29th in Isolated Power

7 bombs, 39RBI in 72 games. 15 walks to 54 K's in 292 ABs. Only 14K's in July in 81ABs and 12K's in August in 86 ABs.

Seems he's made the adjustment to get a little more pop right on schedule....

 

[Drebin]

Who remembers when half the board was freaking out about Mangum's early struggles as he changed his approach for a little more pop?

Now in AA Northeast league(essentially 1/3 of overall AA):

7th AVG
24th OBP
21st SLG
23rd OPS
29th in Isolated Power

7 bombs, 39RBI in 72 games. 15 walks to 54 K's in 292 ABs. Only 14K's in July in 81ABs and 12K's in August in 86 ABs.

Seems he's made the adjustment to get a little more pop right on schedule....

I was wrong about Mangum to this point, and the Mets traded away a prospect that had him blocked, too. Let's see if he shows up on the organizations top ten list next year....he's still fighting an uphill battle.

 

[patdog]

I'm not sure we were wrong at all. Like you say, he's still fighting an uphill battle. I think it's great he's doing so well in AA ball, and if anyone can overcome the odds, it's him. But the odds still aren't good he'll be a major league player.

 

[archdog]

Hell he had a job lined up with only a month left in his last season. Then he found something and took FSU's heart out of their collective chests by being a bad *** and covering for us when we needed the innings.

 

[Drebin]

I'm not sure we were wrong at all. Like you say, he's still fighting an uphill battle. I think it's great he's doing so well in AA ball, and if anyone can overcome the odds, it's him. But the odds still aren't good he'll be a major league player.

I just didn't think he would develop the pop he needed to overcome his low OBP, and he's done that for a larger sample size than just a hot streak, so I was wrong about that. I also didn't think he'd ever make it past AA. Now, I think there's at least a chance he starts the year in AAA next year given his age. I still think he's a longshot to get more than a cup of coffee in the show, but he's exceeded my expectations, and more power to him. As I said then and will say aGAIN, I'm rooting for him.

 

[DAWG61]

Cole is one of my favorite baseball Dawgs of the last decade. The turn around he had from a total melter to his final season was really impressive.

 

[Go Budaw]

I'm not sure we were wrong at all. Like you say, he's still fighting an uphill battle. I think it's great he's doing so well in AA ball, and if anyone can overcome the odds, it's him. But the odds still aren't good he'll be a major league player.

His odds are still no better or worse than other people in his age / draft demographic. The narrative was he was only drafted where he was because he was cheap, and that talent wise he was more like a 15th-20th round pick. That’s been proven false. It’s not very often that 15th-20th rounders hit .295 with an .800 OPS at the AA level in their first full season of minor league baseball.

 

[Mafiadawg]

Who the hell isn’t fighting an up hill battle, or whatever the hell that is, to make the MLB.

 

[DawgatAuburn]

Let's see if he shows up on the organizations top ten list next year.

That seems unlikely. He did show up as their 25th ranked prospect per the the MLB.com rankings in 2019. Then he was unranked last year and unranked again this year after the update from a few weeks ago (after they traded Pete Crow-Armstrong). He also doesn't appear at all in the Fangraphs top 30 rankings for the Mets in any of the last three years. So top 10 seems like an extremely remote possibility. He will be 26 next March. The clock is ticking.

 

[Drebin]

That seems unlikely. He did show up as their 25th ranked prospect per the the MLB.com rankings in 2019. Then he was unranked last year and unranked again this year after the update from a few weeks ago (after they traded Pete Crow-Armstrong). He also doesn't appear at all in the Fangraphs top 30 rankings for the Mets in any of the last three years. So top 10 seems like an extremely remote possibility. He will be 26 next March. The clock is ticking.

Yes, all those things are true and at the heart of why I've been downplaying the likeliness of him ever making it. He's opened a few eyes in AA this year, though, which is what he needs to do.

 

[patdog]

There’s no question one reason they drafted him when they did was that he would go cheap. They spent $2M over slot value on their top 3 picks & had to make that up.

 

[Go Budaw]

There’s no question one reason they drafted him when they did was that he would go cheap. They spent $2M over slot value on their top 3 picks & had to make that up.

Yes, but going cheap and drafting a talented player are not mutually exclusive things. They still chose him over every other college senior in the draft except one. Those first seniors off the board typically have much better talent profiles than mid-round guys.

His signing cost was a factor. It was far from the only factor, or the biggest factor.

 

[engie]

I just think it’s pretty obvious he’s not at his ceiling yet as a player. Even crazier to try to define his ceiling now than it was before, when he was essentially the same guy for about 5 years and there was logical concerns. He had to make a big adjustment at the plate to have a chance at the next level that started him out really slow, but he’s grown into the same guy as he was before with an acceptable amount of big league pop now.

 

[patdog]

No question he was the most talented player in that price range available, at least in the Mets evaluation. There may have been more talented players available that the Mets knew they couldn't afford to draft.