ESPN's Adam Rubin reports that the Mets have optioned Jenrry Mejia to Double-A Binghamton, where he will make the transition back into a starting pitcher.
Mejia, still just 20 years old, worked exclusively as a starter across two minor league levels last season, posting a 3.14 ERA in 94.2 innings (19 starts) and notching an 8.7 K/9 to go along with a 3.7 BB/9. So far, pitching out of the New York bullpen in 2010, he's held his own, though he hasn't pitched quite as well as his 3.25 ERA following today's game suggests. He's allowed 15 free passes in just 27.2 innings of work, while striking out 17.
Much has been made of the Mets' starting pitching woes. After receiving next to nothing from the combination of Oliver Perez and John Maine, they've turned to Hisanori Takahashi and R.A. Dickey, both of whom have excelled to this point in their respective rotation roles. However, it's likely a tall order to expect those trends to continue.
Mejia certainly has the makings of a successful major league starter. Baseball America ranked him as the Mets' top prospect coming into the 2010 season, and ranked him as the #56 prospect in all of baseball. So far this season, he's averaged 95.1mph on his fastball, and has a 66.7% ground-ball rate.
Those numbers mesh with this report from Baseball America's Ben Badler last November, stating that Mejia routinely sat in the mid-90's with a fastball that he could both cut and sink. That same pitch helped him induce grounders on 71% of his outs on balls in play during the 2009 minor league season.
We've heard the Mets mentioned in connection with available starters such as Roy Oswalt and Cliff Lee, but stretching out Mejia gives them added depth in the event that their current starters falter, or Omar Minaya is unable to facilitate a trade.
I doubt Mejia will be up for the rest of the season, unless he somehow makes a smooth transition back to starting and dominates AA and AAA; I just don’t see it happening that easily. He’ll probably be a factor in next year’s rotation.
Agreed, he was up as a reliever and performed to: 4.93 FIP, with only a 5.4 K/9 and a 5.06 BB/9.
Those aren’t good numbers for a reliever, he needs more than 2 months to work on his pitching. Let the kid develop, like they should have to start the season.
Better [3 months] late than never.
Hey, look at Omar making a smart move in the best interests of the team rather than a panic move to keep his job.
Well with the recent win streak hes unlikely to be fired.
the win streak is great but then you need to adapt to keep winning. everyone predicted the mets wouldnt be this good, but obviously they have a good team. moves like this might be what they need to get better, maybe mejia comes back late august as a starter and helps the team make a push, his stuff is great and he should be a starter for sure, unless he becomes the closer in the future.
You mean he can actually start working on his secondary pitches finally? Amazing.
What a brilliant idea. Why didn’t everyone else think of this first and tell them for months they were insanely stupid for not doing itOh