Any talk centered around Mets pitching prospects almost entirely has been focused on right-handers Jenrry Mejia, the organization’s top prospect, and Matt Harvey, the seventh overall pick last June’s First-Year Player Draft.
But six weeks into the 2011 season, a third right-hander, Jeurys Familia, has forced himself into the conversation because of his eight brilliant starts between High-A St. Lucie and Double-A Binghamton.
The 21-year-old from the Dominican Republic went 1-1 with a 1.49 ERA in six starts for St. Lucie, striking out 36 and walking eight in 36 1/3 innings. Since earning a promotion to Binghamton, he has gone seven innings in his first two starts in Double-A, including throwing seven shutout innings against Trenton, the Yankees’ Double-A affiliate, on Sunday.
“He threw the ball well for me,” said a scout who saw Familia in St. Lucie. “The kid threw strikes, he had velocity. . . . I think he’s going to be OK.”
Familia, who entered the season ranked as the Mets’ 13th best prospect by Baseball America, has shown this kind of promise before. He earned the organization’s pitcher of the year award in 2009, when he went 10-6 with a 2.69 ERA and 1.16 WHIP for Low-A Savannah in the South Atlantic League.
But last season, when he spent the whole year with St. Lucie, Familia went 6-9 with a 5.58 ERA and 1.58 WHIP, and struggled to find the strike zone. After walking 46 batters in 134 innings — an average of just over three walks per nine innings — he walked 74 batters in 121 innings last year, pushing his walks per nine up to five and a half.
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Yankees prospect Andrew Brackman — another right-hander who, like Familia, has struggled with control issues in the past — has seen them resurface this year with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
Brackman, who had walked 76 in 106 2/3 innings with Low-A Charleston in 2009 then walked just 39 in 140 2/3 innings between High-A Tampa and Double-A Trenton last year, already has walked 24 in 35 innings this season. In seven starts for SWB, Brackman is 2-3 with a 6.69 ERA and 1.89 WHIP.
Brackman, a 6-foot-10 right-hander who was the Yankees’ 2007 first-round pick out of North Carolina State, entered the season as the 10th-best prospect in the organization’s farm system, according to Baseball America.
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After bursting onto the scene with a brilliant debut in the Gulf Coast League last summer, Yankees catching prospect Gary Sanchez has struggled with Low-A Charleston in his first full season of professional ball.
Sanchez, ranked as the second-best Yankees prospect by Baseball America before the season began, is hitting .235 with four homers and 21 RBIs for Charleston, after he hit .353 with six homers and 36 RBIs in 31 games in the Gulf Coast League last year. He has begun to turn things around recently, though, hitting .286 (10-for-35) with three homers and 10 RBIs in his last 10 games.