Zack Wheeler’s elevation to the Mets paved the route to Las Vegas for another highly rated right-handed pitching prospect.
Rafael Montero, sure: In his second start since a permanent promotion to Triple-A, his fourth minor league level in the past 15 months, Montero allowed eight hits and three runs and struck out seven in five innings on Thursday night at Tucson. The 22-year-old Dominican has 91 strikeouts and 13 walks (a 7-1 ratio) in 83 2/3 combined innings this season.
But Jake deGrom also worked a rapid rise to Triple-A this week. Part of the Mets system’s bumper crop of righty arms, deGrom began 2012 at low-A Savannah (with Montero) after missing 2011 recovering from Tommy John surgery. He made two High-A and 10 Double-A starts this year before taking the hill for Vegas on Tuesday, the day before his 25th birthday.
DeGrom was a college shortstop at Stetson until his junior year, meaning he was tardy in acquiring pitching polish when he was drafted in the ninth round in 2010 and is only now facing age-appropriate competition. But with a sinking mid-90s fastball and improving slider, deGrom keeps the ball out of the air (11 homers in 215 minor league innings) and generates fistfuls of groundballs (1.3 groundout/flyout ratio). His Triple-A debut of 5 2/3 innings of one-run ball, even if just a spot start, was part of a rapid learning curve.
* Yankees catcher J.R. Murphy also made the leap to Triple-A recently, cracking two homers in his first seven games.
Perhaps more significantly, No. 3 organizational prospect Gary Sanchez could be primed to take Murphy’s spot at Double-A. The 20-year-old Sanchez was slugging .474 and throwing out 42 percent of opposing basestealers going into the weekend.
* More prospects on the move: Catcher Kevin Plawecki and first baseman Jayce Boyd got midseason calls from the Mets’ affiliate at Low-A Savannah to High-A St. Lucie. Plawecki, a first-round supplemental pick last year out of Purdue, homered in his first at-bat at the next level after posting a .314/.390/.504 slash line at age 22 in the Sally League. Boyd, the 22-year-old 2012 sixth-rounder from Florida State, was batting a robust .361 with 35 walks against 32 strikeouts.
* Not much luck for top Yankees draft picks. While 2012 first-round pick, high school right-hander Ty Hensley, is out for the season following hip surgery, shortstop Cito Culver and third baseman Dante Bichette Jr. — the team’s first selections in 2010 and 2011, respectively — are struggling at Low-A Charleston. Culver had a career-high six homers with a .210 average and 73 strikeouts in 57 games; Bichette Jr. was batting .198 and slugging .281.
Yet, 2009 first-rounder Slade Heathcott was coming around at Double-A and a top Yankees draft pick did make it to the big leagues this month: Gerrit Cole, the 2008 first-rounder who did not sign and went to college, made his debut for the Pirates.