This is the third post in a 10-part series breaking down the Mets and Yankees minor league seasons. Today we’ll discuss the most disappointing pitching prospects in both systems.
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Brad Holt entered 2010 as one of the bright lights in the Mets’ farm system. After a strong first year-and-a-half in professional baseball, including a dominating stint with the New York-Penn League’s Brooklyn Cyclones in 2008 and and an equally impressive one with High-A St. Lucie in the first half of 2009, Holt seemed on the fast track to the major leagues, with an outside shot at cracking the big league rotation sometime in 2011.
But as well as the 2008 supplemental first round pick from UNC-Wilmington had performed before this season, he regressed as much this year. The right-hander went 1-5 with a 10.20 ERA in 10 appearances (nine starts) with Double-A Binghamton, and then was almost as bad (2-9, 7.48) in 14 starts with St. Lucie.
The most alarming thing about Holt’s numbers this year were his walk totals. After walking a combined 46 batters in his first 115.2 innings as a pro, Holt has walked 102 batters in his last 153 innings pitched – including walking 79 batters in 95 innings this year.
Holt’s problems seemed to originate from an ankle injury he suffered shortly after his promotion to Binghamton last year – since the injury, he’s had practically no success.
He will have a chance to redeem himself this fall, however, playing for the Mesa Solar Sox in the Arizona Fall League. In fact, Holt made his debut for the Solar Sox yesterday, starting the opening game yesterday and throwing three scoreless innings.
Despite Holt’s many struggles this season, expect him to start the year pitching for Binghamton again next year. Given that today is his 24th birthday, he still has time, but after his miserable 2010, Holt has plenty left to prove next year.
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Zach McAllister entered the season as the fourth best prospect overall – and the top pitching prospect – in the Yankees system, according to Baseball America. But he pitched so poorly for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes Barre this season, and so many other pitchers in the system had so much sucess in comparison, that McAllister was probably somewhere in the neighborhood of the 10th rated starter in the system when the Yankees dealt him to the Indians for Austin Kearns at the trade deadline.
The right hander’s problem is that he just can’t generate enough swings and misses on pitches. With a fastball that is more often in the high 80s than the low 90s, he needs to be perfect with his command to get people out. And given what he produced in Triple-A, it was clear he wasn’t perfect very often.
McAllister finished his stint with SWB 8-10 with a 5.09 ERA, striking out 88 in 132.2 innings. He went on to fare little better with the Indians’ Triple-A affiliate, going 1-2 with a 6.88 ERA in three starts for the Columbus Clippers.
With the limited number of open spots in the Yankees starting rotation going forward (with spots likely guaranteed for at least CC Sabathia, Phil Hughes, Cliff Lee and A.J. Burnett for the next three years), and with several other pitchers having great seasons this year, McAllister’s struggles undoubtedly made the decision to include him in the Kearns deal an easy one.
tbontemps@nypost.com
