84 rbi's in 2010, 81 in 2011, and on pace to eclipse both of those marks this year. I've noted this in other threads, but I'll say it again: I HATE that he's repeating St. Lucie this year (for the 3rd year in a row). He should have received the edge (for a multitude of reasons) over Marte to start the year in AA. He's already better than Marte at 3rd defensively, and I think this is one of those cases where Depo and Mets brass messed up. If Wilmer is not in Bingo by June, then it will be an absolute travesty, imho.

Come on, you know as well as I do that RBIs are a horrible indicator of future productivity. If you have to look at a player's RBI totals to find something nice to say about him, there probably aren't a lot of nice things to say. I'm not saying that Wilmer is without promise, but I was happy to let him stay at St. Lucie and work on putting up some performance to match the tools.

I have to somewhat disagree, Northway. He's shown a penchant for knocking in runs three years in a row now. But, if more stats are needed to prove my point, here they are:

He hit .300 in 2010 with an OPS of .739 at St Lucie in 277 ab's
He hit .269 in 2011 with an OPS of .689 at St Lucie in 516 ab's
Hitting .316 this year with an OPS of .844.

Additionally, his #'s are better than Marte's all around. How many ab's do they want him to get at St. Lucie? 3000? Jeesh.

Don't these "stats" pretty much prove that a promotion was not warranted? I don't see how you could interpret those any differently.

The fact that he's hitting better early on this year shows progress, certainly, which is why you held him back: to let him actually show competence and a readiness for promotion before he is.

Obviously neither Marte nor Wilmer had really "earned" promotions, but they needed to advance one simply due to playing time issues. They sent Marte to the AFL, a league typically littered with AA guys, and he showed very well. That was probably the tiebreaker. So far, he's made them look smart.

I won't touch the defense comment since I have never really seen either play, but from what I've read, I think your definitive statement of who is the better defender is far too strong. By most accounts, while Wilmer has the better hands, Marte is the much superior athlete.

I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to express this properly, but I think it's a mistake to dismiss stats like RBI and pitching wins as having zero value.

I understand that they're team dependent. Simply put, you can hit the same pitch for a double and if no one's on base, no RBI; you can allow one run and if your team doesn't score, you lose. I get all that.

For that reason, the relative absence of RBI or wins is not reason to dismiss a player.

However, I think when the sample size is large enough, having a good RBI total or double-figure wins in a season is still a positive for the player that has them.

In Wilmer's case, it shows that when runnners are on base to be driven in, he gets hits. That's a plus. We can debate how much of a plus, but it means something, imo.

If RBI's were more important than a strong OPS then where are the big-time middle of the order bats posting .740 OPS's? Well... other than Jason Bay. If Wilmer is so sad at A+ why is he having his best year there to date?

He's off to a nice start this season. Sending him back to the FSL was the right call; I'm sorry, but a .689 OPS last season absolutely didn't warrant a promotion.

Marte was a weird decision but he did hit well in the AFL and there was more room to play in the field at AA; I think the org clearly felt if either could handle an unwarranted jump, it was Marte.

Can Wilmer drive in runs with the bases loaded? If so, bring him up!!!!!!!

See, and I think that the aforementioned stats show that he did warrant a promotion. I know that I don't have all of the new fancy stats to back that up, but a more than respectable average, RBI totals, and a solid OPS (for his age) show that he was ready for the jump.

Coming into this year, he had a combined .280 average in 793 ab's at St Lucie, knocked in 121 runs in 200 games at the same level, and had a respectable combined OPS of .715 for an 18-19 year old SS. I'm also from the school of thought that if he can play SS adequately (which he did), then he can play 3rd. He at least had average range at SS, a solid arm, and decent hands. Marte's error totals have gotten better the last few years, but he's still very shaky defensively (which is why there's talk of moving him to 1st base). Here are his error totals:

http://thebaseballcube.com/players/prof ... efry-Marte

Chico,
That may or may not be the case BUT even if that is true I don't see how RBI's (a counting stat) have more value than OPS and Wilmer put up a very poor OPS last year.

I think he has a penchant for batting third more than a penchant for driving in runs.

Wilmer has demonstrated one skill, so far: not striking out.