We continue our look at how the 2019 Mets Baseball America Mets prospects today with #29, William Lugo, a third basemen from the Dominican Republic. Baseball America gave him a 50 grade with an extreme risk (by far the most common grading in the Mets farm system). Lugo was signed in 2018 partially due to the additional international pool money that the Mets received in the Jeurys Familia trade.
In last year’s Prospect book, Baseball America talked about Lugo’s “aggressive, confident swing” and boasted about his plate discipline overall. Before the 2019 season, he had already started to fill in his 6′ 3″ and BA sees him as a third basemen with plus power who may be able to starve off the inevitable switch to first base that happens so often. They speculated if he would bypass the DOSL in 2019 and go straight to America.
And they ended up being correct!
William Lugo played with the Gulf Coast Mets last year at the age of 17, 2.5 years below the league average.
2019 Stats: 176 PA, 146 AB, 6 2B, HR, .158/.280/.219, .499 OPS
He didn’t do great, but he played in a fairly advanced league for his age and if he was killing the Gulf Coast league we probably would all already know his name by now. This should be discouraging, but rather an introduction to an interesting prospect who is young, 18, next year. We’ll be keeping tabs on him!
