The Baseball Prospectus 2017 Annual sums up my excitement and hesitation about Champ Stuart beautifully and succinctly: “Champ Stuart, speed demon from the Bahamas, is perfectly qualified to be the Mets’ Terrance Gore, right down to the inability to hit upper-minors pitching”. Since Champ’s team for the WBC didn’t make it out of qualifiers (Great Britain), we’ll get to see him in the Spring.
His first 71 games in St. Lucie was his best in the minors as he put up a .265/.347/.407 slash line spraying 73 hits, 9 doubles, 6 triples and 6 homers with 25 steals. Then he went to Binghamton and his slash line dropped to .201/.264/.261 with 37 hits, 3 doubles, a triple, 2 homers, 15 steals.
All of last year he was a center fielder, which is what the Mets are going to need down the road as everyone keeps turning into a corner outfielder. Plus, he has speed and the Mets haven’t a consistent speedy person in a few season. If he can step up this year and figure out how to hit in AA, then he’s going to work his way into conversations about future squads. Right now, he seems far away behind outfield competition that is quite complicated.
