The Mets drafted 4 players total in the Rule 5 draft during the winter meetings, including three players in the minor league round. One of those players, Braxton Lee, should sound familiar to you if you watched the Mets last year. He made his major league debut for the Marins and played in 8 games where he got 18 PA’s and hit .176/.222/.176 including three games and 8 PA’s against the Mets where he he had 1 hit. It was his most PA’s against any one club last year.
Across three levels for the Marlins’ minor league system last year, he hit .233/.316/.294. In his minor league career he has slashed a .265/.338/.317. Important wrinkle in his stats: he is not one of those players whose stats have mostly improved or mostly recessed at each level. He hit only .209/.269/.256 in 2016 and then the next year hit .309/.395/.384.
Coming into last season, Baseball America had him ranked as the Marlins #21 best prospect with a 40 ranking, but only medium risk (only four players out of the 30 on the Mets prospect list received a risk rating that low). Baseball America notes that he focuses on contact first with with his swing, and is more valuable defensively than anywhere else (a good arm and is speedy, but also apparently can’t run the bases particularly well).
Braxton Lee makes perfect sense for the Mets because they are desperate for outfield depth but have too many outfielders of similar offensive capability to provide consistent playing time for an up can coming outfield bat. Furthermore. The Mets, especially when Cespedes comes back, don’t yell outfield defense is our cornerstone. The more frequent injuries to Juan Lagares and the Mets trying to make three corner outfielders play in a game built for two beg for someone like Braxton Lee.
The Mets missed out on Billy Hamilton to round out the outfield bench. Braxton Lee could make an excellent, value type player on the bench to tighten up the end of game defense. He is sure to get a lot of looks in Spring Training.
