The minor league regular season is in the home stretch and this seems like a good time to check in and see how big the difference is between Triple-A Las Vegas and the Mets for hitters. It’s always a step up for players going from the minors to the majors and this is even more of an issue with the Mets’ top affiliate playing in one of the most hitter-friendly parks in the minors.

So far, there are 16 hitters who have played for both Las Vegas and New York here in 2013. Listed below are the stats for these players in both places, starting with the Mets.

We see the group as a whole has been underwhelming, which is to be expected given that they played in Triple-A, too. Nearly half of these players started the year with the Mets, meaning their performance in the majors earned them a ticket to the minors. However, we see the group check in with a .281 BABIP, which is not too far off from what we consider normal for MLB hitters. Overall, the group has a .665 OPS while the NL average this year is a .705 mark.

Now, let’s look at what these same hitters did in the minors for Las Vegas:

Player AB H 2B 3B HR BB K HBP SH SF AVG OBP SLG BABIP Mike Baxter 187 54 12 5 7 24 27 4 0 1 .289 .380 .519 .305 Andrew Brown 153 53 15 6 7 23 34 4 0 5 .346 .432 .660 .393 Collin Cowgill 123 33 6 0 5 17 25 2 3 0 .268 .366 .439 .301 Travis d’Arnaud 56 17 8 0 2 21 12 0 0 1 .304 .487 .554 .349 Ike Davis 75 22 7 0 7 17 18 0 0 0 .293 .424 .667 .300 Matt den Dekker 179 54 8 4 6 20 46 1 0 2 .302 .371 .492 .372 Lucas Duda 62 19 3 0 0 14 15 0 0 2 .306 .423 .355 .388 Wilmer Flores 424 136 36 4 15 25 63 3 3 8 .321 .357 .531 .342 Juan Lagares 78 27 3 2 3 4 14 0 0 0 .346 .378 .551 .393 Zach Lutz 399 117 27 4 13 54 102 4 2 7 .293 .377 .479 .357 Kirk Nieuwenhuis 282 70 15 2 14 40 78 2 5 1 .248 .345 .465 .293 Omar Quintanilla 126 42 9 2 2 20 25 0 0 2 .333 .419 .484 .396 Anthony Recker 10 4 0 1 1 2 2 0 0 0 .400 .500 .900 .429 Josh Satin 220 67 14 0 9 43 45 1 0 0 .305 .420 .491 .349 Ruben Tejada 240 69 14 1 2 14 30 6 5 4 .288 .337 .379 .316 Jordany Valdespin 58 27 4 2 3 8 7 1 0 0 .466 .537 .759 .500 2485 757 169 28 89 322 516 24 18 32 .305 .385 .503 .349

This same group posted an .888 OPS with a .349 BABIP in Las Vegas. The two groups both have 2,500+ PA, a reasonably good sample size to make some initial judgments. This is by no means definitive but it does provide some good “back of the envelope” calculations.

We see that the group lost 26% from their AVG, 19% from their OBP and 30% from their slugging in moving from Las Vegas to New York. Their OPS took a 25% hit while their BABIP dropped 19%

Looking at these two charts helps put some things in perspective, perhaps nothing more so than the year turned in by Flores. What on first glance seems like an excellent year for the longtime Mets prospect was exactly average for guys who played for both teams.

Flores is certainly young enough to continue building on his 2013 season but he’s not at the point yet where he should be considered ready to make an impact at the major league level.

Perhaps the biggest surprise is the performance of Satin. He went from an average BABIP and a slightly elevated OPS for the group in Las Vegas to the best OPS in the majors. However, that .841 OPS was produced with a .406 BABIP, 125 points above the group’s average in the majors. Satin has 162 PA with the Mets compared to 264 PA in the minors.

The hope is that a handful of these players – d’Arnaud, Lagares, Satin – establish themselves as major leaguers and do not spend any time in Las Vegas in 2014. Of course, few imagined that in 2013 Davis, Duda and Tejada would all be on this list, so there are no guarantees.

But now we have some “rule of thumb” numbers on how much air to remove from the stats of hitters in Las Vegas. As Satin shows us, these are not going to be anywhere near perfect. But these numbers project a .462 SLG for Brown and he has turned in a .445 mark so far. They forecast a .238 AVG and a .289 OBP for Flores and he’s produced .229/.276 to date in the majors. So there are success stories, as well.

There are always going to be flukes and outliers in both directions. Hopefully these numbers can help us identify which players to include in these categories and aid in making better projections for 2014 performances.

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