After the Savannah Sand Gnats clinched the Low-A South Atlantic League’s first-half title Tuesday night, the Mets have begun to promote prospects off of that team to High-A St. Lucie. Today marked the beginning of those promotions, with infielder Robbie Shields and closer Josh Edgin being the beneficiaries.
Both players were scheduled to play in next week’s SAL All-Star Game in Hagerstown, Md. after strong first-halves for both players. Shields hit .274 with two homers, 26 RBIs and nine stolen bases in 60 games for Savannah. Shields, a 23-year-old who also had a .354 on-base percentage and .425 slugging percentage, was ranked as the 20th-best prospect entering the season in the Mets farm system by Baseball America.
Shields had struggled for the first year-and-a-half of his professional career following the Mets taking him with their third-round pick in 2009 out of Division II Florida Southern. Shields had Tommy John surgery following the 2009 season, when he hit .178 in 44 games for the Brooklyn Cyclones. Shields then missed a large portion of last season before he hit .290 with five homers and 26 RBIs in 39 games with Low-A Savannah at the end of the year.
Edgin entered the season outside of the top 30 prospects in the Mets system by Baseball America, but was ranked by the publication as the farm system’s fifth-best left-handed reliever. But the 30th round pick in last year’s draft out of Francis Marion University, was dominant with Savannah, going 1-0 with a 0.87 ERA and 16 saves in 31 innings. He also struck out 41 batters and walked 10.
As always, when players begin to get promoted in the minors, it leads to questions about what will happen to players throughout the farm system. The first team to be affected was the Brooklyn Cyclones, who lost infielder Jet Butler to Savannah. But the real question will involve one of the Mets’ top prospects, Wilmer Flores. Flores has been playing shortstop all season for St. Lucie, but isn’t expected to stay there long-term. Is he going to continue to play there now that Shields is on the roster?
More likely, however, is that Shields will replace Rylan Sandoval at second base for St. Lucie, since Sandoval has hit .175 in 46 games for St. Lucie this season. Shields also is expected to eventually need to switch to second, anyway, so that move would make sense on multiple levels.
Now that Savannah has begun to see players promoted to St. Lucie, I’d expect several other players, including outfielder Cory Vaughn and right-handers Greg Peavey and Erik Goeddel to follow them in the coming days.
It also is a sign that the Mets’ top prospect, right-hander Matt Harvey, who went five innings in St. Lucie’s win Monday, will soon be promoted from St. Lucie to Double-A Binghamton. With the Florida State League’s first half set to end tomorrow, and with Harvey having started Monday, unless the Mets want him to pitch in Saturday’s Florida State League All-Star Game, he could make his next start with Binghamton as soon as this weekend.
tbontemps@nypost.com