Back in January of this year, I wrote a segment about Jon Niese, who at the time was getting little attention. A few magazines were listing him in the Mets top 10, but he wasn't being talked about a lot. Now after this week, and as it starts to become clear that the Mets might need a number 5 starter, and people are looking at the young pitcher. Jon Niese, 21, could be making the next big step soon to the major leagues. Back when I wrote that article, I didn't think we would be seeing Niese at all at Shea, and that we would be waiting at least to 2010. Niese throws strikes and strikes out a lot but his ERA was not showing his true effectiveness last year. In the Minors up to that point, he had a 4.05 ERA.

Niese has been in Binghamton most of this year, and was recently moved up to AAA. In AA, he had a 6-7 record over 124.1 innings pitched. He posted a 3.04 ERA, 44 BB and then an amazing 112 K's. That drop in ERA and that split between his BB and his K's show that the has matured a lot this year. He has had one start so far in AAA where he got the win allowing one run over 7 innings. He had 2 walks and 7 K's.

In case you were wondering, the Mets drafted Niese in the 7th round of the 2005 draft.