Fletcher Bates

Fletcher Shannon Bates

• Bats Both, Throws Right
• Height 6' 1", Weight 190 lb.
• High School New Hanover High School

• Born March 24, 1974 in Wilmington, NC USA

BR Minors page

Biographical Information

Outfielder Fletcher Bates played in the minor leagues from 1994 to 2003, reaching AAA towards the end of that run. He was drafted by the New York Mets in the 5th round of the 1993 amateur draft, out of a high school in Wilmington, NC and played in the Mets system from 1994 to 1997. He showed some good power at a young age, with 15 homers, to go along with 21 doubles and 13 triples, in 132 games with the Capital City Bombers of the South Atlantic League in 1996. He followed that in 1997 by hitting .279 with 33 doubles, 13 triples and 23 homers in 138 games split between the St. Lucie Mets of the Florida State League and the Binghamton Mets of the Eastern League.

He may thus have been slightly old at 23 but was a genuine prospect when he was included in one of the infamous series of trades that the World Champion Florida Marlins distastefully pulled off after winning the 1997 World Series, dismantling a great team in a fire sale before the champagne had time to dry. In his case, he went to Florida with P Scott Comer in return for reliable reliever Dennis Cook and like most of the youngsters acquired at that time - with a couple of notable exceptions - he failed to do anything in the majors. He spent the next two seasons, 1998 and 1999 with the Marlins' A affiliate at the time, the Portland Sea Dogs of the Eastern League, hitting a solid .274 with 11 homers and 60 RBIs in 140 games the first year, and .253 with 9 homers and 59 RBIs in 139 games the second. The parent Marlins were losing around 100 games both years, so it's not as if there wouldn't have been an opportunity to see if he could progress beyond AA during that two-year stretch, but he was stalled there for some reason even though he was on the team's 40-man roster the whole time. In 2000, he moved to the Arizona Diamondbacks, who still kept him in AA, this time with the El Paso Diablos of the Texas League, where he had another good year, hitting .276 in 109 games, with 26 doubles, with 24 doubles, 10 homers and 62 RBIs.

By then, he was becoming a nomadic career minor leaguer, moving from organization to organization every year and hitting well wherever he was plugged in, but without ever being considered as someone who could help out at the big league level. He was briefly in the Philadelphia Phillies system in 2001 before returning to the Mets, who had him spent the bulk of the season back in the FSL with St. Lucie, where he had been very good four years earlier. This time around, he hit .247 in 82 games, but still displayed good power with 18 doubles and 11 homers. In 2002, he was now a backup, but finally got to AAA, splitting the year between Binghamton, another one of the places where he had stopped when he was still considered up-and-coming, and the Norfolk Tides of the International League. He could still hit, finishing at .272 in 93 games, with 8 homers and 41 RBIs. In 2003, he was again in AA and AAA, although this time in the Baltimore Orioles system, with the two teams being the Bowie BaySox in the Eastern League and the Ottawa Lynx in the International League. He hit .228 in 47 games with only 1 home run and saw his career come to an end.

Following his playing career, he became an associate scout with the Mets while also founding Coastal Athletics in 2003, a baseball school in his hometown of Wilmington.