The Mets 21st Century 1st Round Picks

2000:

LHP Billy Traber - Loyola Marymount University – Boy, Traber and Keppel… what a way to enter the new millennium. It’s hard for me to think about Traber as a Met since he spent so little time wearing the uniform. He pitched one year for the Mets (2001), splitting time between A+, AA, and AAA, and was traded along with Matt Lawton, Alex Escobar, Earl Snyder, and Jerrod Riggan for Roberto Alomar, Mike Bacsik, and someone named Danny Peoples. He just never made it, banging around with four teams (including the Yankees) and as best as I can figure out, is finally out of baseball this season.

RHP Bobby Keppel - De Smet Jesuit High School – Keppel pitched six seasons in the Mets chain and just never produced the kind of numbers expected of a first round pick He moved on to Kansas City in 2006, played for four organizations, had a couple of cups of coffee, and is now playing in Japan.







2001:

RHP Aaron Heilman - University of Notre Dame – Jesus, I loved this pick. 43-7 in four years at Notre Dame. 425-K in 393.0-IP. 6-5 RHP… what could possibly be wrong with this pick? The Mets dropped down $1.6mil bonus money and Aaron blew through A+, AA, and AAA ball in 2001/2002. He became a member of the Mets rotation in only his third year in the organization and the world was his for the taking. Then came 2003: 2-7, 6.75, 1.84, in 14-G, 13-starts. The Mets sent him back to AAA in 2004 to get his shit together (7-10, 4.33) and basically, his rotation days were over. He pitched four full years in the Mets pen, went on to the Cub to also mop up, and is wallowing in Arizona this year but I still wonder if they gave him 2001-2003 to mature in the system, how great he could have been in the Mets rotation. What a great breaking ball.

3B David Wright - Hickory High School – not want to waste too much time on this one. Maybe turn out to be the best first round pick in the history of the franchise. Sure, he only had 10 home runs last year, and he’s striking out too much this season, but this is David Friggin Wright, the Mets version of Donnie Baseball. Couldn’t have picked a better one.





2002:

LHP Scott Kazmir - Cypress Falls High School – boy, we could do hours on this one, but the amazing thing is one would have to wonder where exactly Kazmir would fit in if he had remained a Met. Let’s face it, trading him at the time he was traded was a big no-no and his lifetime 3.83 ERA would sure have helped out the Mets the past three Septembers. Has he become the superstar he looked like he was becoing in Tampa Bay. No, but he's done a hell of a lot more than the Mets got for him. Good pick, bad deal.



2003:

OF Lastings Milledge - Lakewood Ranch High School – now, here’s a thug I never luved… get it… rap… anyway, the last time I saw this kind of Mets hype was Alex Escobar. Thank God he ran around the field giving high fives to the fans so the team didn’t waste any more time with him. This year, he’s playing full time for the Pirates, hitting .252, with zero home runs.
2004:

RHP Philip Humber - Rice University – boy, this column is getting tough to finish. Another bad pick, but at least we can be happy he was around to finish off the package for Johan Santana. I loved this pick… how can you hate an SP from Rice? He was the third overall pick and he was going to change the makeup of the Mets rotation in 2006. Well, he’s now pitching for the AAA affiliate for Kansas City, and after 10 starts, he’s 4-3, 3.82, with only 37-Ks in 61.1-IP.




2005:

RHP Mike Pelfrey - Wichita State University – another pick I instantly fell in love with, had some doubts a couple of seasons ago, but am thrilled with the end result. Mike is currently pitching all-star baseball and has made the search for an SP2 turn into an SP3. Very few people had a college career like Pelfrey… 33-7 over three years… 366-Ks in 359.1-IP. He scared the hell out of us I spring training this year, but he was just experimenting with some new pitches. The team would be in first place with two more of these.

2006:

no first-round pick

2007:

RHP Eddie Kunz - Oregon State University – sadly, we may never know what this kid was all about. Like Heilman, and so many others before him, the Mets pitching brain trust has turned this pitching prospect into a work in progress that is still going on in Binghamton. Kunz burst on the scene after dominating the pen for OSU for three years and simply became the best closer prospect the team had seen in years, maybe decades. 2008 was magical in Binghamton, going 44-appearances, 27-saves, a 2.79, ERA, and 43-K in 48.1-IP. He also finished an incredible 39 games. The Mets got hard over this, pitched him six games at AAA, and prematurely promoted him to Queens, where he went 13.50 in 4-appearances. His reward? A 2009 in Buffalo as a non-closer, followed this year with… a demotion back to AA ball, this time as a starter. Can you possibly screw with a guy more?

LHP Nathan Vineyard - Woodland High School – I’ll never forget camera day at Grayson Stadium in at Grayson Stadium in 2008. It was the first day the team reported, right after the welcome lunch held in a historic restaurant in the historic part of a historic town. I was standing with the General Manager of the Sand Gnats when Vineyard came out of the locker room with all the other players to have their official photo taken that would represent them throughout the year as an official member of the New York Mets. And there was this 6-2 freak with war paint under his eyes, trailing down to the end of his jaw bones. This was my introduction to the Mets latest bonus baby, to the amount of $657,000, who would pitch a couple of innings that year, go on the IR, sit in the stands behind home plate keeping track of pitches, until he decided to go home and take his bats with him and never be seen again. Embarrassingly, the Mets kept announcing he was just on a leave of absence, but if you live in Georgia, you know you’d never see this yahoo again. This was armed robbery with a fastball as a weapon instead of a gun.

2008:

1B Ike Davis - Arizona State University – no one disliked this pick more than I did and, as it turns out, no one was more wrong. Sure, the jury is still out on this rookie, but it looks like he’s going to be in the Mets lineup for years to come. Also, the Mets can concentrate their 2011 free agent money on another pitcher… and Carl Crawford.

SS Reese Havens - University of South Carolina – if you thought I hated the Davis pick, I really went bonkers over this one. But, the jury is still out here and there are signs this one might work out too. Havens had a miserable season with Brooklyn after being signed (.247, 3-HR, 11-RBI), duplicated the same batting average in 2009 (.247) with St. Lucie, but did show some pop (14-HR, 52-RBI, .422 Slug&%). Well, this year, he’s playing second, started out with Lucy (.281/.369/.509/.878) and is now slugging at .586 for Binghamton. He did cost the team a win last night with two errors, but did you notice the increased slugging percentage each year? We’ll revisit this one in a year, but right now, if he continues to hit this way, this is your 2012 Mets second baseman.

RHP Bradley Holt - University of North Carolina at Wilmington- the third first round pick in 2008 is Holt, who everyone had hoped would pan out as a starter. The problem is he really only has one pitch, which got him through Brooklyn and St. Lucie, but has exposed him in AA-Ball. So far this season, his ERA is 21.21 with runners on, and 30.18 with RISP. Think they got his number? The other side of this is the fact that he has a plus-fastball that would make him a hell of an 8th-inning guy, or closer. His lack of breaking ball and changer was no big secret on draft day and neither have improved enough in almost three years to project him as a future Mets starter. I would watch for him to be converted to a reliever in winter ball.

2009:

no first-round pick