Q&A With Mack - The Mets Draft

CJ said: - The Mets ML payroll for 2010 is approximately $132 million. They spent $4.7 million on draft bonuses. Obviously the team has separate budgets for different components of running the organization. However, when comparing the two numbers, $4.7 million is approximately 3.5% of the team's ML roster payroll. As everyone has heard by now, the Mets spent the 20th most on draft bonuses. What separates the Mets from several of the teams ahead of them, is that they went with a safer player to sign with their first round pick. If they had picked someone like Grandal (sp) or Cox with their pick, the draft bonus would have vaulted them up easily to middle of the pack (I would like to note that I am not advocating that they had taken a more difficult sign in the first round, just that if they had chosen a more difficult sign they would have been right behind the Yankees at 15th). The real difference is being a top 10 spender (again, realizing that some of the teams simply had high first round picks with very large bonuses). However, this still does not excuse the Mets in spending more to get more quality in the system. I am not advocating spending money for the sake of spending money. By drafting guys that are riskier to sign, especially out of the first round, they will likely be drafting higher profile prospects that have dropped because of bonus demands or injury, which could give them immediate depth that can be used in trades; rather than lower bonus guys, that maybe other teams have not heard of that take longer to build value. If the Wilpons see that most fans would tolerate a youth movement and would rather see young developing players than older retreads (not that there are many left on the roster at this point), do you think they would be more willing to spend on the draft? Feel free to toss this if you think it is a bunch of jibberish.

Mack:  I could write for hours on this...

A few things...

1. The main reason... THIS year... that the Mets didn't spend more on the draft was economics... they are having financial problems due to Madoff, the economy, current attendence, and existing contracts.

2. If; however, this was a normal year, the Mets, under the Wilpon's, would still not have spent more. They simply don't believe enough in the draft.

3. It's interesting you brought up C Yasmani Grandal. Believe me, if the Mets didn't care about how much they spend in the draft, and/or were drafting by position need, Grandal would have been their guy (btw... all the experts said he would not sign... he did and he's already on his club's 40-man roster).

4. The Mets have spent big bucks in the past few years on... Mike Pelfrey, Phillip Humber, Stephen Matz, and Mike Harvey. This is less than one pick a year.

5. And, it doesn't matter who the GM or skipper is. If the Wilpons own the team, this is how they operate.