Mack’s Morning Report – 2-6-14 – Scouting

Coming Up - 

    11am - Christopher Soto -  MM's Top 25- #23



Derek McKnight asked -

Mack, Have you ever gone over the 25 man roster and those of the division and see where the players are coming from and see if the better teams have better draft picks on their team.

Example, opening day last year the Mets had 2 IFA in Tejada and Valdespin with an average draft position of each player of 12 with four 1st rounders. This year we have eight IFA (I have Mejia as the 5th SP and Tovar as the bench INF), with an average draft position of 10 with six first rounders (Harvey not included this year).

The draft is always a crapshoot, but today's article about finding talent in the 14th round with Flexen got me thinking if teams develop talent better or they are better because they have more 1st round talent on their team.

Thanks

            Mack – Thanks Derek, for a very interesting question.

First, I could spend hours breaking out the amount of draft picks and IFA’s on the other NL-East teams, but there’s no story here. Great teams have great draft picks, great IFA’s, and fill the holes with other great players secured through free agency or trades. It’s the end product that matters and most of the time, it takes trading some of those great draft picks to get what you need.

There are 50 rounds in a draft and most teams would be thrilled to develop three great players from each one. 2009 easily looks like a total bust for the Mets; however, what if Steven Matz (2^nd), Darin Gorski (7^th), and T.J. Chism (32^nd) all make the 25-man someday?

You know I’ve been a draft nut for years and, I have to tell you, I never could identify any plan of action under Omar Minaya. To me, he seemed to have little respect in later years for the process that made his reputation.

That being said, his last Mets draft (2010) may turn out to be a classic for the pitchers picked. Two, Matt Harvey (1^st) and Josh Edgin (30^th), have already had success at the major league level and Greg Peavey (6^th), Jeffrey Walters (7^th), Jake deGrom (9^th), and Adam Kolarek (11^th) could possibly join them as early as this season.

Whether we like it or not, this team is going to have to be built from within and it seems to be going down the right (slow) road.

When it comes to Sandy Alderson (let’s stay with pitching…), 2011 looks like it has delivered five great picks in a row… Michael Fulmer (1^st), Cory Mazzoni (2^nd), Logan Verrett (3^rd), Tyler Pill (4^th), and Jack Leathersich (5^th)… but, IMO, the true talent in a scouting system are the hidden gems (99% of the time at the high school level) you find in the later rounds… like the 21^st round RHP out of Wiregrass Ranch (FL) HS, John Gant (2013: Brooklyn – 6-4, 2.89, 1.13, 20-yrs old).

2012 brought the Mets 12^th round Haines City (FL) HS RHP Robert Whalen and 14^th round Newark Memorial (CA) HS RHP Chris Flexen.

He then wasted little time in 2013, picking Basic (NV) HS RHP Andrew Church in the 2^nd round and Cypress Woods (TX) HS RHP Casey Meisner in the 3^rd.

These are the names you’re going to be reading about for many years to come.

Derek, in my opinion, the secret isn’t having more first round draft picks, but your level of success at that level increases overwhelmingly the more money you put into your scouting system. You simply can’t have enough good baseball heads roaming the country side for great baseball players.

The tough part comes when you’re picking, let’s say 10^th, and players like Michael Gettys, Tyler Beede, and Grant Holmes are still on the board. This is when great baseball operations have already had multiple scouts at a minimum of 10 games all three of these players played in.

There was something that told Alderson last year that Dominic Smith was a better pick than D.J. Peterson, Reese McGuire, or the 1000s of other players that were eligible for the draft.

That same process told Alderson that Church was a better 2^nd round pick than my favorite, Stanford OF Austin Wilson, but, like I always say, what do I know?

Scouting isn’t an exact science, especially at the high school level. The process was close to impossible before the travel teams were expanded.

I’ve spoken about this in the past…

 I ‘scouted’ players (actually, I was a local sports reporter) that played for the Abundant Life Christian Academy, in Hardeeville, South Carolina. They won their level State Championship four years in a row and had two pitchers that hit 90 and produced a .900+ W-L percentage over those years. But here’s the problem… the other teams in this private school ‘white bread’ southern league were simply not competitive to a team whose coach recruited the best home schooled players in the tri-county area. His sources were contacts in the local travel teams who supplied the names of kids that had parents that refused to send their children to the local public schools that were predominantly non-white. Private South Carolina schools allow home schooled ballplayers to play for any school, regardless whether they live in the same county, no less the same zip code.

What was the end result? One pitcher got a free ride at a college upstate and busted out after his freshman year, while the other embarrassed himself at a Perfect Game weekend I talked his father into sending him to. I didn’t do my homework and was enamored by a local family.

Story number two… The Mets Mookie Wilson went to Bamberg Ehrhardt High School, in Bamburg, South Carolina. He was signed by Mets scout Wayne Britton in 1977, who had a long-term professional relationship with B-E’s legendary coach, David Horton.

Scouts retire, but teams never lose their contact list and, in 1992, Mets scout Craig Kornfield signed another player out of B-E… Mookie’s son, Preston.

And the beat just kept on… in 2009, Britton was asked by the Mets if he had anyone else up his sleeve and that conversation resulted in the team drafting Zach Godley (who passed up signing and pitched well at Tennessee.

Stories like this are repeated every year in baseball. Professional teams call coaches they have ‘worked with’ in the past, ask them if they have anybody on their team worth scouting, and also ask them who in their division should be checked out. You learn real early if the coach you are talking to had led you down the right path and you never, never do a thing in  his region again without first placing a call with him and getting his opinion.

That’s where scouting begins.