Tom Brennan - OTHER VIEWS ON METS DRAFTING
I recently did a nine part series on Mets' brain-trust's drafting effectiveness from 2008-17, analyzing each draft's first 10 round Mets picks.
Admittedly, the Mets, like virtually every team, have had some impact picks.
But my overall conclusion was that there were too many low power bats and low power arms drafted, and those will have real difficulty making the majors, much less getting to the bigs and also having a real impact once there.
But forget me for a second, OK (Mack would sure like to!), and consider: what do others have to say about it?
Jeff Sullivan of FanGraphs wrote a fine article entitled How Teams Have Drafted This Millennium right around the time of this June's draft from a very different perspective, looking statistically at how many players drafted by each team have made the majors, and secondly, what the collective Wins Above Replacement (WAR) have been for each of the teams - since 2000.
Those results were presented by Jeff in two bar charts.
The Mets, not surprisingly, ranked 21st in number of players to reach the bigs, with around 66 players (average of 71, with the Giants way up there at 95, San Diego at 93, and the Cards at 92). (A little hard to read the bar chart, so it looked like 66 players from Mets drafts to me).
In aggregate WAR, the Mets rank 20th, with a WAR of around 200, while the average WAR is 10% higher at 222 and while Boston crushed the field with a WAR of 346.
Arizona, the Nationals, and the Braves were all near or slightly over 300 WAR. Of course, please remember that FanGraphs Sullivan rankings exclude international signings.
As an interesting side note, who signed Cuban star Yoan Moncada? The team that already had the highest (by far) aggregate draft WAR, the Red Sox, an organization that shows in many ways that it truly gets it.
It's all about winning, baby.
Given the Mets' 27th ranking by Baseball America as to the state of their current farm system (inclusive of both drafted and internationally signed players), one would think those FanGraphs draft rankings, if updated by Mr. Sullivan in a few years, would diminish further for the hometown Metsies as the next few years progress. Do I hear 25 ranked over 20 years, anyone?
It reinforces for me a few conclusions:
First, the Mets over a long period of time have drafted in significantly below average fashion. 10% below average over a decade and a half, and much lower compared to the top tier drafting teams, is truly significant. As in substandard.
And secondly, the below average aggregate WAR (far below the top handful of teams) supports my case that the Mets don't draft enough potentially impactful players.
Look around the majors: who are the most impactful players? Those, by and large, with power bats and power arms. And those perhaps without power bats, but who when selected are high on base, high speed Jose Reyes-type players.
My formula for future long term draft success?
Don't draft guys not in the power category in your top 10 rounds. Over time, you will almost have to rise in the team comparison rankings with that power-emphasizing approach.
If you'd like to read Jeff's article, here's the link:
Using my hypothetical scenario from the last article on this topic, how do you allocate responsibility?
ReplyDeleteI'll repeat it then: if the process is that scouts evaluate to the head scout, who makes his opinion the GM and assistants, then the GM makes the final call, there's a lot of input. My opinion (correct me if I am wrong here) is that the GM has not seen more than a few, if any, of the players in person.
If the hundreds of players scouted are graded in multiple categories (power, speed, OBP, etc), how much should the GM accept consensus, and how much should he overrule it?
Should he instruct his advisors to rank the skills he prefers over the others in their ratings?
If this is the process, then which way should the GM go? Given the ranking in number of players reaching the majors, how do you point the fingers? Do most of the scouts need to be replaced? The head scout? The Assistant GM in charge of the scouting dept? If you were Sandy, what would you change?
Bill, those are all good questions to be asked, and ones the Mets should be asking themselves in earnest.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I absolutely agree the GM should instruct his advisors to rank the skills he prefers over the others in their ratings - and in my view, truly emphasize power arms and power bats as being essential in the first 10 rounds, and save the filler bats and arms for later rounds.
Otherwise, you increase the team's chances of having a dearth of developed power bats and needing to go out and sign a very expensive Cespedes type player, or running out of high power quality pen arms and having to go with the shakier candidates available or spend big bucks to go out and acquire power arms.
Any boss knows that you are as good as the people you hire.
ReplyDeleteThe Mets have a lousy scouting department. This is not just draft, it is "draft and development."
Right now the failures run throughout the organization.
A massive failure by Sandy, who has has seven full years here to bring the Mets system to #27 according to BA.
BTW, I have to say that Tom's emphasis on "power" is simplistic and reductionist. It doesn't account for speed, for athleticism, for defense, for best available player, for just about anything. Sure, yes, power is great. But turning it into the new God is extremely naive, IMO. Mets have been a very good HR-hitting team in recent years. They've also been slow, station to station, high strikeout, and horrible defensively with deeply flawed bullpens and terrible overall fitness/health. Power doesn't address any of that.
They got off to a dubious start with Brandon Nimmo and haven't done much to correct that perception.
ReplyDeleteAgreeing (I think) with both Bill & Thomas, I continue to have these questions:
ReplyDeleteIs there an accuracy problem with the raw data from various & sundry scouts?
Is there a consistency in the evaluation metrics used by these various & sundry scouts?
How is the data summarized to determine a "draft board" priority list?
For example, suppose a metric similar to the MLB prospect rankings is utilized--HGIT/PWR/RUN/ARM/FLD/(OverallL).
Here are three current NYM prospect -- all with "50" overall ratings:
(A): 55/35/60/60/55/(50)
(B): 50/50/60/50/50/(50)
(C): 45/55/30/50/50/(50)
If you were you were creating a draft board, how would you order them? Thomas I'm guessing -- C, B, A (emphasis on PWR. Me? Probably B, A, C (least weaknesses). MLB hs them ranked as shown: Andres Giminez, Desmond Lindsay, Peter Alonso.
How would SA (or whomever organizes the board) do it?
Good points, Hobie. Re: Tom's comments on power PITCHING, I look at names like Smoker, Leathersich, Akeel Morris, and Robles. All qualify as "power", and only Robles has had even marginal ML success.
ReplyDeletebasically in sandy's 7 years he has a track record of poor drafts, bad trades, poor free agents signings , poor hirings and no development... and we renewed his contract...
ReplyDeleteBad trades ... LOL
Deletestill mad about giving up Dickey for TDA/SYNDERGAARD,I guess?
Cespedes trade was AWFUL too right? He sucked
Busy today, boys, so I can't weigh in.
ReplyDeleteReyesMets, you forgot to mention the Reyes "deal". Got Jose back for minimum wage for quite a long time. Sweet.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous good points, but while I did not over-emphasize things like speed and defense, in my series, I have been essentially in favor of guys with elite physical skill points without showstopper negatives. Most easily, but, not exclusively potrayed by power bats. Too many guys drafted with middling results that were wasted picks.
ReplyDeleteIt showed this year. In a season where the best Mets minors team by far was Binghamton, the only one in fact with a winning record above DSL, they were by far that league's worst homer hitting team. When major league teams AVERAGE 203 homers, that most likely means their best team (absent late season add Alonso) have at best marginal skills to offer at the Big league level.