Reese Kaplan -- What is Your Drafting Philosophy?

In football, there’s a well-known and accepted mantra that defense wins championships.  Forbes, however, thinks that this philosophy is no longer valid, and their study showed that defense may help you into the post-season but it’s offense that gets the ring.

Similarly, there’s a similar axiom in the world of baseball that good pitching beats good hitting.  While that is somewhat true, a .300 hitter might indeed become a .240 hitter against an All-Star caliber arm.  That 20% reduction in offensive potential by the opposition is certainly nothing to sneeze at. 

I thought about this conundrum when Mack brought up the need to continue to draft pitchers at the expense of developing hitters in-house.  He suggested you buy your hitters and develop your pitchers.  Is that indeed the right approach to take?

In my reply to him I’d stated that the Big Red Machine had stellar offense and mediocre-at-best pitching yet won handily.  My poster child for stellar pitching not being a guarantee of winning games is reigning Cy Young Award winner Jacob deGrom who was nearly Bob Gibson stingy with allowing runs to score, yet finished with a paltry won-loss record.

Over the years the Mets have developed a reputation for developing pitchers.  In-house talent included Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, Craig Swan, Dwight Gooden, Jacob deGrom, Steven Matz, Tug McGraw, Jeurys Familia and others.  

Please do remember, however, that some of the best pitchers the Mets have had, including Sid Fernandez, Ron Darling, Noah Syndergaard, Zack Wheeler, John Franco and others were not Mets draft choices but obtained in trade.  To be fair you would have to add Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan to the first list, though saying that causes most fans to gnash their teeth. 

On the flip side, how many bats have the Mets developed?  I’ll give you Cleon Jones, Edgardo Alfonzo, Hubie Brooks, David Wright, Michael Conforto, Jeff McNeil and Pete Alonso.  Most of the great hitters the team has had, including Mike Piazza, John Olerud, Keith Hernandez and others came from elsewhere.

Many quality pitching acquisitions came from outside the organization.  The likes of Johan Santana, Bobby Ojeda, Al Leiter, Edwin Diaz, Mike Hampton, George Stone, Armando Benitez and others helped the club when healthy and a few times towards the post-season.  Add in some free agent acquisitions like Pedro Martinez, Billy Wagner and others, and you will see it’s entirely possible to fortify your ballclub this way as well.

So therein lies the question…do you draft power arms and only power arms, power bats and only power bats, or simply take the best available player when your turn comes up in the draft?  Tom Brennan advocates not only power bats and power arms but power baserunners.  Personally, I find it especially annoying knowing that when the club falls behind a single run or two that we’ve experienced a great many teams for which that minor bump in the road was their own Mt. Everest.  I’d rather be a single swing away from winning at nearly every at-bat and made do with good if not great pitching. 

What all is your take?  Do you want to attempt the guys like the recently departed Gershon Bautista who came over in trade, able to hurl a baseball 100 mph but with no clue where it’s going to go?  Or do you want more guys like Pete Alonso able to hit the ball nearly 500 feet but strikes out a bit too much?  Or would you prefer more contact hitters like Jeff McNeil (and Gavin Cecchini and Reese Havens and many others) whose hit tool is about getting singles (McNeil’s minor league 2018 season notwithstanding)?