Reese Kaplan -- Growing a Team From the Ground Up

During the Wilpon years there was an undeniable envy felt by the Wilpons (and many Mets fans) for the manner in which the crosstown rivals in the Bronx operated their ballclub vs. what the Mets did with their own.  Anytime an ex-Yankee became available the Wilpons would salivate and often overpay for someone past his prime or simply not that good (which is why the Yankees bid farewell to that person in the first place).

 

Yesterday it was announced that the first area where Steve Cohen wants to improve is in the area of analytics.  When I read this announcement I understood that a person who has made billions in the market lives and dies by the value of his data.  You'd think the Mets would have used the same approach in building their own farm system and major league team.  Imagine the reaction to hear that with 2019's hiring of a top notch analyst and Cohen's premature hiring of Sandy Alderson as team President that the Mets are now right on par with the best in the game, right?

 

Wrong!

 

The Yankees employ 20 people in their analytics department to evaluate and rate the players not just in their own system but throughout the entire world in the quest of new talent to help them towards the goal of postseason baseball.  The Mets must look like that, too, huh?

 

Ummm...no.  The Mets with last year's analytics hot-shot hire expanded their department of data-savvy experts to a whopping total of 3.  Read that again -- Yankees have 20 working on this endeavor and the Wilpons were happy to recently increase from 2 to 3.  How many times have the Mets been in the postseason?  Don't look it up...it's depressing.

 

So the fact Cohen wants to apply the same principles to improving the performance of his baseball portfolio that he uses in investments should be a very good thing.  Right away, however, people are already questioning if spending money in this area means there will be little money spent on a shopping spree of free agents and high-salaried players in trades since there are just so many chips in the bag.  Many people want the Mets to spend their way to instant respectability and already fear that Cohen is not going to be the solution they were hoping had finally arrived.

 

While I certainly wouldn't object to seeing guys like J.T. Realmuto, Trevor Bauer and George Springer in orange and blue at Citifield, the fact is that quick (and expensive) fixes seldom work as planned.  Who here remembers cheering loudly when the Mets obtained Bobby Bonilla or Jason Bay or Oliver Perez or even Rick Porcello?  There's no guarantee that a big name addition is going to be an instant game changer.  Some take time to adjust (like Robinson Cano and Carlos Beltran, both of whom underperformed in their first years playing for the Mets).  Some are simply not as good as you hoped they would be, like Todd Frazier.  

 

So if the goal is to build a long term success not just like the Yankees, but like the Rays and the Astros who simply find good player after good player, I can live with that.  I don't need any more James Loney types in the starting lineup to think they went after a "name" player.  I'd rather see how the Dom Smith, Jeff McNeil and Edwin Diaz caliber players grow as Mets while they cost relatively little and the team benefits from their production.  (Yes, I did advocate positively about Diaz!)  

 

The long term solution of improving analytics should correspondingly lead to greater draft choices, better trades and (hopefully) more broad international signings.  That formula has worked for many other clubs and to me a long term prospect of success is preferable to a one-year spending spree on over-30 talent whose down side to their career hampers your payroll for years to come.