Tom Brennan - Retrospective on Mets' Drafts of Years Past: 2013

 

Wikipedia states:

A retrospective (from Latin retrospectare, "look back"), generally, is a look back at events that took place, or works that were produced, in the past.

I thought it might be fun to look back and see who got drafted by the Mets in rounds 1 thru 5, how they panned out, and which of them (and those from rounds beyond round 5) made it to the dance. 

Not to get too historical, I thought I’d start at 2005 and work forward towards 2021 from there, a year at a time.

Today?  

The Mets' 2013 Draft 

1st Round - Dominic Smith - the pundits as I recall said they considered Smith the best pure HS hitter in the draft.  Thereafter, he put on a lot of weight in the minors (listed at 185 at signing, but 260 when called up), got called up to the Mets eventually, struggled, lost much of the weight and attended to some health issues, had a solid 2019 and a short, but excellent, 2020, followed by (to me) a puzzling 2021 regression.  My brother feels they found he has trouble with high fastballs and hence the drop off from 2020.  We'll see. 

Jury is still out on whether Smith was a good first round pick or not.  If he reverts to 2020 form, absolutely.  If not, he reverts to Lucas Duda.  Fangraphs expects him to do modestly better in 2022 than he did in 2021; let's hope for Smith's sake, he does even better.

(BTW - Aaron Judge went at # 32, Scott Manaea at # 34).

2nd Round - Andrew Church - he'd struggle, show promise, struggle some more, show promise...but the righty hurler never made the majors.  When he went 7-4, 2.92 in A ball in 2016, I thought he was on his way.  Ultimately, though?  

Disappointing pick.

3rd Round - Ivan Wilson - the Mets opted to go with a stud athlete, hoping they could fix the strikeout hole in his swing.  They couldn't.  So, make it he didn't.  I like taking a shot at a guy like him, but at draft time, I read he had contact issues.  I wonder if that deficiency was sufficiently taken into account by the Mets' drafting experts.  His last season in low A, he hit .197 with 80 Ks in 236 PAs.

3rd Round - Casey Meisner - he got traded away by the Mets.  After showing some promise in the minors, especially his 13-5, 2.45 season in 2015, he had a rough 2019.  Hasn't played since in the minors.

4th Round - LJ Mazzilli - What were they thinking?  Fine if you draft him, but maybe do so in the 7th to 10th round, not in the 4th round. Minors career ended in 2018, at .265. 

5th Round - Jared King - another failed pick - career .240 , less than a HR every 100 ABs in the minors.  Not sure what they expected from this 5th round pick - I'd have drafted power instead, or another arm.

Miserable Mets selection effort, results-wise, on rounds 2 thru 5.

They got hot in Rounds 10 thru 12, nabbing Luis Guillorme, Tylor Bashlor, and especially using a pick in round 12 that they had squirreled away for Jeff McNeil.

Luis has been a nice fill in, but not a big run producer.  The glove wizard hit .265 with a .374 OBP, but only a .311 slug %.  He'd greatly help his cause if he could add 50-75 points to the latter number without messing up the other 2 solid numbers. 

Only Smith and McNeil, who hit .316 and .311, respectively, in 2020, have been moderate to slightly above moderate impact major leaguers so far, whose full stories have yet to be written.  

May they both excel from here.

But had they not nabbed McNeil in Round 12, this would have been a terrible draft.  Drafting Smith and McNeil, with Guillorme too?  A good draft.

Next up?  2014.