Tom Brennan - Why Don’t the Mets Turn Out More Latin American Major Leaguers?

We Need To See More Bona Fide Major Leaguers Come Out of the Mets' Many Annual International Signings

In January, I wrote an article on the paucity of ball players signed from Latin American countries, and then developed and retained by the Mets over a very long period of time.  

Oh, they’ve signed as free agents, or traded for, quite a few good ones…Pedro Martinez, Carlos Beltran, Carlos Delgado, K Rod, and others. 

They've signed and developed, however, just a sparse number of good players from the Dominican, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and the like. 

But one first has to ask oneself whether there just aren’t that many such Mets players from south of the border.  No, your eyes don’t deceive you - the Mets sign and develop few, while major league baseball as a whole has many such players.

A recent fine article in the Athletic on the factors involved in developing and signing such players incidentally referred to the magnitude of such players in baseball. 

It said, in that regard:

“Dominicans comprised about 10% of the 780 players on opening-day active rosters in 2021, the most of any country outside of the U.S., which had about 72%. Prospects from the Dominican Republic, however, would not be the only ones affected. 

"All told, players from Latin American countries accounted for more than one-fifth of the major-league playing population. Latino players occupy an even higher percentage of roster spots in the domestic minor leagues — 35 percent. “

Simply put, do the Mets develop and promote foreign-born Latin players at a 20% rate?  Without scouring the annual Mets rosters over the past few decades, I  doubt the Mets have signed and developed anywhere near that many. Maybe I am wrong and I am missing something. If so, please fill me in.  

20% would probably equate to about 2 new Mets-developed Latin American players annually, at least one of whom is at least a decent long term player. I sure don’t see that, as a rule, from the Mets…and that is a failing on the organization’s part historically. 

They seem to be doing better in that regard of late, with the likes of Francisco Alvarez, Ronny Mauricio, Alex Ramirez, Robert Dominguez, Junior Santos, and others in the pipeline.  (I know many of you already have Simon Juan headed for the Hall of Fame, but I want to see what he does in real minor league games first, if you don't mind.)

May that recent excellent trend continue and accelerate.  You can't survive on poor drafts, poor international signings, and loads of expensive free agents. Even with Steve Cohen's Brinks truck bullion stash.

It seems to me that a winning team should call up All Star caliber Latin American players with some reasonable frequency (by "All Star", I mean a player that will make an All Star team at least once in their careers). Using that 20% international players rule, that means at least one internally developed Latin American All Star caliber ballplayer on the Mets every 5 years.  

Off the top of my head, I only count Edgardo Alfonso, Jose Reyes, Rey Ordonez, and Jeurys Familia in those Mets-signed-and-developed All Star ranks over the past 30 years.  One being an almost-superstar, and 3 borderline All Star types.  Actually, I am stretching it a bit - Ordonez won 3 Gold Gloves but never made the All Star team, but I won't quibble.  No matter what, not enough. 

And none of those 4 has been on a par with Pedro, the two Carlos dudes, Bartolo Colon and the like. 

The path to long term Mets' team success has to include producing more quantities of high MLB quality drafted - and internationally signed - players.

Do you agree, Señor (or Señora, if you are one of our innumerable female readers)?