Tom Brennan - Observations About Mets' Players Who Debuted in 2021 and in a Few Other Recent Years

How I feel when a hot Mets prospect makes a fine debut like Tylor Megill did in 2021

I had written an article recently about Mets' international players and the clearly discernible matter that the Mets acquire, through free agency and via trade, more impact major leaguers than they develop through their system.

Which got me thinking about players debuting in the majors in 2021.  Of course, I am most interested about Mets' players making their debuts, and there were 7 who did so in 2021:

But it led me to Google "players who made their MLB debut in 2021", which led me to a very interesting Baseball Reference page, listing a sortable list of all such players in the major leagues in 2021.

It turns out there were 265 players who made their MLB debuts in 2021, which on one hand seems like a lot, but looked at in comparison to how many players are drafted, or signed without being drafted, in 2021, it is clear that the vast majority of signees never make the big leagues.

265 players averages out to 9 per team.  The Mets only had 7, while a team like Arizona, that scuffled more and operated on a relatively limited budget, debuted 16 guys.  If you can't be good, at least give the fans a lot of fresh faces to get to know.

The Mets' 7 debuting players included 3 players drafted by the Mets (Megill, Mazeika, and Szapucki), 4 players drafted by other teams (Fargas, Hager, Bostick, and Khalil Lee), and NONE of their international signings.  None, as in ZERO.  Sad statement.  

Of the above 7, only Megill had a substantial impact.  In fact, he was 25th out of the 265 in WAR (0.8).  

The other 6 who debuted had a combined -0.6 WAR.   Compared to the Mets' rookies' combined 0.2 WAR, Cincinnati debuting players had a combined 7.0 WAR.

The highest WAR in 2021 was Jonathan India who came in at 3.9 WAR.  Pete Alonso had a much higher WAR in his 2019 rookie season - 53 HRs and 120 RBIs will do that for ya.

The Mets, as per the list, only drafted or otherwise initially signed only 5 of the 265 players who debuted in 2021, which is another sad statement regarding their player identification, signing, and development, don't you think?  

The 4 drafted were Megill, Szapucki, Mazeika, and Kelenic, and the one signed outside of the draft was Alberto Baldonado (who??). Geesh, very little MLB impact from those 5, huh?  Baldonado and Kelenic combined for an unhelpful -2.3 WAR with their non-Mets teams.

By comparison, the Dodgers, who've generally had lower draft spots than the Mets over the past several years, had 6 undrafted players signed, and 9 players that they drafted, debut in the majors in 2021, a total of 15 guys vs. the Mets' 5.  Wow, that is an awfully indicting picture, isn't it?

Overall, of the 265 debutantes, 198 debuting players (75%) were drafted, while the remaining 67 (25%) were signed outside of the draft.  Of the 67, seven were U.S. signees, 6 were Asian/Aussie signees, and 54 were Latin American signees.   So, on average nearly 2 Latino, non-U.S. players debuted, a little less than 2 per team.  So, when the Mets sign roughly 15 bonus international free agents each year, most likely only 2 will make the big leagues.

Before I go, the 2015 list showed the cumulative WAR of players debuting that season.  Correa had 34 WAR to top the list, Lindor a close second with 31, and Syndergaard and Conforto came in 9th and 10th on the list with almost 16 WAR apiece.  Steve Matz was 25th on the list with just under 10 career WAR.  (The Mets had 9 drafted players debut that year).

Adjusting for 2020 as a 40% season, only 34 players debuting in 2015 have compiled career WARs averaging 1.0 per year or better.  So that tells me when you get players who can crank out 2 or 3 WAR per year, ya done real good with them.

So, for instance, please consider that Jeff McNeil is indeed above average.  In point of fact, despite a late 2018 debut and a weak 2021 season, he is 5th overall in career WAR amongst the 2018 debutantes.  Top 2% is danged good, bruh, and mighty fine, ma'am.

Also, only 139 players had even as much as 0.1 career WAR or more out of 255 who debuted in 2015; the other 116 had career WAR of 0.0 or negative.  And only 93 of the 255 had total career WAR of 1.0 or better.  It's a tough game, folks.

One can hope for three things as I put down my quill:

1) The Mets start producing more (and more impactful) players to debut each year.

2) Lindor returns to his top tier WAR status in 2022.

3) We have more seasons where, after 6 years in the majors, the Mets' signed and drafted list has 3 players in the top 25 in total career WAR for their class, with 2 of them in baseball's top 10, as they did in 2015, when the Mets' future looked far more bright and promising than it turned out to be in 2016-21.

P.S. Actual spring training games almost here.  I hear that Dom Smith did some damage against Scherzer yesterday - if true, a promising sign of a bounce back Dom.