Tom Brennan: 2012-20 Mets Draft Results; & Starters to Relievers?

Well, my “Updated Draft Retrospective” series is coming to an end. 

Hope you read (and enjoyed) all 12 yearly articles, spanning 2012 through 2023.

So…how did the Mets do drafting, anyway? 

REPORT CARD TIME.

Let’s take this in 2 tranches:

A) 2012 thru 2020 - today - plenty of time for the paint to have dried on those drafts. The players’ records are self-evident.

B) 2021-2023 - paint still drying. MY NEXT ARTICLE.

So, for today, 2012-20?

Which picks turned out very good to great? 

- Alonso 2nd round 2018

- McNeil 12th round 2013.

- Pete Crow-Armstrong 1st round 2020.

Which high picks were solid?

- Conforto (1st round, 2014) (but even though quality, the Mets passed on the far superior Trea Turner)

Which high picks may end up being decent, but the jury is still out?

- Jarred Kelenic (1st round, 6th overall 2018)

- David Peterson (1st round, 20th overall 2017)

- Mark Vientos (2nd round out of HS, 2017)

- Brett Baty 1st round, 2019)

Which lower picks have turned out fairly well? 

- Paul Sewald (10th round, 2012) - better than fairly well,

- Colin Holderman (9th round, 2016)

- Tylor Megill (8th round, 2018)

- Luis Guillorme (10th round, 2013)

Which higher picks were (are) only borderline major leaguers?

- Gavin Cecchini (1st round, 2012)

- Dominic Smith (1st round, 2013)

- Justin Dunn (1st round supplemental, 2016)

- Anthony Kay (1st round, 2016)

Which lower picks were (are) barely borderline major leaguers?

- Tomas Nido (8th round, 2012)

- Brad Wieck (7th round, 2013)

- Tom Szapucki (5th round, 2015)

- Pat Mazeika (8th round, 2015)

- Bryce Montes de Oca (8th round, 2018)

MY TAKE? 

Drafted hitters 2012 -2020? 

If Vientos, Crow, and Baty all blossom, the Mets have done OK over the 2012-20 draft period. If they do not, not so good. But, if you add in international draftees Gimenez, Rosario, and Alvarez, not bad at all.

Drafted pitching, 2012-2020? 

Simply terrible pitching draft outcomes long-term. Try making a single staff out of those draftees. Maybe for the LI Ducks, not for the major leagues.

Another key factor to underwhelming Mets drafts for those 9 seasons? Think about the only sure things from those drafts in rounds 2 through 5? 

Just Alonso, and maybe Vientos. 

So, out of 36 2nd through 5th round picks in those 9 years, just one hitting star, and one possibly decent player? Stunning.

BASEBALL AMERICA: 

Posted in 2019 a study of drafts spanning decades. The article had a bar chart of how many make the majors from each round.

Round 1: 73%

Round 2: 51%

Round 3: 40%

Round 4: 35%

Round 5: 31%

Round 6: 25%

Round 7: 22%

Round 8: 20%

Round 9: 20%

Round 10: 18%

Round 11+: 4%

So, for rounds 1 through 10, the average was 33.6% of those drafted should make the majors, or 3-4 per season per team. Throw in nearly 1 who makes it on average in rounds 11-20, and the average team should have 4 guys make the majors each draft, and probably 5 or 6 a year, when one goes back to seasons where there were 40 rounds, not 20.  Let's say 5 in total for those 40 player draft years.

(Baseball America did not differentiate between pitchers and hitters; my guess is the percentage of pitchers making the majors is significantly impacted by major pitcher arm and shoulder injuries.) 

Back to the Mets.  For the above 9 season period, 2012-2020, the Mets (based on my count) had 21 players make it, or 2.3 per season. 

That's just bad Mets results.  And relatively few high impact players.

Even worse is beyond round 1 (in round 1, regardless of their star power, they have 9 who have made the major leagues in 2012-20).  

Rounds 2 through 7 have been brutal.  Based on the BA stats above, on average, 2+ players in rounds 2 through 7 should end up making the majors from each draft. Instead of the average of 12 or 13 for those 6 seasons, the Mets have had just FOUR from rounds 2 through 7, and only one so far of more than limited consequence: 

In round 2, Pete Alonso and Mark Vientos. 

Round 3? No one.  

Round 4? No one.  

Round 5? Szapucki. 

Round 6? No one.  

Round 7? Brad Wieck.

Oddly, after those really abysmal 6 rounds (2 thru 7), round 8 had 4 players make the majors, 2 of whom (Megill and Nido) have played a lot. 

It is possible that a few draftees from later in the 2012-20 period, like frequently injured Matt Allan and (less likely) Ryley Gilliam, might still make it.  But even if those two do, this body of 9 years of draft work still represents very bad draft outcomes for the Metsies.

After the first round, if you asked the question, "why the heck did they pick THAT GUY?", you'd have been asking the right question.

Bad draft outcomes over large spans of time of course lead to a dearth of home-grown talent, and then free agent signings galore in order for a team trying to be competitive to fill gaps, which then thrusts such a team trying to compete into the tangled web of luxury cap problems.

I still think drafting power arms, power bats, power speed is the long-term formula to Mets' drafting success.  

The draft is a crap shoot, they say....

So let's "crap less" so we draft better than the average team, instead of far worse, how about that?

Thoughts in my next article are on the more recent 2021 through 2023 drafts, the seasons where players are still in their minor league developmental stage and a bit too early to truly judge.

"When you, Mr./Mrs. Mets Fan, next feel a draft, may the draft for you be a sweet tailwind and not a biting, bitter headwind."

DON'T GET ME STARTED!!!!! 

"We need to sign more pen arms!!!!  Arrggh!!!!" 

You blink your eyes and pen stalwarts Hader, Brebbia and Stephenson are on their way to other teams.

Our current Mets pen could be labeled "Diaz, Then No Pizzazz".

Well, we do need more pen arms - that’s what I and others have been writing for the last few months. 

When you have the Cohen regime seems to (even temporarily) start to spend like Wilpons,  you may have to consider alternate sources of pen arms to the expensive ones on the market. 

One source is perhaps not talked about enough, but it is converting would-be back-end rotation starters to pen arms. 

Take, for instance, Mariano Rivera. 

Greatest reliever of all time, Hall of Famer, but in his career, in 50 innings, he had a 5.94 ERA as a starter. I think that conversion to him being a pen arm was a pretty good decision, don't you? 

How about Jeurys Familia? He was a pretty so-so starter in the minors, but then became for several years a very strong pen arm.  (And was also lousy enough at times for Reese Kaplan flog him several times).

Then J-Fam made a lot of money at it, too. 

I’ve written recently about Brad Hand and Andrew Miller both being really lousy major league starters.  So they both decided it was better to switch than fight.  

Hand became a very good reliever, while Miller became an elite reliever, who had #'s very close to those of Josh Hader. 

Even Jenrry Mejia was a lousy starter, but at least briefly he became a very solid pen arm, one year with the Mets saving 28 games with a 2.65 ERA.  Jenrry of course knows more than other pitchers the ugly downside of three strikes, but that is another topic.

And former Met Rafael Montero was a shaky major league starter who has had, after his tenure with the Mets, a few very good relief years, especially his 2022, when he was 5-2, 2.37 with 15 saves. 

So when 1 considers who might show up the Mets currently shallow and shaky bullpen, why couldn’t Tyler Megill, Joey Lucchesi, and David Peterson be three real possibilities for eating up considerable bullpen innings this season? 

Maybe lefty Peterson has some lefty Andrew Miller in him. 

Maybe Megill can whip up some high heat out of the bullpen, and be a Scott May, who was 9-3 as a Met? 

And maybe Joey Lucchesi can be another version of Brad Hand or even John Franco (who remarkably had 1,119 major league games, all in relief).  Maybe even starter-who-may-get-few-chances-to-start Butto can craft some bullpen magic.

If that alternative doesn’t work out very well, there are arms like Nate Lavender and Paul Gervase in the minor leagues that could step up, or perhaps minors starters like a Mike Vasil or Dom Hamel could come up as relievers. 

Even though it's now illegal, I’m just spit balling here. 

What do you think? 

COLIN MCHUGH RETIRES

As a Met, he was a putrid 0-5 (,000), 8.26 ERA in 31 innings. 

Otherwise, he was a stellar 71-42 (.628), with a 3.59 ERA in 962 innings. 

Houston tweaked his curveball, the rest is history. Paul Sewald (1-14 as a Met) was tweaked by Seattle, leading to immediate success, and an 18-9, 65 saves record post-Mets).

An all-too-familiar story. “Boy leaves Queens and excels”.

WHILE WE’RE FRETTING AND SWEATING…

“Jeff McNeil won his first celebrity golf tournament — beating Annika Sorenstam, John Smoltz, Jeremy Roenick, Aaron Hicks, Adam Thielen and others.” 

Jeff won $100,000! He can use it for a shave and a trim! 

Congrats, Jeff!