Below, I left out guys that were drafted whom I think will not likely be MLB players. Lots of good to excellent draftees left past those in 2021 and 2022.
2021 Good Guys are the following:
1st round Kumar Rocker was not signed. He is now the Rangers’ 9th prospect. The Mets drafted Kevin Parada in 2022 after not signing Kumar.
2nd round, P Calvin Ziegler: bone chip and leg issue limited him to one perfect, 3 K inning in 2023. Expect big year out of the 21 year old in 2024.
3rd round, P Dominic Hamel - finished really strong in AA. 160 Ks in 124 innings in 2024, and 312 in 246 career innings.
4th round, 1B JT Schwartz - solid hitter, not Pete Alonso.
5th round, P Christian Scott - breakthrough 2024 in AA; future career as a back-end MLB starter.
8th round, 6'5" righty P Mike Vasil - ought to pitch for Mets in 2024.
10th round, lefty Keyshawn Askew - Traded to Rays, he had a solid pitching year in A and AA, at 3.97 and 130 Ks in 97 IP. Not in Ray’s top 30.
11th round, S/H OF Rowdey Jordan - Possible future MLB back up OF.
13th round, IF/OF Matt Rudick - best player in 2023 in Eastern League thru early June in 2023, then hurt. A possible Mets 2024 call up if needed.
14th round, P Nate Lavender - 6'2" lefty had very solid AA/AAA reliever in 2023. Most likely will pitch a lot in the Mets pen in 2024.
15th round, 5'7" IF Wyatt Young - fine 2022 in AA/AAA, regressed in 2023.
16th round, righty P Trey McLaughlin had a very solid 2023 season.
A fine 2021 draft, except for that first Rocker round. That pick could have been one of these 3 excellent guys drafted just after the Mets pick: Brady House, or Andrew Painter, or Harry Ford. A risky first round Kumar move by the Mets, chasing the shiny object, put a damper on things.
2022 Good Guys follow (if drafted out of High School, so noted):
1 (11): Kevin Parada, C: First full year in 2023 solid, not great. Strikeouts on the high side. Will he WOW or disappoint us in 2024?
1 (14): Jett Williams, SS, HS: On-base and base stealing teenage machine. Walks and HBP with great frequency. Future star?
2 (52): Blade Tidwell, RHP: Solid progress in 2023. Fireballer.
2C (75): Nick Morabito, OF, HS: .306, 21 steals in 57 games. 65 speed.
4 (119): Jacob Reimer, 3B, HS: Nice batting for 19 year old in 2023.
6 (179): Tyler Stuart, RHP: 6’9” righty was great in 2023.
7 (209): Jonah Tong, RHP, HS: 21 IP, 38 Ks, 6.00 in 2023.
8 (239): Dylan Tebrake, RHP: stellar relief, finished 2023 in AA. 55 Ks in 36 career IP, 2.27.
11 (329): Rhylan Thomas, OF: .328 hitter in 2023, fielding award. Low power, very low K. Great first full season.
12 (359): Paul Gervase, RHP: 6’10” reliever, 96Ks in 57 IP, 2.05 ERA.
20 (599): Eli Ankeney, LHP: $100,000. Pitched well in 2023. 27 outings, mostly for Brooklyn, 3.07, 55 Ks in 44 IP.
Finally, the 2023 Draft?
Hardly any of the 2023 draftees played, so I will defer on details here.
Seems the Mets draft grade was in the “B” range, as per writers who assigned an overall draft grade. I’ll take a B when the first pick is # 32.
MY FINAL SERIES CONCLUSION:
2012 thru 2020 drafts were fairly decent for hitters, poor for pitchers.
Looking at the names above for 2021 and 2022, those two years’ seem superior to those of the 2012-2020 period. AND 2023 got a “B”.
BUT...Baseball America just came out with its Top 100 MLB prospect list.
In BA's list, Jett Williams (drafted) is ranked #30 - impressive.
Next is international signing Ronny Mauricio at # 87, and then Drew Gilbert (acquired in trade) at # 91. Then, trade acquisitions Acuna and Clifford both fell just outside of the BA Top 100.
So...
In BA's top 120 prospects, the Mets have JUST ONE player drafted by the Mets:
Our very own Jett Williams.
That is simply a damning indictment of the Mets' drafting, with of course the caveat that the Mets drafted the currently very highly ranked Pete Crow Armstrong, too, and would still have his services for 2024 in Queens had they not dealt him away for baubles and trinkets.
Even if they kept Crow, though, their draft results would be weak.
1st round out of H.S. Baty and 2nd round out of H.S. Vientos, their two most prominent recently promoted draftees, are not close to the value of a Corbin Carroll.
In fact, if Baty and Vientos were somehow snuck back into the minors rankings, and what is currently known of Baty and Vientos from their MLB play to date served as added info for the BA prospect rankers to consider, would either be in the Top 100 now?
I'd say Baty maybe...Vientos unlikely.
Mets drafts have been horrendous when it comes to producing MLB talent.
Only 2nd round Pete and 12th round Jeff have excelled.
So, unless you go all the way back to Conforto, who was drafted in the first round of 2014, and Nimmo, who was drafted in the first round of 2011. And if you draft hitters high up in the first round, they should be a near certainty to be successful in the majors eventually.
Heck, the Nats have not re-signed former 1st rounder Dom Smith, instead opting for Joey Gallo.
Gallo hit .177 in 2023, but with 21 HRs in 280 at bats. Dom was up 736 times the past 2 years with a scant 63 RBIs, and has a very substandard career WHIP of 0.9. End result on drafting Dom Smith in the first round (11th overall)? A failure, as was the first round draft of Cecchini (12th overall).
Accomplished players like Lucas Giolito, Corey Seager, Michael Wacha, Marcus Stroman, Aaron Judge, and Hunter Renfroe were available to the Mets and were drafted shortly after those 2 Mets picks. (To be balanced, I need to note that some other teams’ 2012 and 2013 picks shortly after those two were nabbed by the Mets never made it to the big leagues). Still, to have 2 straight Mets first half of the first round hitter picks have an accumulated career WAR of ZERO is a disaster.
This page allows you to see Mets Top 30 prospects as per MLB for any given year. Here is 2020's list but you can browse through any year's Mets Top 30 there very easily. Just select the year.
Read it and you might gag a bit:
https://www.mlb.com/prospects/2020/mets/
Remember, a dearth of drafted talent eventually making a MLB impact results in spending hundreds of millions on free agents as the Mets try to remain competitive.
BUT…ARE YOU INTERESTED?
Ryne Stanek and Hector Neris?
Mets reportedly are showing some interest.
But…who cares if Cohen and Stearns like them…are you interested??
That’s it, I‘m done.
I'm interested in any quality players. The injury-prone Luis Severino and Harrison Bader do not qualify. Passing on other solid caliber players regularly is more than frustrating. Neris or Stanek would be solid additions with Neris probably costing a lot more.
ReplyDeleteHow about some BATS?
Nice work (as usual), Tom! I think that Williams was drafted with the extra pick for not signing Rocker. Based on the seasons since then, it looks like our best "luck-out" since getting David with a comp pick.
ReplyDeleteNot signing Rocker could turn out to be the best thing we didn't do in the last decade+.
Bill, I think Parada was the Rocker pick and Jett was the actual normal first round pick. With the 10 slot penalty, which only started the next year thankfully, we would have missed out on Jett.
ReplyDeleteCould be. Obviously, to this point, Parada is well below Jett in terms of potential and performance, but from what I've read Rocker looks like anythbut a 1st-rounder.
DeleteGreat series Tom
ReplyDeleteReese, Neris would be good, but he just was pitching for a winning team. Would he want the Mets?
ReplyDeleteThanks, Mack. I used to be an auditor, so this series was an audit of the drafts. The hierarchy may wish I wasn’t writing objective audit reports. “Objective” is great when you’re getting a final A grade. No A grade here.
ReplyDeleteThe Mets needed to clean house with the people that decides what name they send to the Commissioner
DeleteSending scouts out to games is a no Brainerd
Having the right scouts is a must
Sifting through that info and picking the names is an art form
Great stuff and it's fun having our own Tom Terrific. He's our franchise no offense to the other writers.
ReplyDeleteWe signed Tom as an
Deleteundrafted free agent
Here's a crazy thought: I wonder if Fred and Saul kicked back some $$$ to Selig for not forcing them to sell (like he did with McCourt in the Dodger deal) after the Madoff disaster because that amounted to hundred's of million more in their pockets (plus the millions they didn't spend on their/our team). Another question to u all: if you could do it all over again knowing what you know now would you not have drafted Bichette over Alonso in 2016 (Bo went 2 spots after Pete in the 2nd round)
ReplyDeleteI'm extremely happy with the Pete pick especially with how he has become the face of the team
DeleteOnce again, terrific series Tom. Thanks so much. One name I’m keeping an eye on from the ‘23 draft is Nick Lorusso, 9th rd pick from U Maryland. The kid was a terrific hitter in college to say the least, .379/.456/.759 w/26 HR, 105 RBI in 300 AB’s as a senior in ‘23. He struggled in his pro debut at the end of last season, though just 100 AB’s, so no need to worry yet. He’s a 3B/1B, so the power would need to translate, but I’m excited to see how he does in his first full pro season.
ReplyDeleteThanks all. It was painful fun.
ReplyDeleteBill, it was Parada's first full season. Let's see how he does with his 2nd one.
ReplyDelete