Mack On: Saving $$ in Mets Draft:

Mack On: Saving $$ in Mets Draft:

On the surface the Mets had a very successful draft. They signed the top 19 players they drafted an 28 out of the top 30. Fred and Jeff Wilpon are famous for not paying bonuses above scale, and they came up with a real good one this time around. Below, are the nine players that they signed in the first ten rounds:


ROUND 1: Matt Harvey RHP Jr. $2,625,000


ROUND 3 Blake Forsythe C Jr. $392,400


ROUND 4 Cory Vaughn OF Jr. $240,300


ROUND 5 Matt den Dekker OF Sr. $110,000


ROUND 6 Greg Peavey RHP Jr. $200,000


ROUND 7 Jeff Walters RHP Sr. $50,000


ROUND 8 Kenny McDowell RHP So. $125,000


ROUND 9 Jacob deGrom RHP Jr. $95,000


ROUND 10 Akeel Morris RHP Sr. $120,000


You may notice that three of the top nine picks were college seniors. Players that are drafted as a senior in college usually fall into one of three categories. One, they had a shit junior year, were drafted somewhere down the line by some team that offered chump change, and decided to go back for another year to up his value in the following year’s draft. Reason two would involve a past injury, usually surgery, which gives the player one more season with a metal bat to improve his status. And lastly, he sucked too much as a junior to even be drafted a year ago.


Whatever the reason, a college senior loses just about all their negotiation ability, as you can see by the amount of money Walters got for a bonus. Look at how low den Dekker got as a fifth rounder, verses Peavey’s sixth round figure.


If you would continue to analyse the Mets draft, you would see that this trend continues all the way down to the end of the draft.


One more thing… every year’s top 100 list of draft prospects have at least ten guys that send all the signs that they are impossible to sign. Most are high school seniors and very few of them are drafted in the top five rounds. What many teams do is take a chance with a couple of them later in the draft, “waisting” a pick. Then, they offer this kid first three round bonus money and, once in awhile, they reel in a big one.


You won’t see this ever under the Wilpons.


Mack


P.S. Wanna see a progressive plan… go check out what the Boston Red Sox did in the 2010 draft.