Dreaming of a Fertile Farm
I'm not an expert in the area of baseball prospects. You'll never see me speculate before the draft on who the Mets might pick. I lack both the knowledge and the time to pick up that sort of expertise. Despite that, I've been interested in the areas of scouting and developing for a long time, particularly when it comes to the Mets. This interest dates back to the late 1990s, as my love for baseball slowly recovered from the 1994-1995 strike/lockout.
I began to realize just how lacking the Mets organization was in that area. and how much it hurt the club from remaining competitive for more than short periods of time. Steve Phillips was the GM at the time that I started paying attention. He always struck me as someone that cared more about churning up his roster in countless trades than the slow, difficult work of scouting and developing players. The Mets record in draft success under Phillips wasn't great, although they did pick up David Wright and Aaron Heilman in the same 2001 draft.
Jim Duquette's one draft as GM was unproductive, but Omar Minaya had some good drafts. In 2005, the Mets drafted Mike Pelfrey. Jon Neise, Bobby Parnell, Josh Thole, Drew Butera, and Jeremy Hefner. No all-time greats, but that's a lot of major leaguers out of one draft.
After 2005, Minaya's free agent signings led to a lot of forfeited draft picks, and the Mets wasted a lot of what higher picks they had left on college relievers, trying to fast track help for their beleaguered bullpen. Still, the Mets added Joe Smith and Daniel Murphy in 2006, Lucas Duda and Dillon Gee in 2007, Ike Davis, Kirk Nieuwenhuis and Collin McHugh in 2008, Steven Matz in 2009 and Matt Harvey, Matt den Dekker and Jacob deGrom in 2010. I left out some names that Minaya drafted that had briefer MLB careers.
The first draft under Sandy Alderson in 2011 netted a few major leaguers. The best were Brandon Nimmo, Michael Fulmer, Robert Gsellman and Seth Lugo. In 2012 the Mets busted with Gavin Cecchini at number 1 and didn't do great overall, but did draft backup catchers Kevin Plawecki and Tomas Nido and reliever Paul Sewald. In 2013 they drafted Dom Smith, Luis Guillorme and Jeff McNeil. The 2014 draft wasn't great, but they did pickup Michael Conforto in the first round. 2015 hasn't produced anyone of any impact. 2016 netted trade chips Justin Dunn and Anthony Kay and rookie HR record holder Pete Alonso. It's really too soon to talk about more recent drafts, but Jered Kelenic from 2018 looks to be a potential impact player, sadly not with the Mets.
The Mets actually did well drafting under Minaya, including a decent amount of value in later rounds. I know some Mets fans got angry when Minaya came back to the Mets in 2017 as a special assistant to Alderson, but I thought it was a good hire. I wouldn't want him back as GM, but he's pretty strong in scouting and development, and that's basically his job now.
Stepping back into the present, the just completed 5 round mini draft was the second under Brodie Van Wagenen's term as GM, and I find myself liking how his first two drafts went. The Mets went after upside in 2019 with high schoolers Brett Baty, Josh Wolf and Matthew Allan. They seem to have done it again this year with Pete Crow-Armstrong, J.T. Ginn and Isaiah Greene. I'd rather see them go for a kid that has a chance to be special than the so-called safe picks like Gavin Cecchini and those college relievers that Minaya kept drafting. It remains to be seen a few years down the road how they've done with later picks, or what they manage to snag out of that large group of unsigned plyers this year. I do like the approach, there seems to be some actual thought behind it.
I like high-upside draft picks because, if you can develop them, you have potential future impact players for your team and also desirable pieces to use in a trade. It's hard to make a trade for a good big league player if all you have in your system is utility infielders, fifth starters and relievers. So, at least in my mind, so far so good for the Van Wagenen regime.
At The Athletic, the Mets draft got good reviews from Keith Law and a rave from Jim Bowden, who liked Crow-Armstrong, Ginn and Greene, as well as fifth rounder Eric Orze. His overall assessment was gratifying to read:
After 2005, Minaya's free agent signings led to a lot of forfeited draft picks, and the Mets wasted a lot of what higher picks they had left on college relievers, trying to fast track help for their beleaguered bullpen. Still, the Mets added Joe Smith and Daniel Murphy in 2006, Lucas Duda and Dillon Gee in 2007, Ike Davis, Kirk Nieuwenhuis and Collin McHugh in 2008, Steven Matz in 2009 and Matt Harvey, Matt den Dekker and Jacob deGrom in 2010. I left out some names that Minaya drafted that had briefer MLB careers.
The first draft under Sandy Alderson in 2011 netted a few major leaguers. The best were Brandon Nimmo, Michael Fulmer, Robert Gsellman and Seth Lugo. In 2012 the Mets busted with Gavin Cecchini at number 1 and didn't do great overall, but did draft backup catchers Kevin Plawecki and Tomas Nido and reliever Paul Sewald. In 2013 they drafted Dom Smith, Luis Guillorme and Jeff McNeil. The 2014 draft wasn't great, but they did pickup Michael Conforto in the first round. 2015 hasn't produced anyone of any impact. 2016 netted trade chips Justin Dunn and Anthony Kay and rookie HR record holder Pete Alonso. It's really too soon to talk about more recent drafts, but Jered Kelenic from 2018 looks to be a potential impact player, sadly not with the Mets.
The Mets actually did well drafting under Minaya, including a decent amount of value in later rounds. I know some Mets fans got angry when Minaya came back to the Mets in 2017 as a special assistant to Alderson, but I thought it was a good hire. I wouldn't want him back as GM, but he's pretty strong in scouting and development, and that's basically his job now.
Stepping back into the present, the just completed 5 round mini draft was the second under Brodie Van Wagenen's term as GM, and I find myself liking how his first two drafts went. The Mets went after upside in 2019 with high schoolers Brett Baty, Josh Wolf and Matthew Allan. They seem to have done it again this year with Pete Crow-Armstrong, J.T. Ginn and Isaiah Greene. I'd rather see them go for a kid that has a chance to be special than the so-called safe picks like Gavin Cecchini and those college relievers that Minaya kept drafting. It remains to be seen a few years down the road how they've done with later picks, or what they manage to snag out of that large group of unsigned plyers this year. I do like the approach, there seems to be some actual thought behind it.
I like high-upside draft picks because, if you can develop them, you have potential future impact players for your team and also desirable pieces to use in a trade. It's hard to make a trade for a good big league player if all you have in your system is utility infielders, fifth starters and relievers. So, at least in my mind, so far so good for the Van Wagenen regime.
At The Athletic, the Mets draft got good reviews from Keith Law and a rave from Jim Bowden, who liked Crow-Armstrong, Ginn and Greene, as well as fifth rounder Eric Orze. His overall assessment was gratifying to read:
Give the Mets credit for an incredible draft, especially considering they were working from the 19th slot.One thing the Mets always seem to lack that I'd like to see addressed is farm system depth. If you look at top prospect lists for the Mets over the years there never seems to be much at all after the cream of the crop. That's changed a little bit more recently, mostly due to years that they had some luck in later rounds. In the middle of the last decade they had some depth because of trades.
5 comments:
Lots of players listed from 21st century drafts, but not enough quality and quantity per year. Last 3 years have been great, and really, the last several are strong
I agree. But given how poorly the Mets did with the draft in most of the 90s into the early years of this century, those drafts were a step up. At least they got something out of them. Now they need to do more.
Maybe its just me but all I hear is how bad our farm system is and all I see are quality, homegrown players everywhere.
The Dodgers develop players better than everyone else and have been the best at it for a long time. But after that the Mets have done a really good job over the last 7 or 8 years. Baseball America is a clown show and no one should pay any attention to them. I trust this site more than I do BBA. Dont let people tell you not to trust what you see. That seems to be happening everywhere these days.
The club seems only interested in upper 90s pitchers and batters who make consistent contact (albeit without much power). That analysis is more Alderson and Van Wagenen, but it's too soon to declare 2019 or 2020 successes in the draft process. Ask again in about 2 more years when we've had more time to see the young players develop.
@ Richard Hausig, thanks for your observation, and I also agree recent Mets drafts have been very solid for the Mets overall. The first 50 years, not so much! Thankfully, lessons seem to have been learned.
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