Reese Kaplan -- What Can You Build Now That the Dust Has Settled?

Some things we are prepared to face.  We all have a plan in mind if a fire takes down our home or place of business.  We know what to do in a flood.  We have figured out how to exist without electricity.  We even now know what to do in the face of a pandemic that has turned our understanding of social interactions and doing business upside down.  However, the situation the Mets are in right now as a result primarily of the COVID-19 situation and secondarily due to the reduction in the number of affiliated minor league teams has kind of caught everyone by surprise.  There’s less money to spend, fewer teams onto which to assign new players and no guarantee when revenue starts flowing once again.

This past week the Mets, like the 29 other teams, went through the exercise of drafting new minor leaguers from the ranks of high schools and colleges.  In the past this was a full-face multi-day affair with executives from all teams present in some hotel conference room along with a multitude of representatives from the home team there to help make choices and to discuss possible transactions with other clubs.  

This year was very different, with ten-plus rounds reduced to five, interactions taking place exclusively online and by telephone, no mass conglomeration of baseball business people, and a whole lot of players left without new affiliations with the major league teams they aspired to join.  Yes, it’s entirely possible starting at 9:00 AM yesterday to start signing the unattached free agents from the high school and college ranks, but no one is really sure how that will work.  Now there are rules about a $20K cap for signing bonus which is less than one fifth of what the 6th round players would have gotten last year.  Furthermore, without agents or a ranking order of the team draft slots, that offer is identical from team to team.  

So if you are the New York Mets front office, how would you position the club in orange and blue as the best choice for the prospective ballplayer to wear a uniform?  In the past, the club was not very good about moving players through the many levels of play.  It was not uncommon for players to wait until age 25 or later to make their major league debut.  How did it feel to be a Jeff McNeil affiliated with the Mets and not making your first-ever big league appearance until you were age 26 when clubs like the Nationals and Braves semi-regularly promoted people at age 20 or 21?

The next wrinkle for prospective Mets signees is the record shown by GM Brodie Van Wagenen last year who peddled away the 1st through 3rd round resources to inflate the major league roster with players in the last one-third of their careers.  Yes, there were exceptions like the deal for J.D. Davis but that is what it was -- atypical of how BVW did business.  Would you want to join the Mets knowing full well that your route to the majors may be as a trade chip rather than as a potential star player?  I’m not sure if that’s going to be an easy sell.

The final hurdle for the Mets is that they were affected like many other clubs with the elimination of two levels of minor leagues.  That means that you star or you die.  There is no room to hide mediocre performances elsewhere in the organization.  Bear in mind that this challenge afflicts all of the clubs, not just the Mets.  

We all certainly hope that the club is alive for this lower level picks who went undrafted.  The price should appeal to the team as perennial scrap heap bargain hunters.  After all, Jeff McNeil and Seth Lugo were not in the top ten level of draft picks.  With a club hemorrhaging money and unable to find a buyer, filling the roster with $20K picks may be appealing.  The issue is how to you convince them that a Mets contract is the best identical bet out there compared to 29 other choices?