As we close in on this year's draft, it got me thinking about Mets' drafts of yore.
If the Mets, or any team for that matter, draft well, and dynasties can result - draft poorly, your franchise will sputter and stall a lot and/or you will spend tons on free agents.
Any baseball guru will tell you that the MLB draft is something of a crap shoot, even in the first round, where one would surmise that most franchise stars come from.
The higher a guy is drafted in the first round, the more the guy should be a future star.
#1 overall, most times your pick should become a future star or even a superstar. To a large degree, that applies to #2 thru #5, too.
Picks 6 through 10 should vary from becoming a decent everyday player (or pitching starter) up to a star.
Picks 11 through 20 get iffier, but most of them should at least have modest big league careers, and many should be better.
Picks 21-30 are less likely to be impact players than the first 20 picks than pick #11 - #20. But many of the 21-30 crowd ought to do reasonably well in the majors. Heck, that was the grouping where the Angels nabbed Mike Trout.
At least that is how I see it.
Draft well, and dynasties can result - draft poorly, your franchise will sputter and stall a lot and/or you will spend tons on free agents.
So I decided, using the above round groupings' rules of thumb, to see how the Mets have done overall with their first round picks.
I listed them all in descending pick order, ranked by overall earliest picks first - my comments collectively tell me the Mets have done a truly poor job overall with first round picks.
You check it out, and see if you agree.
| Yr | Name | Pos | Overall Pick # | Tom Comment |
| 1966 | Steve Chilcott | C | 1 | Shoulda took Reggie Jackson - BUST! |
| 1968 | Tim Foli | SS | 1 | .251/.283/.309 in 6,047 career ABs - not #1 overall caliber |
| 1980 | Darryl Strawberry | OF | 1 | Obvious, great pick - almost picked Billy Beane (did later) |
| 1984 | Shawn Abner | OF | 1 | .227 hitter in 809 at bats, none with the Mets - BUST! |
| 1994 | Paul Wilson | RHP | 1 | Looked promising, hurt his arm, 40-58, 4.86 ERA career |
| 1965 | Les Rohr | LHP | 2 | Look promising, got hurt, just 24 MLB innings - BUST! |
| 1979 | Tim Leary | RHP | 2 | 78-105, 4.36 ERA; 1 very good year, 17-11, 2.91 for LA |
| 1978 | Hubie Brooks | SS | 3 | Obviously a very good pick |
| 2004 | Philip Humber | RHP | 3 | See Paul Wilson, he looked good until he hurt his arm. |
| 1967 | Jon Matlack | LHP | 4 | Great pick |
| 1969 | Randy Sterling | RHP | 4 | He did get 9 major league innings in BUST! |
| 1981 | Terry Blocker | OF | 4 | 244 ABs, .205 - BUST! |
| 1983 | Eddie Williams | 3B | 4 | 1145 ABs, .252/.319/.398; none with Mets; # 4, BUST! |
| 1982 | Dwight Gooden | RHP | 5 | BINGO! Superb pick. |
| 1975 | Butch Benton | C | 6 | 99 career at bats, .162. Sweet pick. BUST! |
| 1997 | Geoff Goetz | LHP | 6 | Never made the majors - BUST! |
| 2018 | Jared Kelenic | OF | 6 | Soon to be great, perhaps, but not as a Met |
| 2010 | Matt Harvey | RHP | 7 | Great pick, eventually kneecapped by injuries |
| 1993 | Kirk Presley | RHP | 8 | Never made the majors, another gem of a pick - BUST! |
| 1992 | Preston Wilson | SS-OF | 9 | Very good pick - some great years |
| 2005 | Michael Pelfrey | RHP | 9 | Not very good most of career, 68-103, 4.68 ERA - BUST! |
| 2014 | Michael Conforto | OF | 10 | Great pick - MC Hammer |
| 2013 | Dominic Smith | 1B | 11 | May still turn out to be a great pick |
| 2003 | Lastings Milledge | OF | 12 | Excuses aside, a mediocre pick - BUST! |
| 2012 | Gavin Cecchini | SS | 12 | Terrible pick - BUST! |
| 2019 | Brett Baty | OF | 12 | We'll soon find out how good he will be |
| 1972 | Richard Bengston | C | 13 | Well, he briefly made it to AA, so you tell me - BUST! |
| 1976 | Tom Thurberg | OF-RH | 13 | He stunk in AAA, briefly, that was his high point - BUST! |
| 1996 | Robert Stratton | OF | 13 | Minor leagues .243 hitter - BUST! |
| 2011 | Brandon Nimmo | RF | 13 | Looked shaky until it looked very good! |
| 1971 | Rich Puig | 2B | 14 | 5'10', 165 IF had 10 MLB at bats, but alas, no hits - BUST! |
| 1973 | Lee Mazzilli | OF | 14 | Very good pick |
| 2002 | Scott Kazmir | LHP | 15 | Very good pick, foolishly discarded by the Mets |
| 1977 | Wally Backman | SS | 16 | Wal-ly, Wal-ly! Very good pick |
| 2000 | Billy Traber | LHP | 16 | 12 wins, 5.65 ERA in the majors: BUST! |
| 1974 | Cliff Speck | RHP | 17 | 2-1 in 28 career innings - for Atlanta - BUST! |
| 1990 | Jeromy Burnitz | OF | 17 | Excellent pick for a 17th overall |
| 1991 | Alfred Shirley | OF | 18 | .213 minor league hitter - BUST! |
| 1992 | Christopher Roberts | OF-LH | 18 | Peaked at 7-21, 5.52 ERA in AAA - BUST! |
| 1995 | Ryan Jaroncyk | SS | 18 | Was awful in A Ball - BUST! |
| 2001 | Aaron Heilman | RHP | 18 | Great pick |
| 2008 | Ike Davis | 1B | 18 | Very solid pick |
| 2016 | Justin Dunn | RHP | 19 | Looking like a very solid pick - Seattle thinks so, anyway |
| 1983 | Stan Jefferson | OF | 20 | 832 major league at bats, .216. BUST! |
| 1985 | Gregg Jefferies | SS | 20 | Awesome pick, mishandled by cocky Mets teammates |
| 1994 | Terrence Long | 1B | 20 | 3,068 at bats, .269. Solid pick for a # 20 overall. |
| 2017 | David Peterson | LHP | 20 | Time will tell. |
| 1986 | Lee May | OF | 21 | Daddy hit great, but this Lee May was awful. BUST! |
| 1988 | Dave Proctor | RHP | 21 | Proctor was a bad gamble, barely made it to AA. BUST! |
| 1998 | Jason Tyner | CF | 21 | Speedster was a powerless utility player for several years. |
| 2008 | Reese Havens | SS | 22 | Injuries robbed his chances of making the big leagues. |
| 1970 | *-George Ambrow | SS | 23 | Apparently never played - BUST! |
| 1980 | Billy Beane | OF | 23 | Billy Bust: 301 MLB at bats, .219/.243/.296 - BUST! |
| 1980 | John Gibbons | C | 24 | .220 in just 50 MLB at bats - BUST! |
| 1987 | Chris Donnels | 3B | 24 | 798 at bats, .233/.319/.355 - BUST! |
| 1989 | Alan Zinter | C | 24 | 78 major league at bats, .167 - BUST! |
| 2016 | Anthony Kay | LHP | 31 | Looking promising - for the Toronto Blue Jays. |
I list half (29) of the Mets' 57 top picks as BUSTS!
HALF!
Insanely bad, if you ask me, especially with 19 BUST picks in the first 9 overall picks over the years, which is pretty darned inexcusable.
Also, there were a few I did not list as busts that I could have - for instance, a # 1 overall pick should do better than Tim Foli did, or a # 2 like Tim Leary did - you could argue that they were BUST! picks, too.
Add to the BUST! picks the several other quality picks that shorted out due to injury, like Reese Havens, because they all count in the end, and the historical draft results are even worse.
I gave them a D+ for their entire draft history.
Just curious - can you think of any teams that have drafted worse over the years?
For sure, there have been a few great picks, and a decent number of picks who did solidly relative to where they were picked in the first round.
Let me close by noting that in my opinion, top round drafting seems much better in recent years, however, which is a relief.
10 comments:
These bad drafts go back a long way from Steve Chilcott over Reggie Jackson to Cliff Speck over Rick Sutcliff in 1974. Ed Charles, then a scout with the Mets had scouted Sutcliff and wanted to take him number one at #17. However, he was over-ruled by the team's cross-checker at the time and they went with Cliff Spence. The Dodgers got Sutcliff at #21 instead. Had the Mets drafted Sutcliff, 1984 might have been very different. Of course when Sutcliff trashed Tommy Lasorda's office when the Dodgers sent him down one time, the cross checker probably smiled.
Also, the Mets first choice in 1984 was Mark Mcquire but he told them that he preferred staying on the west coast so they drafted Shawn Abner.
FYI, as we had on today's Breakfast links, today is the Anniversary of the Mets drafting Paul Wilson.
You could go several levels deep to make the drafting show even worse than it is here. It is odd if it has been better under the current regime considering how dysfunctional they are.
John, great observations.
Paul Wilson was one I thought of putting in the BUST category, but my memory was a bit weak on the extent to which arm injuries led to his very mediocre results for a # 1 pick, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt.
I was much more focused back in the 1960s and 1970s on just watching games as a fan and not diving into the weeds of things like draft selections. They drafted an awful lot of first round bums over the years. Other than the mystifying selection of Gavin Cecchini, recent first round picks have been very good.
Hopefully, Peterson is ready to prove he was a worthwhile first round pick, but he was a 20th overall pick and, like in the NBA, there is a huge gap in expectations between a first overall pick and a 20th overall one. Hopefully, Peterson is going to go all Koosman on us soon.
Reese, it is true that it has often been bad drafting in Mets history beyond round 1. I did an article recently on when they drafted a bunch of poor performers in the earlier rounds of the 1998 draft and did not take Pujols before round 13. Awful, because he got to the majors so fast, as much as being great once he got there.
I think they have done somewhat better in drafts after round 1 in recent years, and last year's draft looks A+. But I think the 4th round drafting of Branden Kaupe was emblematic of awful drafting...a 5'7" guy (how many Altuves are there?) and I thought 5'7"? I hope they know what they are doing. And they clearly didn't - he had an incredibly low 4 doubles, 6 triples, and no homers in 600 plate appearances in the lower minors. That pick in such an early round was bewildering. You want to be successful? Draft power arms, power bats. Worry about the rest later.
FYI, Gavin was released last week as part of Arizona's release of 62 minor league players. Mack has said in the past that the Mets were all set to take Giolito but took Gavin at the last minute.
I've said this before here, but the conventional perception of Steve Chilcott as the poster child for inept drafting is misplaced. If you were a Sporting News/Baseball Digest baseball-aholic in that era you would know that there was reasonable debate whether a sure-fire All-Star outfielder or a Campy/Berra class catcher should be 1 or 2.
Those who favored the latter said that more opportunities to harvest the former would present themselves than the other way around. Those favoring the OF selection argued--correctly as it turned out--that the injury risk was higher with a backstop whatever the talent. If you're willing to give a mulligan for the Wilson selection, please reconsider the unfortunate Mr. Chilcott.
Of course the tragedy compounds as, in the following year with afranchise backstop in stock, they pass on Johnny Bench. Jackson & Bench would have given the Mets a different 70's look don't you think?
Nice work, Tom.
Explains how the team has been mediocre more then it has been successful.
Poor drafting leads to trading away prospects and overpaying/relying on free agents, which in turn cost the team future draft picks (or it used to).....a vicious cycle, I suppose.
On a side note, the jury is still out on players like Anthony Kay, Justin Dunn and Jared Kelenic......just because they were traded away doesn't mean they will blossom elsewhere (but in true Mets' luck, they probably will). However, I am most curious to see if Kelenic comes close to meeting his current hype.
He's off to a nice start, but Cooperstown is still a ways away.
(and, yes....I hate the trade in retrospect)
Let's hope Brodie relies more on future drafts (like the 2019 one) and less on trades and pricey free agents.
Mike, good to hear from you. All things being equal, Kelenic getting drafted closer to the top overall pick should make him a better bet for stardom than Dunn and Kay - but all 3 may turn out to be very good.
While my overall first round draft grade since inception is D+, I think last year's top 3 picks make Brodey's 2019 draft an A+.
Hobie, Jackson and Bench with Seaver, Koosman, and Ryan would have been enough to dominate baseball throughout the 1970s. One can only dream.
I saw an article recently that was less favorable to Chilcott at the time he was drafted - their take was that he was clearly not #1 overall material. First rounder, yes, but not #1 overall.
Mike -
Miss your contribution here.
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