Paul Articulates – The Minor League System

If you are a regular reader of Mack’s Mets, you have seen a plethora of posts on the shaping of the MLB roster for the New York Mets.  There have been high profile signings, contract extensions, pre-arbitration salary agreements, and minor trades.  Steve Cohen is clearly motivated to win now, while not compromising the player development system that he knows is key to building a sustainable winner.

The Mets were particularly stingy with their minor league prospects at the mid-season trading deadline in 2022, choosing to keep their studs even if it meant losing leverage on top trade targets.  There is great logic behind this, as it is much less expensive to bring talent up through your system and control their salaries for the first several years rather than have to constantly re-load with high priced free agents.  Organizations like the Atlanta Braves and Houston Astros have followed this model for years and they are perennial playoff teams with lower salaries than many other teams.

The whole player development cycle is a very complex process.  It begins with scouting talent in every corner of the globe – from local high schools to colleges to international leagues.  Unlike the past where a few knowledgeable “baseball guys” would make subjective decisions on players they personally watched, today’s game is filled with analysis of tens of thousands of records contributed by many sources.  The current Mets Baseball Operations arm includes a Vice President of Amateur & International Scouting, and Assistant General Manager of Professional Scouting, and a Senior Advisor of Player Development & Scouting.  Below that is a 17 member organization for professional scouting, a 25 member organization for amateur scouting, and an 18 member organization for international scouting.  There are 28 more people in the Research & Development organization that writes software, manages databases, and does analysis on the data that is collected.

The analytical tools get better and better every year, as technology makes it cheaper to measure performance, catalog it, and compare the results in a multi-variable equation to identify the best candidates.  It is not all numbers of course – baseball is both a mental and physical game.  A player’s mental approach can make or break their success as competition becomes tougher and pressure builds. For every player that gets considered for the draft, there are interviews, psychological profiles, and character recommendations to be considered.

Once the analysis is done and the lists are made, the drafts are completed, and the players are signed the organization takes them in and development begins.  Players are allocated to teams at various levels according to their experience and performance.  The low-A team is located in Port St. Lucie at the home base of player development in the Mets’ spring training complex.  Next is high-A ball with the Brooklyn Cyclones; then AA ball with the Binghamton Rumble Ponies; and AAA ball with the Syracuse Mets.  The player development organization includes all of the coaching staffs for each of the teams plus the MLB coaches.  Player development also includes instructors and coordinators throughout the system to help with skills training.  A performance department includes dieticians, physical trainers, rehab coordinators, and sports scientists.  Need more serious medical attention?  There are 20 doctors on the medical staff.

Most people don’t think very much about all the moving parts behind the scenes when they come to enjoy a baseball game.  They come to watch the finished product that has been honed by many experienced people and years of development and training.  They agonize over a swing and a miss by a player more capable than thousands behind him in the log of performance evaluations.  This is true of every major professional baseball team, but I am pleased to report that the Mets are among the most improved in the player development area.  Major investment and sweeping changes have brought some of the best in the business into the process of developing future Mets stars.

You don’t have to understand everything that is going on in player development to enjoy a ballgame.  But if you are a Mets fan and are interested in how good they are going to be next year and the years after that, you should get to know the Minor League system.  All the newly drafted domestic talent, international signings, and acquired players are coming up through the system, playing some good baseball in small town USA.  If you are near any of the minor league affiliates, come see a game or two (or more).  Admission is very inexpensive, the players are accessible, and the entertainment is worth every penny. Maybe one day you will see a player get a big hit at a big moment to seal a big win for the Mets and you can say, “I saw him when he was just a kid”.  

Enjoy the season, Mets’ fans!