While the fans are turned off by the team’s rotten play, there may be a silver lining. The race is on for the top draft pick. Here are teams ranked by their current number of losses
1. Houston 102
2. Cubs 92
3. Colorado 91
4. Minnesota 88
5. Cleveland 88
6. Miami 84
7. Mets 83
8. Boston 83
9. Toronto 82
10. Kansas City 81
The Mets are entering hallowed territory.
In no particular order, the cream of this crop in the 2013 draft are LHP Sean Manaea, RHPs Mark Appel and Ryne Stanek, and OF Austin Meadows. There is no way any of these four will be around after the first five or six picks.
The good news is the Mets may be in position for the sixth pick by the end of this weekend and, if they keep giving up 17 runs while hitting three hits, Cleveland and Minnesota are in reach as well.
The good news is three are pitchers. The Mets will not target a pitcher with their first pick. Drafting this low will guarantee them the chance to call out the name of a decent one in the second round.
Meadows is a sure fire #1-3 pick so let’s move on from that one.
Here’s are the “best of the rest” that will most probably still be around when the Mets pick:
C Jeremy Martinez – Mater Dei H.s. (CA) – MLBDC – Baseball (and football) powerhouse Mater Dei catcher Jeremy Martinez has all the tools to be a standout catcher at the professional level. His defensive ability is off the charts. His pop-time (1.87) stands out and compares to some of the best backstops playing in the big-leagues today, who average around 1.80. His arm is plenty strong and he has incredibly soft hands. At 5’11” and 195 pounds he has the size to stay behind the plate for the long-haul. At the plate, Martinez is also a threat. He’s more developed than Austin Hedges, who was drafted by San Diego last year, and who was also noted for his superior defensive ability. Hedges earned a $3 million signing bonus despite being selected in the second-round. Martinez projects to have above-average power and should be a decent hitter for average as well.
C Reese McGuire – Kentwood H.S. (Wash) – PG – Reese McGuire is a 2013 C/3B with a 6-1 190 lb. frame from Kent, WA who attends Kentwood HS. Square shouldered athletic build, strong with room for more strength. Outstanding defensive catcher, cat-like quickness shifting, blocks balls as well as any HS catcher in many years, very quick release on throws, 1.84 best pop, threw 83 mph between innings, sacrifices arm strength for quickness/accuracy at times. Left handed hitter, open spread stance, gets too wide with his base at times, very good bat speed, explodes hands at the ball, makes game adjustments to shorten up, has lift/power but can also take ball the opposite way, still developing real identify as a hitter but has the tools. Defense and athleticism stands out, plays the game hard. Good student, verbal commitment to San Diego.
3B Kris Bryant – San Diego – PG – Kris Bryant is a 2010 3B/1B with a 6’5”, 205 lb. frame from Las Vegas, NV who attends Bonanza HS. Tall athletic body, long levers, very projectable strength. Easy low effort swing, huge leverage and lift in swing, can hit them plus high and far, has serious hitting ability, can shorten swing to velo, quick hands. 7.00 runner, best under way, balanced actions defensively, hands are soft. Power could be something extra special. Corey Hart/Dave Kingman comp physically, but maybe better hitter. Early draft prospect. Excellent student, verbal to San Diego. Aflac All-American
OF Austin Wilson – Stanford – PG – Austin Wilson is a 2010 OF with a 6’4”, 200 lb. frame from Los Angeles, CA who attends Harvard Westlake HS. Impressive physical athletic speciman, Andre Dawson build, huge strength potential. Good swing, simple approach, stays short for size, shows plus bat speed at times, definite serious power potential, ball jumps off bat hard. Big time RF tools, long release but huge arm strength, 98 mph in drills, 6.76 runner with good range. Scores high in make up and character department. Early draft prospect. Excellent student. Aflac All-American.
OF Clint Frazier – Loganville H.S. (GA) – Scout report from friend: “OF, Clint Frazier, Loganville HS, Ga, 5’11 1/2 190 R/R, fleet footed with comparable tools to Mike Trout at the same stage of their careers. Had an outstanding Under Armour game to put his stock on the rise.
Let’s draft the kid with comparable tools to Mike Trout!
The Mets wont draft anyone that would require a huge signing bonus,right?
The Mets had no problem with Nimmo’s bonus.
I will say this. I know one projected 2012 first round pick (I can’t tell you his name because he now is about to start his freshman year at a major university) that the Mets let be know that they were going to pick him in the sup-1 round. They also had two private tryouts for the player.
Welll, they called him on draft day and told him that they would only draft him if he agreed to be slashed with a hugh under-slotting signing bonus. The player, shocked, said no way, thinking his phone would ring from other teams.
Other teams had no idea why the Mets didn’t pick them (or were they told a bill of goods?) and the kid actually went undrafted in the entire draft!
13 mock drafts had him in the top 100 players and not even picked…
No politics in baseball????
(Baseball people keep telling me to keep my mouth shut… what did that get me? You want me to shut up about all the baseball/Mets bullshit, pay me to not write about it…)
Made one of the ACC schools mighty happy and postponed a different difficult decision.
Also a strange deal was Teddy Stankiewicz our 2nd rounder who according to his family would have signed for slot but wasn’t offered anything close. Who knows what the deal was and this year there was more jiggling around than normal because of the whacky bonus pools but you don’t want to get a weird reputation in dealing with prospects or they’ll just start telling you don’t draft me, I’m not signing with you.
There’s no reason to cheer on wins to get a higher draft pick unless there is a once in a generation type talent like Strasuburg, or Harper, or Wood. Everyone else has just a good to fail as the next, and there’s no reason to sacrifice 2 or 3 wins to move up a spot.
I mean cheer on losses. My bad.
I never said they should.
“The good news is the Mets may be in position for the sixth pick by the end of this weekend” Explain this statement then :p
This FO doesn’t pick the name that stands out. They don’t pick best player available. What Houston did this year by getting McCullers plus the number one pick was the perfect draft. The new draft budget each team must conform to is going to hurt teams, unless your willing to roll the dice. The Astros FO said, screw it, we’ll blow most of our budget on these two guys but if just one reaches their ceiling, it’s worth it. The Mets had many head scratching picks. I just didn’t understand picking Gavin, when Hawkings fell in their lap. You could give them the first pick and I’d worry they’d screw it up. If there is 7 elite players and they pick 5th, the FO is walking away with anyone but the three obvious choices. Make no mistake, it’s the money. It’s got to be. I have zero faith in this team, to do what’s best for the franchise, in picking the best player available.
You’re obviously not a writer.
“Good news” in not writer’s speak” for rooting… it is writer’s speak to fortify the headline and the reason for the story.
I’m trying to spread optimism about the future. And, I’m doing this for Brian, free, as a favor.
It really hasn’t been only the first round in which the Mets have been terrible in the draft over the last 25 years, it’s really more in rounds 2-10 they’ve been flat out awful and that is mostly due to needing to stretch the draft budget.
I’m not saying we’ve been good in the first round but we’ve pretty much taken lesser quality in the later rounds to pay for the first round pick and with so many organizational weaknesses it was usually a college player because of speed rather than a bigger boom/bigger bust athletic HS player who could occupy a position at All Star levels for 10 years or more.
The first round has featured way too many college pitchers who didn’t develop, were rushed or mishandled. Paul Wilson went from 50 IP his first minor league season to 186 in his 2nd. (Pulsipher and Isringhausen had the same path of development) Pelfrey, Humber, Kunz, Holt, Heilman, Taber, Keppel and Proctor haven’t had the careers one would hope for a first rounder. Kazmir and Bobby Jones have been the best first round pitchers in 25 years although Harvey certainly appears that he will break the mold.
Milledge, Long, Payton, Preston Wilson, Tyner and Burnitz have been collectively pretty uninspiring as well and many of our best picks wound up being traded and David Wright almost was too. In the last twenty five years true 1st round performance has been limited to just Wright and Kazmir with Harvey looking like he belongs as well but 3 guys in 25 years? It’s not like we were drafting 30th every year either.
In the 2nd round teams have picked up such players as Joey Votto, Giancarlo Stanton, Jordan Zimmerman, Brian McCann, Yuniel Escobar, Yovani Gallardo, Freddie Freeman, Andrelton Simmons, Ryan Doumit, Brandon Phillips, JJ Hardy, Gorzelanny, Broxton, Headley, Glaus, Wolf, Rollins, Rolen, John Jay and Dan Haren and that’s just in the National League.
In the entire NL where teams like Colorado, Miami and Arizona didn’t even start drafting until ’92 or ’96 we are 4th from the bottom in drafted WAR ahead of only Chicago, Arizona and Pittsburgh since 1987 and with our only two hits (Todd Hundley and Pete Schourek) long since retired almost certainly will be passed by Pittsburgh and Arizona who still have active players left leaving us ahead of just one National League team, the Cubs.
We are already last in drafted WAR in the National League in the 3rd round with only one hit since 1983 (Joe Smith) Other teams in just the last 15 years have gotten players from the 3rd round. Zito, Guthrey, Sizemore, Morse, Chris Young, Blalock, Rauch, Morneau, Granderson, Desmond, Espinosa, LuCroy, Marcum, Kimbrell, Worley and Seager. Sure there are way more misses than hits but when getting a hit means turning a “hole” into at least a league average starter or more for a lengthy period of time it is vital to at least get get our fair share.
4th round we have just Angel Pagan and Billy Koch who we didn’t even sign.
5th round our only “hit” has been Nick Evans.
6th round we have never hit on anyone, ever.
7th round Jon Niese, Lucas Duda and Brian Bannister.
8th round Just AJ Burnett (and Rafeal Palmero who we didn’t sign)
9th round Only Fernando Vina, Mike Carp and Bobby Parnell.
10th round Matt Lindstrom and Garrett Atkins, another guy we didn’t sign.
If these results were over a 10 year period they wouldn’t be good but over 20 or 25 is absolutely putrid and is in fact the reason we always have so many holes, need so many free agents, never have much to trade, get sabotaged by lack of depth and have had more losing seasons than winning one’s the last two decades.
The new FO does though appear to be bringing a new philosophy to the draft and they should be supported in this, not held up to ridicule for the poor work done before they got here. Some fans are completely infatuated with Coutney Hawkins because of his power potential but with huge K/BB rates is a big risk and will never occupy a [remium defensive position. The Mets did go for power in Nimmo the year before who mitigates his K’s with tons of walks and was 4th in doubles this year in the NY Penn League which is a HUGE harbinger of true power when done at an age a year or two below League average. This year they addressed another huge weakness. Speed and defense at an elite position. Hawkins may be rushed through the White Sox system as they have very little while Cecchini can’t be expected until 2017 but it is the combination of him Evans, Muno, Gamboa, Tovar, Rosario and the other two IFA SS’s signed this year that will not only take care of SS/2B for years and years, with depth but also afford us the opportunity to deal from a position of strength.
I was in favor of Swihart and Story in 2011 but I’m more than satisfied with Nimmo and Fulmer. 2012 wasn’t as good a draft and the weird CBA rules make it tough to figure out the right strategy but you have to give them time because at least the drafts have been much more high ceiling than the previous 15 years and have to be looked upon in totality because after all it is a numbers game.
nice work
Charles, I agree that the Mets haven’t had any predictablity on drafting, but there are two Mets eras we talk about here, Minaya and Alderson.
The Matt Harvey pick was the last one in the recent future that made sense on paper.
The Nimmo story I explained a number of times. It was one scout (Chad McDonald)begging DePo to pick him, getting the pick, and then quitting the Mets a week later to head up scouting for another team.
Last year, the Mets proved they don’t draft by position by picking the 4586th middle infielder.
No one the Mets draft in June 2013 will help them until opening day 2016, so a lot can happen before that.
The Mets need a full time catcher and three outfielders. Nimmo will someday be one of them and either Vaughn, Gomez, Pena, or Lupo still have the ceiling to be starters.
IMO, Nieuwenhuis, Baxter, and Duda can hold the fort down, but that’s all.
Also, IMO, den Dekker, Puello, Martin, Lagares, Harris, Fernandez,Ceciliani, and Taijeron are 4th outfielders at best.
Alderson will have the money to go get one slot filled this year via free agency.
He could also package 3-4 secondary prospects (we’ve covered that before) for the other outfield slot.
Still, it would be wise for the Mets to break with tradition and “steal” a player like Austin Wilson… like they could have stolen Courtney Hawkins… like they could have stolen Yazmani Grandal… like they could have stolen Bryce Bentz… these were not unknown entities. They well well know power hitters that were projected by everybody to be 25/100 starters some day, where, BTW, they are all heading.
The Mets would be missing one pitcher (Harvey) and have had a 2014 lineup of 1B Davis, 2B Tejada, ss Reyes, 3b Wright, C Grandal, OF Brentz, Hawkins, Nimmo… pipe dreaming again
That draft that Grandal and Brentz were in was the draft we sold two first rounders (20th and 39th as it turns out) for Chris Carter in order to avoid having to either avoid offering Wagner arbitration and the flack that would have attracted or paying the signing bonuses those picks would have commanded. We also gave up our 2nd rounder for Bay that year.
These are the types of decisions that keep bad teams bad.
We then sold Barajas in August of 2011 for cash to the Dodgers when he was going to be a supplemental round pick in a few weeks and could easily have been turned into Austin Hedges on an over slot bonus or Andrew Susac which would really help the catching situation and will probably be in AA next year.
The Madoff situation is so much improved over the period of the 2009 to 2011 drafts but we’ve been drafting for cost since way before that hit. Mazzoni our 2011 2nd rounder got 440 K, SD gave Hedges 3 M. 2009 Met 3rd rounder Robbie Shields got 315 K, KC gave Will Myers 2 M.
Catchers are so vital to draft early and often and sign internationally because they bust so often and frequently get moved elsewhere when they don’t. The high demand for catching prospects have led to teams giving up quite a bit to get them. Latos, Halliday, Pence, Pineda, Gio Gonzalez and Matt Capps in recent years were at least part of the cost for top catching prospects. Myers (21) was drafted as a catcher but would now fit the bill as our RH hitting CFer or RFer after just 3 years in the minors. Robbie Shields is 24 in A+.
It is an absolute disgrace that small and mid market teams can pay a HS kid 5-10 times what we pay our draft picks even while we have needs in so many areas yet when it comes to addressing the symptoms of poor drafting over a 25 year period the skies the limit.
Great posts, 7T. Depressing but seriously informative.
Mets fans should stay home until the Wilpons sell the team. Imagine the Mets in the hands of a savvy hedge fund guy or Mark Cuban. Sigh.
Here’s the deal…
I listed five players that are probably going to be starts of the game.
One, or all of them, will be available for the Mets to pick.
The Mets could move on to deciding the top ten names they want up on the 2nd pick. This one is done if they just read this post.