In the 2012 First-Year Player Draft, with the 12th overall pick, the Mets selected shortstop Gavin Cecchini out of Barbe High School in Lake Charles, Louisiana. It was the second draft of the Sandy Alderson era and the second straight year the team selected a high school player with their first draft pick.* This was a noted departure from recent drafts, in which the team used their top pick on college players (or had no first round picks).
One does not usually consider first-round players drafted out of high school to be “safe” picks, but Cecchini was probably as close as they came. While high school players drafted in the first round usually come with one or more elite tools (or elite potential) with a very high ceiling, Cecchini had solid-average to slightly above-average tools across the board. Instead of an incredibly high ceiling with a high likelihood to bust, he came with a very high floor and a strong likelihood to play at the major league level in some capacity. Again, this is not the typical high school player selected in the first round.
So why did Alderson’s team use the 12th overall pick on such a player? Without actually knowing the team’s thinking, the short of it is they saw high value in a very polished up-the-middle defender that was likely to play in the majors at a premium position. There aren’t many players that can be said about on draft day.
The initial reaction to the pick, outside your typical sources that were always negative, seemed to be lukewarm at best. Fans, understandably, wanted the team to select a player with more talent that was still on the board and feared the team had reached with this pick. Cecchini’s first couple of years in professional baseball did not help to quell those fears.
The Mets assigned Cecchini to their Kingsport team in the rookie Appalachian League in 2012 after the draft, where he slashed .246/.311/.330 with 12 extra-base hits in 218 plate appearances. He struck out at a rate of roughly 20% and walked about 8% of the time. It was a solid enough debut for the 18-year-old, so much so that the team gave him a taste of the New York Penn League and promoted him to the Brooklyn Cyclones at the end of the season.
Cecchini spent the 2013 season with the Cyclones and contributed a season that was amazingly similar to his 2012. He slashed .273/.319/.314 while striking out and walking a little less but with only 8 extra-base hits. Again, it was a solid enough performance for a player that was tied for second-youngest in the league. Fans were already losing patience, though. There were already rumblings on Mets message boards and fans dubbing him “Bustchini” after two stints in short season ball.
Cecchini finally made the jump to a full season league in 2014 when he opened the season as the starting shortstop for the Savannah Sand Gnats in the South Atlantic League. Although we’re still in small sample territory, it seems as though Cecchini is starting to put together the potential the Mets saw when they drafted him. In 38 games he’s slashed .268/.335/.418, a marked improvement in his on-base percentage and especially in his power output. In fact, with 14 extra-base hits he’s already surpassed the totals he had in both 2012 and 2013. His three home runs are two more than he put up in two years at the rookie levels combined and he’s maintaining solid strikeout and walk rates.
Amazingly, he’s done most of his damage at home in Savannah’s Grayson Stadium, a ballpark notorious for killing offensive performance, especially power. As noted in the spray chart below, he’s doing a pretty good job of hitting to all fields.
Credit to MLBFarm.com
His opposite-field power is quite clearly lacking, though, and an area of improvement in which he’ll need to continue to work. He’s hit a bit of a skid in his last ten games and hasn’t been hitting or getting on base much, though the power is still there.
This is hardly a make-or-break year for Cecchini as he continues to play as one of the youngest players in his league, but a strong showing will go a long way to restoring confidence in a fanbase that seems to grasp onto anything negative. He still has a long way to go, but the hope is that Cecchini can blossom into the .280 hitter that pops 10-15 home runs a year and plays solid defense that the Mets thought they were getting when they drafted him.
* Brandon Nimmo, the Mets’ top 2011 pick, was the first time the Mets selected a high school player with their first pick since 2003 when they drafted Lastings Milledge at 12th overall.
As someone who didn’t like the pick when it was made and has seen little since to change his mind, I wish I had come up with the “Bustchini” nickname.
I wouldn’t go so far as to claim this as make or break, but Bustchini has Amed Rosario coming up behind him and both Wilfredo Tovar and Phillip Evans performing well in front of him. He needs to do something to separate himself from those three.
Who could they have had that they passed up?That’s the test of whether it was a poor pick.
I don’t agree with that. You can always find examples of guys picked later who turned out to be much, much better.
It was a poor pick because what Cecchini brings to the table – good contact, good glove, speed – are things that you can find later in the draft. You have a high draft pick, you look to get an impact player. You look for big-time power, whether that’s a bat or an arm.
If Cecchini hits his ceiling – that’s a nice player. But that player is still a complementary piece and not a core player. At best, he’s Stephen Drew.
Wow!…. if you can draft a Starting Major League Shortstop, that’s a very nice pick! That said, it’s tough for Me to even pretend to be a Baseball “draftnick”. A pop off the Charts SS with obvious power is going to be in the top 5 of any draft…if not the first pick.
At 10/11 or so, you’re not going to get a chanceto draft that “obvious” 5 tool guy at CF, Cather or SS—so would you rather go with the best Project-able Bat there?…or a high gain arm?
But to be a long-term answer at SS, Cecchini is basically going to have to hit his ceiling.
In this particular draft, the strength was in pitching. I wanted the Mets to take Lucas Giolito, but he had big contract demands and injury concerns. He’s already had surgery and is back pitching well (36 Ks in 32.1 IP).
But even if those things scared you off from Giolito, the Mets passed on Michael Wacha, Lucas Sims and Marcus Stroman to take Cecchini.
Here’s an article you might like, written at the time he was drafted.
I have a general question about Tommy John surgery and arm injuries in general…
I was reviewing Baseball Reference and the number of innings Steve Carlton threw, and, dating myself, I am from the era when complete games were quality starts.
With all the pitching limits, beginning in Little League today, are we having more injuries and surgeries due to a lack of strength built up, or is science merely noting more success whereas previously, the injured would have no career?
The reason I ask is that a now retired Mets scout said, a few years back, that he and the other “oldies” believe that the advent of video games along with the mega channels on television, so changed the landscape of children playing, that we no longer have the durable arms we had prior to the 1980’s or so.
Thoughts?
I can’t see kids playing video games as causing more pitching injuries. The kids who are sitting on the couch aren’t the ones out playing baseball, most likely. More regular throwing, less pitching is what kids need to build up arm strength. You stress particular muscles in your arm when you pitch, and if you start doing that with regularity at 10-13 years old, you’re just asking for trouble. In my humble opinion, of course.
Cecchini’s selection appears to directed to fulfilling an organizational need rather than taking the best player available. Alderson inherited a minor league system bereft of talented position players, so he can’t be faulted for this selection.
Hindsight is 20/20 and the baseball draft is fertile ground for revisionist thinking.
My belief is that Alderson saw ML talent in Cecchini and understands that he won’t be an impact player until he begins to mature physically, as we are now beginning to see with Brandon Nimmo. I believe Met brass sees the same qualities in Dominic Brown.
It’s too early to draw conclusions, but at least a pattern is emerging that is directing toward correcting the jagged landscape that constitutes Met player position talent level and questionable attempts to raise that level through curious FA signings.