One of the items asked for by readers from our September customer survey was to have things in addition to our regular articles. One of the suggestions was to have interviews with non-team personnel. Below is an email correspondence with David Groveman, who has written for the site and appeared on podcasts dating back to February of 2012. He has a great disposition and is always ready to answer questions posed by me or any other reader. Let’s get to it!
How old are you? Under 25, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55+
I’m 38
Do you live within an hour’s drive of Citi Field?
Not with any sort of traffic. I’m about 90 minutes away.
What are the memories of first Mets game you saw in person, whether Polo Grounds, Shea Stadium or Citi Field?
I remember very little of it. It was at Shea and the Mets were playing Montreal. I can’t tell you if they won or lost but I can confirm I had a helmet full of soft serve ice cream.
How did you get involved with Mets360?
I wrote for Mack’s Mets for a few years and after my fourth or fifth falling out with Mack this blog was suggested to me by Matt Cerrone. I reached out to Brian and the rest is history.
You focus primarily on the minor leagues here. What’s your assessment on the overall strength of the farm system here in mid-October of 2022?
The farm system is better than it has been in years, especially when you consider that Alvarez, Baty and Vientos are all still prospects for another year. Its weakness is pitching because Matt Allan hasn’t pitched in a long time and is still the team’s top pitching prospect.
What’s the one thing you think the average fan does wrong when it comes to looking at minor leaguers?
Fans assume that prospects are failures too quickly. I warned people that Vientos needed time in the majors and I think they already assume he’s a bust after not even getting a true taste.
With the elimination of farm clubs in the APPY and NYP a couple of years ago, does it make sense to still do a top-50 list of minor leaguers? On average, how many players do you feel like from your top-50 list make the majors?
I track 50 players but I think that player rankings outside the top 30 are barely relevant. Honestly, I use my top fifty to keep tabs on players who come from obscurity. That’s also how I discover players like Keyshawn Askew.
Can Brett Baty and Mark Vientos both play for the Mets and both get 500+ PA in the same season? Can they do it on a regular basis?
I imagine that we may do off-season plans during the off-season and people will see what my idea of rebuilding the team is. As far as I’m concerned, the Mets should be looking at Baty or Vientos as their DH and not doing a timeshare. If the Mets want to risk their outfield without Nimmo then you could have Baty at 3rd and Vientos as the full time DH (split with Alvarez in part). I think both getting 500+ is a longshot.
Steve Cohen indicated he wanted to win the World Series in 3-5 years. How does that impact the farm system? Do you agree with the club’s decision not to pay the price to get a Juan Soto type at the deadline, knowing they would have had to gut the farm system to do it.
I don’t get the obsession with Juan Soto or Aaron Judge. Both are exceptional players who both play positions the Mets don’t need. The Mets should have traded something for Willson Contreras but who knows what the Cubs were asking for. If Shohei Ohtani was actually on the table I could have seen trading big names for him but Soto wasn’t a player I particularly wanted.
A little over a year later, and knowing all we know now, how do you feel about the club’s decision to draft but not sign Kumar Rocker?
This is still a pain point. I feel like the Mets got good value in this draft but that Rocker would have filled a big need in the minors for an organization starved for pitching. It is a failure to draft a player you aren’t sure of. The Mets were surprised he fell to them and they made a major mistake in selecting him without doing their due diligence.
*****
We made it thru without talking about Patrick Mazeika – that should make my list when we talk about things were grateful for when Thanksgiving rolls around next month. Keep smiling, David!
On Vientos, I think the bat will be good. However, it is painful that he can’t field at all. How come the Mets keep doing this? Why don’t the Braves have these problems?
Likewise, Baty’s glove looks like it might be a couple of notches below Escobar — that’s a scary place to be. We’re excited to see him but he might be the worst defensive 3B in baseball?
And Mauricio clearly can’t field at SS. I understand keeping him at SS if the hope is to trade him — and if the hope is to trick other teams into thinking he’s a SS. Wouldn’t the right move be to switch him to a corner OF position?
What’s going on here?
The one mistake I see over and over is people talking about picking up a DH this winter. Isn’t it clear that Alvarez is going to DH at least 80 times this coming season? Or are we back to thinking that a terrible defensive 3B and a terrible defensive C is the new recipe for success?
Defensive Analysis:
Francisco Alvarez – League Average Defense
Brett Baty – Slightly Below League Average Defense 3B and Slightly Below League Average Defense LF
Mark Vientos – Below League Average Defense and Bad Defense LF
I’ve seen Alvarez catch many times and I would never call him a bad fielding catcher.
Mauricio should be moved to the outfield, especially if the Mets don’t bring back Nimmo but it seems clear the team doesn’t have him in their long term plans.
I have *not* seen Alvarez catch. All the reports I’ve read say that he’s a work in progress. Which makes sense — he’s only 20. I mean, how many really young MLB catchers have there been? I guess my take is that while it stands to reason he will develop into an average defensive catcher, that there’s still a lot of growth necessary (working with pitchers, etc.) and that for a couple of years his defense will be less than average.
Hey, I’m all in — but I’d like to see him DH a lot and slowly develop, under the right mentor, for the first couple of seasons. It will be interesting how the new shorter distances on the basepaths will effect things.
On Baty: He didn’t look good to my eyes. And even the injury was a direct result of that awkwardness. Seems like a terrific kid and I like the bat.
I think the worry with Alvarez is his language barrier and working with the staff. I think him entering Spring Training as the Catcher apparent will give him the opportunity to start working with these pitchers to develop the needed rapport. If I’m James McCann, I embrace the idea of coaching Alvarez as I look to a career after he hangs up his cleats.
Baty is the bigger defensive concern. He actually has better numbers during his limited time in left field but I don’t think that’s a good plan for him either. You’ll recall that Alonso didn’t look great defensively when he came up either.
If the Mets work out the math to bring back Nimmo then you can have the following to spread the defense and hitting around:
Catcher 60%: Francisco Alvarez
Catcher 40%: James McCann
Third Base 70%: Eduardo Escobar
Third Base 20%: Brett Baty
Third Base 10%: Luis Guillorme
Designated Hitter 70%: Brett Baty
Designated Hitter 20%: Francisco Alvarez
Designated Hitter 10%: Eduardo Escobar
Second Base 80%: Jeff McNeil
Second Base 10%: Luis Guillorme
Second Base 10%: Eduardo Escobar
I was curious to see your Rocker answer.
I just can’t for the life of me figure out what in the medicals was so bad that they didn’t think it was correctable by surgery. Turns out – he didn’t even need surgery. I like the Parada pick and it probably worked out as best as we could have hoped for as Mets fans. But it would be nice to have Rocker in the farm system
I assume they hadn’t scouted Rocker because of his expected draft position and then they panicked. It looks really really bad.
Does anyone think that Pareda would be available two picks later? Overall, I like Pareda more than Rocker when I hear Rocker is sitting in the 92-93 range.
I enjoy David’s minor league articles. They are very informative and insightful.
Do you see Vientos (55g) platooning with Vogelbach (107g) at DH in 2023?
Do you see Escobar ( 52g) and Baty (55g) sharing third base against RHP.? Then Escobar would play third base against LHP (55g) so Escobar has a total of 107g at third base.
Alvarez would be the starting catcher. (120-140 g).
Will the Mets give this much responsibility to three rookies?
There are two things I see. One is what I want the Mets to do and the other is what I think they will do. I want the Mets to sign Nimmo and if they do then Baty is the team’s LH DH with Alvarez getting DH time vs LHP. If Nimmo is gone there is a cascade where McNeil goes to left, Escobar goes to second and Baty is the starting 3B. In this scenario Vientos could platoon with Vogelbach but it cannot be a straight RHP/LHP platoon as Vientos needs regular at bats. You would also see a number of games for Baty at 3rd even if he were the DH as Escobar and McNeil’s versatility give the Mets options.
I cant see any reason for Baty to start next year in Queens. He has all of 6 games (26 PA) in AAA and is very young. Yes, he made a minor splash upon arrival, but his arrival was a desperation move with Escobar on IL. My money and reality should suggest that he play in Syracuse until he can play his way up to Queens on merit. The Mets dont have a great track record of making the AA to MLB jump – and not that that should even be expected. Nothing would be worse than hurrying him up too fast and then killing him as a big leaguer.
I’m with Chris on this one – especially with Escobar playing better down the stretch. I think you can make a better case for carrying Vientos as RHB for DH than carrying Baty for any role or combination of roles for Opening Day.
You can have Baty go to AAA, that’s more than fair. The issue is rebuilding a pitching staff with limited funds (assuming we are limited by an audacious $300 Mil cap) and where you spend the money. Re-sign Nimmo and Baty cannot win the job at 3rd base because there is no room for him. Re-signing Nimmo likely means that you are losing a substantial pitcher from your offseason plan though.
You want to sign Judge or Abreu too and you are looking at a downright bad starting rotation. You have to save your money somewhere and (shocker) the minor league guy does it by promoting minor leaguers.
I will reiterate that a 300M$ OD payroll cap is a completely false narrative. Each year things change. Yes it is a lot of money, at the same time, poor stewardship of the team and the “rebuilding for it” broken plan has brought in good but not great FAs and trades that emptied the farm. The plain fact is until that comes as a balance, this team will have to overpay to be competitive. There is no way Cohen dumped 43×3 M$ on Max and 340M$ on Lindor only to place rookies at 3 positions in the line up. Every year the FA costs rise – that’s part of life. You want to be Dodgers East? That’s gonna cost a lot of money until the team ages are spread more evenly so that maybe only a few players need to change in the off season rather than the perpetual “choose between a rookie or an expensive FA” associated with rebuilding for it.
In 2012, the Dodgers OD payroll was 105M. In 2013 it more than doubled to 216M, and in 2015, it was 271M. This is the cost of turning into the Dodgers. In three years the Dodger OD payroll nearly tripled. So, when I hear about som fixed value for 2023 OD payroll that says money is the only thing that matters, not winning. He bought this car as a junker with a fresh paint job. If he wants to race, its gonna cost what it costs, not pinned to some imaginary line in the sand.
Chris, I’m behind you all the way – everything you said – and it’s how I feel. I will take it a step further, and say leave both Vientos and Baty down in Syracuse to start the year and get some at bats. Then, bring up as needed. I want Vientos getting 400 at bats next year, not 150. Vogelbach and his “impressive” OPS which is built like Duda’s was – with walks – hasn’t won me over. Unless he losses the severe uppercut, I can’t hang a hat on him. Hard to believe Vientos will be worse.
The Mets can add the power they need in Alvarez, Vientos, and an outfielder to take Nimmo’s spot. Conforto anyone?