Back in March, in an article entitled, “A look at why the Mets consistently have no outfield depth,” it was pointed out how the Mets have not put much of an emphasis on drafting outfielders. Well, it’s more of the same here in 2023. Operating with the belief that the system did not have enough pitching, the Mets selected pitchers with 15 of their 23 picks. How many of the remaining were outfielders? If you answered, one, pat yourself on the back. With their last selection, pick #606 in the draft, the Mets took OF Kellum Clark from Miss. St.
In the March article, it was noted that the Mets selected an outfielder with a pick in the top 10 rounds of the draft in the 2020s just three times and they had traded two of those, Pete Crow-Armstrong and Isaiah Greene. That left just Nick Morabito, who they grabbed in the fourth round last year. If you want to get a reaction out of someone, try telling David Groveman, our minor league guy, that Morabito is a future star. He’ll rip you a new one in response. David was not a fan of the Morabito pick when it was made and Morabito has done absolutely nothing in the time since for David – or anyone, really – to change his mind.
And the crazy thing is that when the Mets pick an outfielder at the top of the draft, they do pretty well. Crow-Armstrong, Jarred Kelenic and Michael Conforto are the last three outfielders the Mets drafted in the first round. Perhaps next year they’ll grab an outfielder with their first pick.
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Some will point out that two-way player Nolan McLean, who the Mets took in the third round, is nominally an outfielder. The Mets have announced they’re going to let him hit as well as pitch as he begins his professional career. But make no mistake – the Mets drafted him because he can reach 98 and has a curve with a great spin rate. While he has pop in his bat, he’s not going to make enough contact to be a productive hitter at the major league level. McLean wants to hit and it’s easy enough for the Mets to let him do that at first. You know, because they refuse to draft real outfielders.
For the first time in ages I watched the ASG and was mildly pleased to see the NL finally win a game since it was yesteryear the last time the Senior Circuit prevailed.
Was it a great game to watch? I guess I wouldn’t say that. It immediately reminded me what a catastrophe that the WBC is. I have total disdain for it. I’d have contract riders that playing in the WBC will void a player contract.
Alonso looked overmatched at the plate, with runners in position and a chance to be a hero and really looked ugly in his strike outs. The flip side is that Scoops Alonso had a fabulous bad hop scoop from 3B. Pete’s defensive superpower is among the greatest of all: picking up stray throws.
Haven’t heard “Senior Circuit” since my subscription to the Sporting News lapsed.
Love it (“Senior circuit veteran fly-hawk traded to Pale Hose”)
The first four position players the Mets selected in the draft were all shortstops. Awesome, huh. I’d rather see players drafted from a number of positions, but for early picks, I’d like to see them draft positions of need. They sure did that with pitchers this year. Maybe next year it is outfielders.
Draft the best player.
It doesn’t bother me so much with regards to the lack of OF picks. Positions of 18 year olds really doesn’t mean much. At that age the SS is usually the best athlete on the team, and the athletic OF tend to be lefties. Not that I am against drafting a big bat OF. To me it looks like a conscious effort to get more athletes in the system. So long as they can develop some keepers, that is a good thing. If they advance their hit tool to MLB level, and they are athletic, they’ll find a spot in the field. The key is to identify that ultimate spot early enough to get them enough minor league reps to be ready to field in the bigs. The Mets haven’t been too good at that lately so hopefully they’ll improve.
That sounds good in theory.
The reality is that Vientos was a HS shortstop when drafted and it’s debatable if he can play anywhere but 1B on a consistent basis.
Mauricio was signed as a SS and his trials at 2B and the OF this year at Triple-A have been less than stellar.
Further back, they refused to even try SS Wilmer Flores in the OF. Non SS Lucas Duda was a dud in the OF and non SS J.D. Davis was no one’s idea of a good OF, either.
I’m all for taking BPA and making things work later with trades. But I’m done with thinking that we can take any athletic kid and make him play any position on the diamond because he grew up as a SS. I’d like to go back to when they drafted David Wright, who was a HS shortstop who they immediately moved to 3B. If first-round pick Colin Houck is going to be a 3B – move him there now and let him get as many reps at his future home as he can.
And spend a top pick on a real OF.
Interesting. Going back a little further, the Mets drafted another real OF, Mr. Nimmo, with their top pick. So, the limited top selections of OF have yielded some hits. Quickly glancing at the top 2 rounds of picks in recent years, I’m not sure if Met picks would have yielded a better OF pool in the organization. Looking quickly at 2023 All-stars, there are a number of IFA guys, as well as guys like Betts and Castellanos that came up as INF. Time will tell, as always, but it is definitely fair to criticize the lack of home grown and organizational OF depth at this point.
ICYMI, this table speaks volumes about the Mets drafting prowess over the last decade.
If this link doesn’t work, the table ranks all teams by how many of their draft picks made it to the majors, irrespective of team. The Astros lead, with 77 of 329 picks making the Show, or 23%. The Mets are dead last, with only 30 of 328 picks rising to the majors, or 9%. I was surprised initially at how closely bunched all the picks are and then remembered the restrictions MLB places on draft pick transactions. A few teams had as many as 338 picks and the lowest number of picks was the Angels at 322.
It would be interesting to see how many all-star teams these draft picks made or see a collective OPS+ and ERA+, but that’s far beyond my headlights to run those types of numbers.
Some of this is organizational philosophy. The Mets are more likely than most teams to trade for a reliever like Trevor Gott than promote a draft pick. But there’s little doubt that they don’t have a bunch of late-round picks who make it to the majors for five games.
On the flip side, the Mets rank second in WAR from their draft picks in the same period. That seems relevant.
Wow. I would never have guessed that. I don’t want to take a couple of datapoints and run with them, but…
Since these two facts are so extreme, it makes me wonder if their approach has been on high risk, high reward picks. We have had the fewest, but highest value individual promotions. If the drafting framework was consistent, and the criteria used to select players was solid, then I’d expect more promotions.
Or perhaps the way we develop players is lousy and only the very best are able to overcome bad minor league training and development.
The latter seems more plausible.
The Yankees are at the other end of the spectrum. They had the third highest number of picks who made it and the second lowest aggregate WAR.
I guess I look at it this way – what do you want to develop?
Certainly, I’d like to be able to have some middle relievers and fourth outfielders available in the system. With all of the pitchers that they draft year in, year out – you’d think that there would be some failed starters who became useful relievers. And we haven’t seen that. The outfielder problem comes from not drafting either enough overall and especially not enough high enough. That doesn’t seem to be a development issue to me.
Anyway, Cohen is overhauling a bunch of things and maybe the new pitching lab will help with the development of better pitching prospects, both starters and relievers.