Mets Chat Room: Rainout edition
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- April
- 28
The game is bagged. I am thinking about a movie. Anybody seen “21” and have a review?
The Room is always open should you want to talk baseball and the Mets.
The Mets’ minor league system is a good topic. I saw some of you guys talking about it earlier.
It has been barren for a long time. It pretty much has been Tom Seaver and little else in way of position players.
David Wright and Jose Reyes are keepers, but there isn’t much there.And, there isn’t much now, either.
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on Monday, April 28th, 2008 at 6:44 pm by John Delcos.
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I keep tabs on the prospect hub link below that you have. It is somewhat entertaining and shows that at least this early we have a few guys that are beating the heck out of the ball in AA. It is also nice to hear about the young pitchers that were in camp.
So our farm system does not completely suck although the strength seems to be in AA. AAA seems to be terrible. FMart is struggling early. There is no pitching help this year from the farm.
JD,
You mentioned Reyes as a keeper, and I thought at the start of last season that the kid was about to become one of the best players in baseball. Now, my question for you is this: what is the #1 thing wrong w/ Jose Reyes??
JM, I would say patience at the plate.
The Mets have one guy who is a given to be a major leaguer-FMart.
That says it all.
Omar has not done what he said he would do-turn Mets into Braves. You can only do so much w/FAs.
Youv’e got to build from w/in but not w/these guys most people think are the next All star when they are at best utility guys, 25th man on the roster types.
I agree. Reyes’ patience at the late has been non-existent.
Scoop
I think you are way to negative about the guys at AA.
Besides F-Mart I think one of the three Carp, Evans and Murphy will make the majors.
I actually think Evans is the guy. His minor league numbers remind me of Jeff Conine. His problem is his defense.
Omar sacrificed building up the farm to make this team an instant contender, he did that by signing FA’s and trading for established players. Now, you can say either way is good or bad, but neither guarantees you anything. We got ‘06 because of that philosophy, but our farm is not so great because of it as well. The Braves built through their farm, and yes they won a lot, but they only have on World Series. I do hope now that we’re at least contenders, Omar will shift the focus to the farm, its just so hard right now, especially after ‘06, where the fans now expect us to win, and now after ‘07, the fans are demanding the team win. You can’t build a farm like that.
oh metsfan, why bother explaining… They just want to be unhappy little metsies. You and clm are the only smart metsies left who realize that baseball is fun…...
the big metsies don’t deserve such excellent fans such as the two of you….. You two should become Red Sox fans…. Then you’d have 2 World Series rings in this little decade instead of none which you will end up with, same # as us, right Delcos..? Just like Marino and O’Brien had the same # of super bowl rings…...
http://www.metsmonkeys.blogspot.com examines some firstbase prospects today. They also make a good point that it would be better if Nick Evans (a righty) steps forward rather than Mike Carp (a lefty) since Fmart and Church (two lefties) are likely going to be our corner OF’s in the near future for a bit.
The Mets have always focused on pitching first in their drafts. The golden decade was the 60’s When Seaver, Koosman, Ryan, Gentry, Jon Matlack and Tug Mcgraw were selected. The best hitters were Cleon Jones, Amos Otis and Ken Singleton. the last 2 of whom were traded away.
Nothing much came out the seventies, but the 80’s provided some nice drafts, netting Strawberry, Gooden, Dykstra, Aguilera and Randy Myers among others.
The 90’s were a disaster-generation k enough said.
This decade has seen Reyes, Wright, Joe Smith, Milledge, Kazmir and bannister. Carlos Gomez and the 3 pitchers who went for santana would make our minors look better right now, but they provided the chips needed to get Johan.
It looks like a pattern of good drafting in even decades and bad drafts in odd ones.
Not sure if anyone cares, but Kyle Farnsworth had NO Explode in his locker today. It contains creatine; which is not a banned substance, but it goes to show that players are still looking for an edge.
The Giants said Monday that they’re sending Barry Zito to the bullpen for the time being.
Metsfan and Ray have it right. It’s not like we have never drafted any good players. It is that Omar used what we have to get ‘06 and then Johan. As they say you can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Hate to burst your bubble Ray Sadecki but the Mets didn’t draft Seaver. Every Met fan knows the story….
The Mets also didn’t draft McGraw, Koosman, Jones, or Otis
Anyway, with a team this old and/or this beat-up positionally, an off-day is such as gold.
Maybe… two games of Delgado and Castillo hitting a bit before the aches take them back down to Earth again.
Gotta take what we can get at this point.
Dear Ghost,
I know Seaver wasnt drafted, thats why I used the word selected. The important thing is not that these players came from the june draft, but that the Mets organization had a fine eye for young talent, especially pitching talent in the 1960s.
Im sure most of us would like to know the stories of how the other players you mentioned became mets minor leaguers, since they dont have a famous story like Seaver does.
Roger
Nice catch about Zito. I am now more glad that Omar didn’t get him.
no update on alou?
Koosman’s story is interesting. He was in the army in Texas and the catcher was the son of an usher at Shea. The father finally persuades the Mets to send a scout. He offers a $1,600 bonus. koosman’s army buddies tell him he deserves at least $30,000 (amateurs like Rick Reichardt were getting $200,000 and Catfish Hunter got $100,000). The mets scout lowers his offer to $1,200. Koosman decides to sign before he owes them money.
I don’t know too many other stories. Ed Kranepool says he wanted to sign with the Yankees but he saw they had Joe Pepitone. He went to the same high school as Hank Greenberg (and broke his records) who was running the White Sox, Greenberg talked mainly about how great he was. So he signs with the Mets..got good money for the time $85,000.
Tug McGraw had an older brother Hank who was a catcher and signed first. There was some kind of dispute with Hank later on about his hair length although he may have been in the Phillie organization then. The funny story is late in 1980 the Phillies picked up Sparky Lyle..too late for the post season roster. At the World Series in the Phillie family members section there is a guy with a mustache who is identified by the braodcasters as Sparky Lyle. It wasn’t, it was Hank McGraw. Lyle is watching the game on TV and says “Hello Sparky”.
The Mets did have some sharp people in the 1960s. Whitey Herzog, a Mets nemesis in the 1980s, was director of player personnel. One guy he missed was they selected a catcher named Steve Chilcott instead of Reggie Jackson. Jackson has charged it was racial, Herzog says no, Chilcott was highly regarded and unfortuantely hurt his shoulder on military reserve duty. The Mets missed golden opportunities to name Herzog as GM in 1969 when Johnny Murphy died and manager in 1972 when Gil Hodges died. Not a yes man.
One thing I never understood is how the team could get good young talent in the early 1980s (Gooden, Strawberry, Dyskstra, even Jeffries) and then go through a barren period. Lower draft positions hurt. But was there something else..key people leaving?
The Mets have a lot of guys in the lower levels of the minors who have promise. The problem is that they are a few years away from having an impact.
Besides the June draft, Omar and Co. have signed numerous players from Latin America (Like Fernando Martinez, Francisco Pena).
Last yr in the June draft, they went for pitching.
This yr they will probably mix in some position guys.
The problem has been partly due to an unwillingness to psy over slot, while other big market teams have done so. Omar has said he may change this in the coming draft.
They have 3 1st round/sandwich picks this yr, which should help them re-stock.
Also remember that while some players have been traded, others haven’t panned out, due to injury or just bad drafting from the pre-omar days.
It takes time to re-build a farm system.
Ed in Westchester,
I do agree that it takes time and Omar has only drafted the last three years. I think as Met fans we need to be a bit more patient with Omar and his staff.
I hope the sandwich picks work but I heard that about the 1994 draft..5 players in the first 64 players! We got Paul Wilson, Terence Long and Jay Payton. I don’t think there was a great deal of talent available..Nomar Garciaparra and Paul Konerko were about the best players available. But losing Mike Hampton/getting David Wright turned out great.
This may be impossible to know with certainty
but how good is the Mets scouting? I have no idea how you can judge it unless you have access to every organization’s assessments of “could be” guys. Back in the 2000 World series there was a story about how the Mets were laughing at all the scouts the Yankees had watching them. Steinbrenner’s paranoia paid off as those guys figured out how to pitch to the previous hot Timo Perez..”walk the ladder”..pitches just a little higher each time.
Dan—Their ability to scout, sign and develop talent is directly correlated with the people employed in key organizational positions. In the 60s, it was Whitey; in the 80s, it was Joe McIlvaine; now, it’s probably someone like Sandy Johnson.
The problem comes when one of these guys leaves the organization (as was the case with Whitey) or gets promoted (McIlvaine), and is no longer involved in the day-to-day scouting and development. That’s when you see those changes and dropoffs.
You can also see tendencies that reflect the personal preferences of these guys. McIlvaine, for example, liked high-school pitchers over college pitchers, and seemed to be better at picking pitchers than hitters.