According to Tricitiessports.com, Kingsport Mets general manager Roman Stout was awarded the 2008 Sterling Minor League Executive of the Year Award at the Baseball Winter Meetings earlier this month in Las Vegas.

Stout has had great success in Kingsport, raising attendance steadily during his time as GM of the Mets Class-A Rookie affiliate. The K-Mets finished 34-32 in 2008, their third consecutive winning season, anchored by notable prospects SS Wilmer Flores and RHP Eric Beaulac. They have been a Met affiliate since 1980.

“The award is in recognition of the total commitment to establishing an outstanding Minor League operation and for the tireless effort and dedication to providing a superior environment in which to develop players for the New York Mets organization.”

congratulations to Roman for winning this award, it was certainly well deserved… he and the staff at Hunter Wright Stadium do an excellent job and we wish them much success as they begin to prepare for the 2009 season…

Recently a lot has been made of the Yankees enormous spending this off-season, dishing out millions upon millions of dollars to A.J. Burnett, C.C. Sabathia, and most recently their $180 million dollar investment in first basemen Mark Teixeira. The prominent question has been: Is this good for baseball?

The responses you’ll garner on that is wide-spread, but it seems to me that the better question is this: Is this theory and way of doing business good for an organization? To me… absolutely not.

The path to building a perennial championship contender must be done through the farm system. The Yankees exemplified this in their run of dominance in the mid-90′s and have since forgotten about it (See Posada, Jeter, Rivera, Bernie Williams, Pettitte). The Yankees have struggled to develop players that can provide solid production on the ML level over the last several years.

The Mets are not going to go out and dish out this kind of cash on free agents, or at least to this extreme, but they continue to place heavy emphasis on developing their own. The popular opinion is the Mets system is middle of the road, but Omar Minaya has placed a concentrated effort on improving it and not abdonining it.

We watched David Wright and Jose Reyes grow up within the organization’s lower levels and flourish on New York’s grandest stage. Fans undoubtedly have a special connect with such homegrown talent. Nick Evans, Daniel Murphy, Mike Pelfrey, and Joe Smith also made large contributions in 2008.

The Florida Marlins (Beckett, Willis, Cabrera), Boston Red Sox (Pedroia, Youkilis, Lester), Tampa Bay Rays (too many to name), Colorado Rockies (Francis, Tulowitzki, Holliday, Hawpe) and Detroit Tigers (Verlander, Zumaya, Granderson) have all relied on their farm system to reach the World Series over the last several seasons. Also [sigh] Cole Hamels, Ryan Howard and the Phillies.

Another advantage of building and promoting talent within is the financial benefits and the amount it saves the organization. Omar Minaya and the Mets have done a very good job over the last several seasons of blending their own talent with free agents and acquisitions through trades.

Whether or not you believe the Yankees spending spree this off-season is good for baseball, the better question whether it’s actually a smart way of building a championship team. Based upon what we have seen recently, the answer seems to be no.

At the very fine Dembrooklynbums.com, Patrick Hickey Jr. has a cute article about presents he would give to former Cyclones.

Ike Davis- Teach this guy to change his approach at the plate.

Wilmer Flores- Give him some time in Brooklyn to develop before calling him up to higher levels.

Roy Merritt- Help him develop another off-speed pitch to compliment his slider and changeup.

Josh Satin- An injury-free 2009.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!  Be safe.  Have fun.

The administrator at Inside Pitch.com has done some more digging on the Nathan Vineyard retirement/quitting story.  Here was his post from the message board:

A scout told me — and this confirms what another scout told me originally — that following his April surgery on his shoulder, Vineyard was completely MIA for his rehab and refused to show up for his local rehab close to his home in Georgia.  He then failed to report THIS FALL when asked to report to the Mets complex.

Another scout with a lot of knowledge on the situation told me that since spring, when he failed to report to original rehab, he went off the radar [confirms why all 3 phone  numbers I have for Vineyard are all non-functioning].  Club reps literally had to track him down.

…

There’s more to the story, but this is the jist of what’s going on with him.

If all of this is true – yuck.  Double yuck.  Flaking on rehab, failing to show up for instructs and going MIA is totally inexcusable.

Also, I absolutely hate the suggestive “there’s more” line.  If it’s publishable, and a good story, write it.  If it’s not publishable, because it’s unconfirmed, or for some other reason, skip the sentence.

I’m over this story.

During the winter meetings earlier this month, New York Times writer Michael S. Schmidt attended the minor league job fair and trade show and wrote a piece about the effects the poor economy has had on the operations of Minor League Baseball.

Schmidt writes of the changes underway to decrease costs, ranging from job cuts to player uniform changes to utilizing less expensive in-game entertainment.

He writes: “A weak economy is harder on minor league teams, which have budgets from $3 million to $10 million and often rely on companies like car dealerships to buy advertising and sponsorships.”

…there is no question that the poor economy is going to have a negative influence on Minor League Baseball, but what hasn’t it negatively affected? as we all know one of the biggest reasons why it’s so appealing is because of its affordability… families simply don’t have the funds to regularly attend major league games and dish out $150 or more between tickets, parking, and concessions… minor league ball offers a fan friendly atmosphere at an enormously less price tag right in their own back yard so to speak…

… we need to keep in mind that so many teams throughout the nation have become entrenched in their communities and have been operating in that area for countless amounts of years… see Kingsport (home to a team since 1969), the Mets new Triple-A affiliate Buffalo (there since 1979), or Brooklyn’s attachment to the Cyclones…

… the poor economy certainly is placing many challenges upon our country, but if anything can survive it’s Minor League Baseball…

The Dominican Winter League regular season wrapped up this week.

Leader Board

Fernando Tatis finished 8th in the league with a .338 batting average and third with 15 doubles.

Fernando Martinez was second in the league with five triples, one behind former Mets farmhand Anderson Hernandez who hit .365/.406/.531 and led the league with 20 doubles.

Context

The following table compares the Mets hitters to the DWL League averages.  Please note that OPS+ is not park adjusted.

MetsBlog.com’s Matthew Cerrone reports on his website that he received an e-mail from ESPN’s Keith Law denying the recent rumor that LHP Nathan Vineyard is retiring.

Law stated in the e-mail, “I wouldn’t be shocked if Vineyard did eventually retire, it’s just that I confirmed that he hasn’t done so.”

Vineyard was selected by the Mets in the supplemental first round (42nd overall) in 2007 by the Mets.  He appeared in two games in 2008 for the Class-A Savannah Sand Gnats before underdoing shoulder surgery and missing the remainder of the season.

There was also a post on NYFutureStars.com’s message board last night by “Thejurisdoc,” which stated he had posed the same question to Law in an e-mail in regards to Vineyard and Law responded “Vineyard hasn’t retired/quit. I saw that rumor, but it’s wrong.”

Excellent work by Keith Law to get to the bottom of this rumor… it’s certainly a story to keep tabs on as we move closer to the season, but as of now it appears Vineyard still has intentions on continuing his career…