On Wednesday last week, I first heard word that the Mets instructional league season might be in jeopardy.
First, a definition. The fall instructional league is like a mini-spring training for teams and players beginning in mid-September. Teams use this opportunity to teach their young players, many of whom were just drafted in June, how to play the game in style of the team. Moreover, prospects play games against players of a similar skill level from other teams.
Now, a problem. As of last week, there were no other teams on the east coast of Florida, where the Mets complex in Port St. Lucie is located, who were planning on holding instructs. The Marlins, Cardinals and Nationals had all decided to cut instructs from the budget. The nearest potential opponents for the Mets were the Braves, 2 hours away in Lake Buena Vista, FL and the Tigers almost 3 hours away in Lakeland, FL. In the past, those trips were considered too long a distance for instructs. Six hours of busing in a day is no way to play baseball or develop skills.
The Mets were faced with three choices: skip instructs, move it to the west coast of Florida, or move it to the Dominican Republic.
Earlier this decade, during a busy Hurricane Season on the east coast of Florida, the Mets shared a complex with the Baltimore Orioles in St. Petersburg on the west coast of Florida. In the intervening years, the Orioles have moved to Fort Lauderdale, two hours south of St. Lucie, just north of Miami. The process of moving instructs to the west coast went remarkably smoothly. I believe the Mets at least made initial contact with teams on the west coast of Florida in search of a new home to hold instructs. How far those conversations went, I really don’t know, and I don’t think they were all that advanced.
Then, Sunday, on Sirius XM Radio’s Home Plate Channel, Jim Duquette claimed the team had canceled the fall instructional league, as quoted by Adam Rubin:
Now the rumors within the scouting circles are that they can’t afford – which it roughly costs about 300 grand to staff and to invite and fly down all the players, to having meals throughout for about, it’s like a 4 to 5 week program.
Was the story Duquette reported accurate? Not quite, say the Mets. The team announced that it would hold its fall instructional league in the Dominican Republic this year. The Mets statement reads:
“In a reevaluation of the Mets minor league operations, the club made the decision to move our Fall Instructional League to our new Dominican Academy in Boca Chica from Port St. Lucie, Fla.,” the Mets said in a statement. “We believe that by housing our minor league players in the Dominican, we will have more opportunities to have competition against opposing teams that have training facilities nearby. Over the past few years in Port St. Lucie, the competition has predominately been among our own players as a result of other teams leaving the area. This year’s approach will bring approximately 75 prospects to train and compete at our Academy and against players affiliated with other Major League clubs.”
The press release is a clear attempt at damage control, raising more issues than answers:
1. The 75-players number is a nice red herring. After all, over 30 players will already be on site from the DSL team. The question is really how many of the players from the GCL, Kingsport, Brooklyn, Savannah and St. Lucie teams will be attending instructs in the DSL. The guess here is that the number will be many fewer than if instructs was being held in Florida.
2. The competition problem on the east coast of Florida was very real. What will the level of competition look like in the DR?
3. How many other teams are moving to the Dominican?
In New York Post Blog, Bart Hubbach emphasized the financial savings the Mets will realize:
Adding to the questions about their post-Madoff financial health, the Mets have quietly shifted their fall instructional league in a reported cost-saving maneuver. ….
According to insiders, the Mets will save about $250,000 by moving the instructional league to the Dominican because of much cheaper living expenses on the island.
Major League teams like the Mets do not pay their minor leaguers salary to attend instructs. Instead, the teams provide housing and meals. The team’s coaches and minor league development staff is not paid extra to run instructs, it’s considered part of the job responsibilities. The team’s expenses largely come from feeding the collected athletes for five weeks and for paying for travel expenses.
Conclusion
1. In the last weeks, it became clear that holding an instructional league based in St. Lucie was not a viable option.
2.From a developmental standpoint, it might have been preferable to find a team on the west side of Florida who was willing and had the space, to let the Mets share a facility. However, it is not clear whether the Mets had such a partner.
3. Given 1 and 2, the DR might really have been the Mets best option.
It’s too easy a storyline given what else has happened to the Mets this summer to paint the decision not to hold instructs in St. Lucie as driven by the desire to save $200,000, without regard for the team’s longterm interests in developing prospects. Such reporting dovetails nicely with the general premise repeated over and over in the papers, that the Mets hierarchy is short-sighted, but misses a large part of the story: there was no one to play on Florida’s east coast.
Thus far, the reporting surrounding this story has been sensationalistic and tied more to a larger narrative arc than the specific facts of the case. Rightfully, the media is in no mood to cut the Mets any slack of any kind in any area of player operations and development, but as readers and fans, I encourage you to read any reporting on this issue very carefully.