At Baseball Prospectus, Kevin Goldstein has ranked all 30 MLB teams in his annual Organizational Rankings. He bumped the Mets up from #18 a year ago to #15 this year. He wrote this:
The system is on the upswing, thanks to a nice group coming from the international market and, for the first time in a while, a draft class (2009) that looks like it will pay some dividends. With four Top 101 prospects and a three-star list that runs into the early teens, there’s room for optimism here.
I wonder if the reference to the draft class shouldn’t have been Ike Davis, Brad Holt and Reese Havens’ 2008 class rather than the 2009 group which was neither as robust at the top nor as deep.
At Baseball America, Jim Callis put up a list of some guys who missed the BA top 100. Of the four BA writers who participated in the magazine’s Top 100, two ranked Brad Holt in their top 150, with one placing him as high as 112. Reese Havens picked up one top 150 recognition at #124 overall.
If you emailed me an interesting question last week, and there were a bunch, particularly on Davis/Mejia/Holt and I didn’t respond immediately, it’s because I was planning to use those questions in a mailbag this week, which has been pushed around by a very busy week at work. On the plus side, by the time you read this, Opening Day will be just 29 (!) days away.
Yup, 2009 is clearly a typo. Looking back over the last 4 or 5 draft classes, the 2008 one sure does look nice. Even after the 5 potential impact prospects from that draft (Davis, Havens, Holt, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, and Kyle Allen) you’ve got a bunch of org starting pitchers (Eric Beaulac, Scott Shaw, Jeff Kaplan, Chris Schwinden, Brandon Moore, Mark Cohoon, Jim Fuller, and Collin McHugh) and a couple of fringier positional prospects and org bodies (Sean Ratliff, Javier Rodriguez, Josh Satin, Eric Campbell, and Dock Doyle). It really was an excellent draft for a system that sorely needed one.
It still stings that the Mets passed on the opportunity for a similar top of the draft with the Wagner trade. Instead of just the 7th pick in the first 2 rounds, the Mets could have the 7th, 20th and a compensation pick. It’s a bit of a shame.
Yes, it is. It will sting more in June. And then in 2013.
Although I’m sure by then we’ll all have plenty more organizational management blunders to gripe about.
Will this year be the draft the Mets actually spend money now?
Unfortunately, the Wilpons are Selig’s butt buddies when it comes to draft spending, so, I highly doubt it. They do have the #7 overall pick though, so I would expect them to open their wallets for that pick.