I never bring up the first 9 picks or so because we shouldn’t be concerning ourselves there. Not to say we haven’t drafted in the first 9 recently but it really has nothing to do with anything I’m talking about.

Either does 1965.

I’m talking about 1990 – 2010.

Tell me why in your opinion we have not developed a RFer since Darryl, a LFer since Cleon, one two way SS in our entire history, two 3rd basemen, two centerfielders, one (or 2) first basemen.

What do you think the reason is ’62? Bad draft position, bad drafting, bad developing, slotting restrictions, poor drafting philosophy?

I’ve stated quite clearly that we should be drafting our position players to finally address these constant holes in the line up once and for all, and with MANY prospects at each position and then trading or going free agent for big time aces who A.) Have made it up here without busting B.) Who are not injured and C.) who already know how to pitch.

Without going back to 1965 or some other artificial barrier like only focusing on the few times we had the first pick or claiming Elster and Foli were good two way SS’s please tell me what do you think the right way for us to procede with the draft is.

I’m also not sure what 1965 has to do with anything. Are you kidding around?

Let’s discuss the draft over the last 10 years, Rohr, whoever that is would be long retired by now unless he was the MGM lion and even then….

Going back to the last 10 years of our draft we have only once picked a position player 1 and 2 (2008 Davis and Havens) One other time we picked a position player 1st (Milledge) Other times we have picked 3 4 5 or even 6 pitchers and ALL have busted.

And by the way ’62, Foli .592 career OPS and Elster lifetime .228 BA TWO way players? Your kidding around with me again huh ’62?

it’s arguable how long they can stand deliberate mediocrity(awaiting farm produce) while neighboring alongside deliberate excessiveness in purchasing the Best of EVERTHING MLB related.

Now The bad part. The comment I made that you replied to was not about the Mets. I was talking about the Royals.

sorry I was not more clear on that.

No, North, the game of draft building has subsequently changed since JD Drew balked at being dictated to supported by Scott Boras’ holdout strategy enabling these unproven,untested amateur suspects to set guidelines(demands) for their imprimatur. this prompted a retaliation from owners to deliberately skip those initially few top tier amateurs perceived to have the more outlandish demands, eventually this caused a number of former touted first round selections to slip into second round availability where their original demand levels were unlikely to be tolerated let alone met, coincedently occuring about that same timeframe was the alteration of the F/A compensation methodology to include draft picks instead of unprotected rostered players.

it did not take the ubercompetitive Sox & Yanks long to create a loophole to restore their shot at the best available amateurs despite losing first round positioning by openning their wallets in selecting the “fallen” high demand first rounders with their second round pick by agreeing to meet their original financial demands regardless of it being a second round selection slot odstensiblyretoring their pick by willingly paying the firstround freight for a secondround selection. Small & mid sized franchises unable to meet these demands in the first place in the initial round cried foul at being out muscled for the top talent the standings reversal was intended to give them a first shot at.

Those anguished cries of FOUL PLAY were heard & addressed by the Commissioner, Selig, onetime sm-mid sized owner. Enforcable Rules changes must be subject to a full Ownership vote, lacking that Selig used his powers under “best interest” to publish VOLUNARY SLOTTING GUIDELINES that deliniated acceptable ranges of remuneration/bonuses/roster positioning that can be acceptably used to secure the signature of a player based upon the position of his selection within the draft process. Thus paying first round level monies to players selected in subsequent rounds was no longer allowed under “THE GUIDELINES”. As, it’s a guideline & not a RULE participation is Voluntary.
UNFORTUNATELY of all the major market teams, the New York Mets, owned by Fre Wilpon, volutarily agreed to abide by them as if they were rules.
NORTH IT IS FOR THIS VERY REASON WHY THE ADHERANCE TO THESE GUIDELINES IS, IN MY OPINION, THE MOST SELF-DESTRUCTIVE,ILL ADVISED DECISION IN FRANCHISE HISTORY.

Fred’s public decalaration of NYM adherance/subjugation had been addressed to no avail internally by Minaya & Alderson has already stated his belief that the organization’s position vis a vis adhereance should be reviewed.

’62, the draft is much more than the 1st pick of the first round.

We are continuing to select pitchers with almost every high draft pick we have and they continue to bust at staggering levels. Check out the 2007 draft 1-7 and then tell me why we haven’t developed a RFer in 25 years or a LFer in 40 years.

We could have Mike Stanton in RF for the next 6 years bare minimum if we hadn’t GIVEN our #1 pick away for a 40 year old LFer. Failing that we could STILL have selected him instead of Kunz who is yet another in a long line of 1st, 2nd and 3rd round pitching busts.

Basically because we haven’t developed our own LFer we had to spend a #1 pick on Alou which cost us a RFer.

We could right now have the #1 prospect in all of the minors but we gave away the pick for UFC-Rod.

We could have drafted Brian McCann or Jon Lester in the 2nd round but we preferred to use our pick on David Weathers as a free agent.

We could have drafted Dustin Pedroia in the 2nd round but preferred another pitching bust Matthew Durkin.

Pitchers bust frequently and are at their best from 27-34. Position players bust less often and are best at 24-32. They also play better D and run the basses better at that age. We have it backward. Draft hitters, get us a RFer, LFer, C, SS, 2B and we can use our cash and leftover prospects for pitchers that A.) Haven’t busted. B.) Are not injured and C.) Know how to pitch.

I stand by my statements.

As regards pitcher selections Vs. Positional ones I would guess the home venue has a considerable amount of influence regarding the methodology being used. We’ve had the #1 position(when entire board is open & available) 5 times(1966,1968,1980,1984,1994) with which we chose 4 positions & 1 pitcher to this breakdown:
1966-Steve Chilcott(C) Anteloppe Valley HS
1968-Tim Foli(SS) Notre Dame HS(Sherman Oaks,CA
1980-Darryl Strawbeerry(OF)Crenshaw HS
1984-Shawn Abner(OF) Mechanicsburg,PA HS
1994-Paul Wilson(RHP) FSU

Those are the few times we’ve been in the #1 spot with the entire draft available to us; but perhaps yuo’re thinking of the 2 #2 spots we had in 1965(Les Rohr-LHP) & 1979(Tim Leary-RHP) in 1965 the A’s selected Rick Monday #1; in 1979 the Mariners opted for outfielder Al Chambers before we made our selection.
T, I’ll certainly concede that Steve Phillips’ draft tenure was predominantly focused on what he considered baseball’s most valuable “coin of the realm” PITCHING,PITCHING,PITCHING as he was often quoted for his beliefs that pitching couuld be used to acquire whatever immediate need should occur and thus he hoarded all makes & models basicly prompting the Mets to hire Rick Peterson to evaluate those assets throughout the franchise charging him to separate the weeds from the seeds as Jeff’s personal Special Assistant in charge of pitching(dubbed by press as “THE PITCHING CZAR” which needed to be converted officially to “Pitching Coach” to allow him unfetted access to in-game pitching @ the MLB level. It was this over-abundance of mediocre grade pitching that prompted Peterson’s being granted complete & full autonomy over the entire franchise’s pitching program a virtual unofficial “PITCHING GM” which led to the franchise wide application of Perterson’s methods as he also had unfetted power in employment decisions on every pitching coach throughout the organization & as reports surfaced that certain individual pitchers balked at altering their established style to accomodate the “METHOD” Rick summaraly “ordered” their ‘banishment’ typically through Jeff’s ordering the recalcitrant pitcher traded or released. Thus we lost Peterson heretics Kazmir,Bell & Lindstrum and since Peterson’s demise there has not been another topnotch pitching prospect mysteriously dealt in desperation.
T, historically speaking the NYM franchise has played it’s home games in a pitching friendly venue and has most certainly made it’s mark based upon the sterength of it’s pitching SEAVER,KOOSMAN,GENTRY,MATLACK,SWAN,McGRAW,GOODEN,FERNANDEZ,DARLING,TERRELL,PELFREY,NIESE,GEE,(Gen.K?). To one degree or another provided what anyone has had a right to expect now that’s not to say or imply that each and every one was a significant accomplished contributor; but as u so conveniently choose to ignore is the absolute crapshoot the amateur draft actually is as only 89% of ALL #1 SLOT DRAFT PICKS (the socalled BEST amateur that particular draft). While I’m certainly not what I consider well versed in American League baseball rosters a cursory perusal of EVERT first selected amateur since 1965 certainly reveals many more names I never heard of than those that became household names.
Can the NYM do a much better job of drafting? Certainly! Does that automatically provide us with better teams? Not in my opinion. Some familiar names that were once highly touted premere amateurs(as very first selected); Ron Bloomberg(NYY.’67), Mike Ivie(SD.’70),Bill Almon(SD.’74), Bob Horner(ATL.”78),Mike Moore(SEA.’81), Kris Benson(PIT.’96)
As, I hope this illustrates effectively Vegas & AC have games with better odds.

My point really isn’t whether we would have pulled another Kazmir, it’s more along the lines of how other teams address their needs. For a team with as many needs as we have every year I would think it pretty reasonable to see how our competitors do things.

Boston acquires free agents but they also acquire veterans a couple of years away from free agency and then let them go collecting extra high round draft choices which they combine with going over slot to help insulate them from getting slaughtered in the free agent market every year.

They put time, energy and money into their draft and farm system. We have given away 3 #1 or supplementary picks in the last 5 years, failed to take back 3 more and handed over a couple of other #1′s and a couple more #2′s. Combine that with the staggering number of top round pitching busts when we do keep the pick and IFA stagnation and then rushing ill prepared prospects and it’s obvious why this team has so many holes in the starting rotation, bullpen, starting eight and the bench year after year.

The last time we had 2 front line starters in the rotation was 2000. We haven’t developed a RFer in 25 years, LFer in 40, One SS and One 3B in 50 years. We’ve been looking for Fonzie’s replacement for 10 years, we spent 50 million on 2 guys who didn’t work out. Most teams would have had a guy already groomed to replace Alfonzo WHEN he left, we couldn’t be bothered.

Other teams drafting behind us or in later rounds draft AND develop players that go on to represent them in the All-Star Game, get MVP votes, even win the MVP and Cy Young.

No one holds the scouting director accountable. The Wilpon’s cheaping out on the draft, Omar doling out draft choices left and right rather than BUILDING a team. More often than not when we lose a free agent we don’t even offer arb to get a couple of picks back, and way more often than not when our players leave it’s to retire after a couple of crummy seasons here.

If anyone ever looked under the hood to see WHY we have had such poor results on the field and lead the Major Leagues in only 1 category, cost per win, they’d trace it right back to the neglect of the draft and the disdain of the farm system.

Everyone else has caught on when are we going to?

Drafting well doesn’t preclude you from making the playoffs and making the playoffs doesn’t preclude you from drafting well. Drafting Dustin Pedroia in the 2nd round #65 overall, didn’t prevent the Red Sox from winning the World Series a few months later and it certainly didn’t keep them from winning it a few years later when Pedroia had made it up here.

Everything else being the same had we not drafted Matthew Durkin (a typical Met washout) with our #3 pick in the 2nd round that year Pedroia almost certainly would have been the difference between us finishing out of the post season in both 2007 and 2008 by only a game or two AND would have spared us signing Castillo to a 4 year 24 million dollar contract because as the refrain goes “but who else were we going to get to play 2B?”

Arguably the 24 million saved on Castillo, plus another 24 million or so in extra post season revenue, and who knows maybe even a World Championship could have helped buy ourselves another ace.

The Royals have also been to the playoffs 3 less times than we have in the last 23 years and have exactly the same number of World Championships during that time.

They also have been to the post season as often as we have in 7 less seasons

Have they always had so many highly regarded prospects or is this the 1st time?

If this is not the 1st time then what in the world is happening with those prior prospects? Did they just not live up to the hype? Are they being traded away? Are they being lost to injuries?

Thanks again.