24
2011
Are Mets Prospects Being Rushed To The Majors?
An article by 
On Tuesday, our own Ed Leyro posted a great piece which illustrated quite clearly how woefully deficient the Mets have been in producing an 18 game winner. In fact, they are on the verge attaining yet another dubious record; the longest drought in MLB history.
Since 1990, no Met pitcher has reached the 18-win mark in a single season and only Al Leiter has won as many as 17 games, doing so in 1998. (Pedro Martinez is the only 17-game winner for the Expos/Nationals franchise over the past two decades, winning that many games in 1997, when he won the National League Cy Young Award.)
Read the entire post, it’s well written with a lot of research, and I thought it was a real eye-opener.
So why has it been so difficult for this organization to produce an 18 game winner?
I came across a great post by Ben Lindbergh on Baseball Prospectus the other day. Lindbergh charts out the organizational discrepancies in minor league seasoning for pitchers. In other words, how many average innings pitched an organization will give their prospects before they are promoted to the Major Leagues.
How un-surprising are these results? The Mets were the most aggressive club in MLB when it came to promoting pitchers. Mets pitchers were called up to the majors with the least amount of minor league seasoning. Surprisingly, these results do not even include youngster Jenrry Mejia who was rushed before he even pitched 200 minor league innings last season.
Every team in the majors gave their prospects a minimum of 300 innings in the minor leagues except the Mets during this five year period which essentially covered the Minaya era.
It’s not just the pitchers.
The appalling trend held true with our young hitters and position players as well.
We all wonder why our prospects come up without any instincts for basic fundamentals – not running hard to first base – running amok on the bases – throwing to the wrong base – missing the cutoff man…
Well herein lies the reason – Not enough experience!
I always thought it was amazing how quickly Mets prospects would jump from Double-A to the Major Leagues in one fell swoop. The naive part of me looked at it as something good, but boy was I wrong.
If the name of the game is development, the Mets have been an epic and colossal failure in that regard.
They afford their prospects the least amount of time to develop and in doing so prevent these kids from achieving the lofty expectations that the organization places on them.
At 16 years old the Mets are already dubbing many of their kids phenoms and rushing them through the pipeline without any thought given to nurturing and developing their raw skills.
Instead the Mets have become quite adept at rushing them through the system (if you want to call it a system.), slapping a uniform number on their back, and trotting them out to the plate or mound as quickly as they could, often resulting in failure.
We’ve seen this time and time again including most recent examples Jenrry Mejia, Nick Evans and Fernando Martinez in the last three seasons.
Sometimes, these prospects can get by on their raw skills alone (like Ike Davis), but you can’t help but wonder how much better Pelfrey would have been with more seasoning and time to hone his craft. Would he have become the dominant ace every scout believed he would be when he was drafted?
This may be something or it may be nothing, but I’m holding firm to the belief that it’s a good reason why the Mets haven’t produced an 18-win season since Frank Viola – or had a rookie of the year in 27 years – or had an MVP in the history of their franchise.
Players who win a Cy Young or an MVP, are players who have reached their maximum potential and have exceeded all of their highest expectations. How can any Met prospect achieve either of those distinctions when they are not even afforded the luxury of developing their talent even at the most minimal level?
These kids need to play everyday and learn what it means to be a major leaguer. The more games they play the better the odds that they will experience all the different delicacies of the game while refining their baseball instincts.
They need to be nurtured like plants in a garden, affording them all the requirements needed for them to fully blossom and hit the road running. Repetition breeds a better understanding of the game and also instills confidence in a player.
Having a great draft every June is only a small part of building a solid minor league foundation. We need a philosophy that will give our team the quality minor league depth it needs to build a long-term strategy for winning and maintaining that level of success with a pipeline of major league ready talent.
For too many years, the Mets have been setting up their best prospects for failure instead of success.
I hope that this new regime preaches patience for our prospects so that we can finally start getting the best out of each of them, instead of their worst.
About the Author: Joe DeCaro
I'm a lifelong Mets fan who loves writing and talking about the Amazins' 24/7. From the Miracle in 1969 to the magic of 1986, and even the near misses in '73 and '00, I've experienced it all - the highs and the lows. I started Mets Merized Online in 2005 to feed my addiction. Follow me on Twitter @metsmerized.
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NL East Standings
| Team | W | L | Pct. | GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Braves | 42 | 28 | .600 | - |
| Nationals | 34 | 35 | .493 | 7.5 |
| Phillies | 34 | 37 | .479 | 8.5 |
| Mets | 25 | 40 | .385 | 14.5 |
| Marlins | 22 | 47 | .319 | 19.5 |
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I don’t know how much a part that plays into the Mets not having an 18 Game winner but it does show a recent trend of bringing arms up with minimal time to learn their craft in the minors.
Let’s just hope they let Mejia learn to be a starter 1st with some success down at AAA before they bring him up based on 10 Spring Training starts.
not really related to the 18 game winner issue, since the Mets have brought in a ton of SPs from outside too.
also hard to tell if this trend means guys will struggle longer before becoming successful, or that they will never get there at all?
Good point.
Have to quibble about the comments on not knowing the fundies.
outside of maybe some IFAs, these guys all have many, many years of top level competition and coaching under their belts. the top guys (that end up getting drafted) have played year round for most of their lives. AAU ball, tournements, HS, college, clinics.
while time in the minors is valuable for improving your skills against higher levels of competition, they should have the basics (that you learn in little league) well down by the time they are in the system. And if they are a little weak on a few fundies, how long does it really take to work on them when you hit rookie ball?
The time line is also skewed a bit based on who they draft. The Mets seem to have taken a lot more college guys (especially pitchers) who effectively had 3 years in the minors already. Some teams (TB) take way more HS guys, which normally will mean more time in the minors.
You mentioned Ike. He played 3 years at ASU, a top college program. PLus cape cod league, etc (I think that one). You don’t think those 3 years didn’t count as much toward his development as playing a season in Kingsport would for a HS kid?
An interesting overlay to this would be average age at debut. Wonder how much that changes things?
Oh, even after saying all that, I do agree that the team under Minaya was guilty of rushing guys up the ladder, including to the majors.
and changing this culture IMO is a huge, huge part of what Sandy and his boys are looking to do. Much bigger emphasis on MiL training and player development.
this seems to get overlooked with much of the ranting about him being a saberhead, and not having done enough for the 25 man already.
How many minor league innings did someone like Eddie Kunz (drafted 2007) get before Mets brought him up in 2008? I know he was a reliever, but obviously not ready. Even Lastings, L. Duda, R. Tejada.
The thing about Kunz is that he was a college relif pitcher, with just one pitch. He wasn’t drafted as a true talent performer. He was drafted first and foremost because no one else would have taken him so high therefore he was easy to sign within the slotting “recomendations” and second for his possible ability to do something, anything up here as quickly as possible.
That whole 2007 draft was the worst one in the history of MLB 1-6. Kunz, Vineyard who cashed the check and quit after 30 IP, Moviel, Rustisch, Niessen, Cline. All pitchers, All busts, maybe we get a LOOGY out of it. You can do that from the waiver wire.
The Mets have gotten into a spiral where their are so many needs every year and with the payroll so top heavy anyone who shows even the slightest glimmer of being able to do anything gets fast tracked, put in an unfamiliar role, exposed, ridiculed and shipped out or sent down.
The idea that an infielder could be your everyday left fielder as THE PLAN is ridiculous, Anyone that has ever played baseball can tell you that infield and outfield are so night and day different from each other that you don’t just “learn on the job.”
Plenty of teams expecting to be in the playoffs will put a bookmark at a position until their prospect is ready. Atlanta got Troy Glaus AND Derrick Lee to avoid rushing Freddie Freeman last year. This year Freeman 2nd round #14 2007 will take over.
Planning ahead of time for future needs afford you time to find a guy AHEAD of time. A prospect from some other system you trade for 2 years before. A rule 5, non tender, career minor leaguer, anyone because if you want to win baseball games you need to get the BEST YEARS of the players on your team. Not their TOO EARLY or TOO LATE YEARS.
Having so many needs every year because of poor drafting in prior years leads to rushing the few prospects we ever half develop. Work not done in prior years cannot be undone by making more mistakes later.
Other than Milwaukee (because of trades for pitching) We are the only team in MLB without a top 100 prospect on Baseball America’s just published list that came from the draft.
We have continously drafted less talented, lower ceiling prospects in order to comply with Bud Selig’s slotting “recommendations” even though almost nobody else does. For a “big market” Team this is asinine. This “philosophy” is probably behind our decision to give away a #1 pick for Moises Alou and two # 1 picks for Chris Carter. Even one of our top prospects Matt Harvey was drafted well above where he was expected to go because his stock had DROPPED. Therefore he would be easier to sign. Signability instead of talent is the guiding principle of our draft strategy.
That and the fact that our payroll is always up against the ceiling with frequently injured and under performing expensive players creates the neccesity to round out the roster with other teams rejects and ill prepared prospects making league minimum.
I can’t always read something this long but you are completely right.
well put cuz. Over the past few years the Mets have been hit with so many injuries and were so unwilling to make adjustments through trades during the season that they had a revolving door with the minors.
The Delgados, Beltrans and Reyes (not to mention the pitchers) have put a lot of stress on our minors to bring up players who simply aren’t ready.
Thanks #20. It looks to me like we have some quantity with upside brought to ST this year. I hope we can stash some of it in Buffalo and I wouldn’t be too surprised if some of what starts on the 25 gets traded for a flock of younger, less surgically enhanced prospects in the mid minors and those in Buffalo get up here sooner.
This problem started long before Minaya became GM. Sure the study only shows five years, but I would venture to guess that this has been the case since the late eighties. I think of all those hyped up kids that rocketed thru the org and didn’t amount to anything and want to cringe. I still believe that our Generation K pitchers all succumbed to injuries because they were rushed to the majors and given a workload that blew out their arms. Jefferies was the second coming of Ty Cobb, NOT.
guys that were brought up in 2005-2006 (and thus on this chart) were certainly drafted by an earlier regime, and must have been pushed along quickly too.
There were no young prospects Omar brought up when he first got here. There was almost no one in the system. Milledge, Evans, keppinger, Jacobs, Diaz, Padilla, Bell, Soler, Heilman, Koo. Other than Bell, Not a lot of results there.
Great piece Joe!
Great post Joe! Some of the past players Omar brought up like Jennry Mejia, was brought up alittle earlier than when they should have.
The Mets have done this sort of thing since 1962 (e.g., Ed Kranepool). Back in the early days, they were desperate for players. Some managed to be OK. Seaver had only a year in the minors, though he did pitch over 200 innings. But there were many to were definitely hurt in their development.
I think in their formative years after exapnasion, you could almost forgive them for rushing their kids to the Majors, but I do agree that this has been a big problem throughout their history.
I am wondering why the sampling started at 2005 and not earlier?
I suspect it is something to do with Omar.
Always made a good point in that the beginning of that sample were a bunch of guys not drafted by Omar and it stands to reason that they would be Rushed a little quicker because we were playing for something at that time.
Including the 2009 season is also a bit unfair as it doesn’t take into account the injuries that required rushing some minor leaguer to come in to replace an injured player.
We all pretty much agree the farm Omar inherited was just awful so can you really blame the lack of a 20 game winner on the fact that Omar rushed them?
Yes he rushed Mejia last year. Why did he do that? Maybe because he and Manuel were fighting for their jobs and were forced to do things a secure GM and Manager would not normally do? Add injuries needing to be replaced and the situation the stats are trying to convey are skewed where for many of those teams the situation was just normal.