The fact that Heilman is on the list – with his 22 – 33 9 saves stats speaks volumns about how bad the Mets first round picks were.

I would say, that of all those names listed, only David Wright actually lived up to his potential – and still does. Doc and Darryl were better then Wright during their shorten, drug induced disappointing careers.

Strawberry was pretty good, but never lived up to his potential. He was a spotty fielder and had problems with balls hit in the gap and balls hit in front of him. More than once I saw a ground ball hit to the outfield go through his legs. He was better on days when he didn’t go out the night before. He played 17 years but he was a star only the first nine of them. His last half was mediocre.

Strawberry’s career BA was .259, Wright’s is .305. The Strawman had a lot of power as is shown by his 335 HRs, or 1 in every 18.9 AB. Wright has so far 169 HRs, or 1 in every 25.7 AB. But Wright already has surpassed Straw in career doubles, hitting 1 in 16.8 ABs, while Straw has 1 in every 25.7 ABs. Wright’s stolen base success % is better: 76.7% to 69.1%

Wright on the other hand has been called a goody goody two-shoes, which may or may not be correct. In any case I think this season he’ll rid himself of any such views.
Also, the analysis didn’t address off-field contributions to the community and divisive behavior in the clubhouse and on airplanes. On a scale of 1-10, Strawberry gets a “3″ and Wright gets a “9″ in my opinion.

So who is better? You decide. I already did.

The 1994 draft that they were both selected in turned out to be one of the weakest in memory. Only 6 players in the first round (all drafted before Long) wound up with better careers (Walker, Hermanson, Grieve, Garciaparra, Koernerko, and Varitek) than he did and only 6 players total (3 picked before and 3 after) wound up with better careers than Jay Payton through the first 20 rounds or so (Garciaparra, Koernerko, Varitek – Glaus 2nd round, Pierzynski 3rd round, Javier Vazquez 5th round)

That draft also included the #1 overall selection Paul Wilson who got hurt as part of the generation K heartbreak.

It’s really hard to believe that only 3 of our top 10 first round draft choices were selected within the last 20 years and even at that, one was an overall average CFer and one was only a somewhat successful, non closer relief pitcher.

Since 1991 we have drafted 1-10 seven times, 11-20 4 times and 21-30 twice. We’ve also given away our #1 pick six times (Ventura, Zeile, Appier, Wagner, Alou, K-Rod) and picked up 4 first rounders by “losing” Sid, Olerud, Hampton and Glavine. We’ve also given away four # 2 picks (David Weathers, Cliff Floyd, Pedro Martinez and Jason Bay), and three third rounders (Roger Cedeno, Tom Glavine and Carlos Beltran)

In addition we gave away another first rounder and a supplementary pick along with Wagner in order to save his remaining salary, buyout and the bonus money those two picks (#20 and #36) would have gotten. All told about 5.5 Million saved.