That’s whats called for here and now. We have to start throwing the law of numbers at our numerous weaknesses and taking chances on players with big upsides by extracting them from the draft and international free agency. That’s what a big market team SHOULD be doing.

Omar delivered the 3 best consecutive years attendance wise and yet we were still worried more about signability than talent in the draft and after 2007 limited ourselves to just one IFA (none last year.) That doesn’t make any sense.

We are not usually going to be in the position of picking in the top ten so we have no chance to get those top end players. They have to be identified ahead of time and selected with picks in the 10-20′s and then bought out. Sure your going to be wrong more often than not but combined with a good top three draft and the IFA market we can start a very talented prospect flow and keep it going.

Different era, but a very different philosophy by ownership as well. One was committed and at least in the middle of the curve, the other is primarally committed to selling tickets by bringing in another Bonzo every year instead of spending the money where it will do the most good as is continually behind the curve.

A big market team can and should be taking chances that cost money. It is an inherant advantage and yet we are lagging WAY behind teams who hopped on this 3 or 4 years ago like Pittsburgh, Tampa and KC. (Que the what have they won in the last 20 years or how has that worked out for them lately jokes) but their farms are producing big time players that will all be in their prime at the same time when they get up here. That’s what wins pennants. All star talent for 1/3 of your roster, capable average starting talent for the rest of it. That means 7 super players that will all be healthy and productive for the same 6 year period.

By drafting and signing Blake Swihart (like Boston did) they give themselves a great chance to have a switch hitting catcher with a lot of power and if he doesn’t pan out behind the plate he will most likely pan out in RF. Whether they can sign the guy is another story but that just comes down to cash and credibility as an organization. Even if they don’t sign him it is still worth taking the chance because the amount of production a guy like Swihart could potentially produce is 10 times what a Josh Thole might so even if you can’t sign or have 9 out of 10 bust your still far ahead on the field.

Sure your going to have busts but when you break it all down an ace and a #2 and 8 busts is far superior to having 5 #3′s and far easier to fill in around.

For Minaya to be able to build the 25 AND the entire minor leagues at the same time by forfeiting 1st, supp, 2nd and 3rd round picks he had to have the ability to go into rounds 8-20 and take some chances with guys we wouldn’t be able to draft three years down the road because they were going in the first and 2nd after successful college years.

The fact that Minaya was able to sign Mejia and Familla was huge and Harvey so far looks like a great pick even though he was considered an overdraft and had an agreement on bonus beforehand it still doesn’t excuse the overall philosophy of Met ownership.

Mulvey, Matz, Rustich, Niessen, Kunz, were all taken in the supp or 2nd round as the best choices that would sign for slot. That shouldn’t have been the overriding consideration. Best talent over the next 10 years should have been. After all Minaya had delivered record attendance from 2006-2008. Why wasn’t this money reinvested into the future? Why didn’t we wait a week before signing Alou and at the very least SEE if we could keep our #1 draft choice? Why dump two #1 picks for a DH when they were handed to us on a silver platter?

It’s such a short sighted philosophy that the Wilpon has continually handcuffed the GM with since 1998 and as well as Omar did the fact is pitching is a weakness for us going forward as the Braves have Teheran, Delgado, Vizcaino and Minor after already bringing up Beachy, Hanson, Venters and Kimbrel and the Phillies A+ Clearwater team has given up 100 less runs so far this year than we have and it’s not because of creative scoring either as they’ve only been charged with 9 unearned runs to date and both of these teams have much better starting pitching than we do right now and both of them project to be a lot better than us in 5-10 years as well and don’t forget Zimmerman and Strausberg.

The way you win pennants is through dominating performances by your best players and then fill in around them as need be. Mejia, Harvey and Familia may prove to be those dominant pitchers and with Niese (HS) and Gee fill 5 or the 12 spots on the roster but Coohon and Carson are at best LOOGY’s. Moore is 25 in AA. Schwinden a back end of the bullpen guy or AAA depth, Gorski suddenly an interesting prospect and Armando Rodriguez and Morel (a bullpen arm) and don’t forget about Urbina as well but Moviel, Rustich, Allen and Holt seem much closer to Tobi Stoner than the Majors.

I would love to have seen what Omar could have done without being handicapped by those ridiculous slotting guidelines and the need to draft pitchers capable of getting up here the quickest rather than the one’s who project to be the best down the road.

Just off what we have right now the 2014 pitching staff looks to me like Niese, Familla, Harvey, Gee, Urbina with Gorski, Armondo Rodriguez, 2 of Matz/Cohoon/Carson, Morel, Beato and perhaps Holt or Schwinden although we could have some of the 2011 draft class work their way in too.

The Braves three best prospects in their farm are from Colombia, Panama and the DR. The IFA signing period begins July 2nd. If we were to sign most of our draftees and pull a few top shelf talents out of the international market we could really begin to narrow the talent gap that exists between us and our biggest competitors in the NL East because despite how much depth Minaya produced we’re still behind and my best guess is we would have been ahead of everyone in this department if talent and projectability was the only consideration in the draft and the money wasn’t held back from the IFA market after the 2007 season.

So yeah Minaya didn’t produce any Seavers, Koosman’s, Gentry’s, Ryan’s, McGraw’s but he didn’t have a committed owner like Weiss, Devine and Murphy did in Ms. Joan Payson.

K-Rod takes care of business in the 9th, gives the Mets a big win. Read about that and Reyes’ hot streak at Midwestern Met: tiny.cc/82rp0