16
2011
Before Getting Excited About Nimmo, Remember Al Shirley (And Others)
An article by Former Writers
As last night’s deadline to sign first-round draft choice Brandon Nimmo drew closer, my Twitter timeline was littered with fans and writers counting down the minutes. “C’mon, Sandy, get it done,” one follower said. “We need Nimmo,” said another. So I got to thinking.
With all of this talk about how desperate the Mets were to sign an 18-year-old high school kid from Wyoming, I wanted to look at the Mets’ recent history of first-round picks. I went all the way back to 1991, and my findings aren’t pretty.
In the past 20 years, the Mets have drafted 10 players who didn’t play in one single game for the team. This list includes Al Shirley, Chris Roberts, Robert Stratton, Jon Ward, Kirk Presley, Ryan Jaroncyk, Nathan Vineyard, Billy Traber, Geoff Goetz, Bobby Keppel and Scott Kazmir. Of course, Kazmir was traded for Victor Zambrano and Traber went to Cleveland in the deal for Roberto Alomar. Neither one of those moves worked out for the Mets.
That is a whopping 11 out of 24 draft picks— I’m not counting Reese Havens, Brad Holt or Matt Harvey— that never played a game for the Mets. That is less than 50-percent. That is atrocious.
Additionally, outfielder Jason Tyner played in 13 games and outfielder Terrence Long played three before getting traded to Oakland for Kenny Rogers. Pitcher Philip Humber appeared in five games before being dealt to Minnesota for Johan Santana, while Eddie Kunz pitched in four games. Preston Wilson played in eight before being shipped to the Florida Marlins for Mike Piazza, and former Florida State Seminole standout Paul Wilson, whom the Mets drafted No. 1 overall in 1994, started 26 games before being moved to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.
So out of 24 selections, not counting the teams most recent picks of Harvey, Holt and Havens, 11 never played a game for the Mets, one started 26 times and another five appeared in 13 games or less.
As it breaks down, in the last 20 years, the Mets have gotten significant contributions from a first-round pick just seven times, led by third baseman David Wright, who has played in 1066 games (as of today). Surprisingly, Lastings Milledge is second behind Wright, having played in 391 games before being traded to Washington for Ryan Church and Brian Schneider. Outfielder Jay Payton played in 368 games, and Ike Davis has played in 183 since last season, though he has missed the majority of this year with an ankle injury. That is all for first-round position players.
On the mound, the Mets have seen Aaron Heilman pitch in 305 games, compiling a 22-33 record and a 4.24 ERA while being a lightning rod of criticism his entire time in New York. Bobby Jones made 190 starts, none better than his one-hit shutout in Game 4 of the Division Series against the San Francisco Giants in 2000. Mike Pelfrey has made 138 starts, but has had a frustrating career, often following complete dominance with total disaster.
As you can see, though the Mets have had numerous regime changes and numerous people making the selections of the last 20 years, and though some of the draft picks were parlayed into players like Santana, Piazza and Alomar, the majority of Mets first rounders never panned out.
Now granted, the true measure of whether signing Nimmo to a $2.1 million contract won’t come until 2014 at the absolute earliest. But the Mets track record with first rounders isn’t pretty.
So before everyone goes crazy about an unknown high schooler from Wyoming, remember Al Shirley and Chris Roberts and Bobby Keppel. Because they were highly touted prospects too.
About the Author: Former Writers
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100% agree with this article. Look at all of the Mets can’t miss OF prospects over the years (Ryan Thompson, Alex Ochoa, Alex Excobar, Jason Tyner, FERNANDO MARTINEZ). I’m not counting on the highest draft pick to ever come out of a Wymoming H.S. until I see him actually moving up through the minors.
The problem with Met fans and Met writers is they’re trained to be negative. Of course no one knows how prospects are going to turn out, but that’s not just for the Mets that’s for every one.
There is no reason not to be excited, just understand a lot could go wrong , the nature of the beast
Right, Escobar and F-Mart were talked about forever, and look how they panned out. And I only looked at first-rounders because they are presumably the most highly touted and are signed for the most money usually too.
ALEX OCHOA!!!! a no doubter, can’t miss, super stud we had… same with escobar… in all fairness as fans e should be happy we got a kid to play for us in the future, what trumps that is that fact that some ppl have created this “the sabermetrics of sandy against the omar draft classes” argument when it comes to every player we got this year and in years past.. i hope nimmo, fullmer, wheeler all do good, hell, i’ll prob go see them play at the stadium once come up, but also, i am excited to see familia, mejia, vaughn, harvey and all the players minaya got as well for us and to do good as well..
What sabermetric statistics make Nimmo attractive as a first round over slot signing?
It has been said to you time and time again by several people that amateur scouting does not utilize statistics. The fact that you keep claiming it does only shows how dishonest, unoriginal and ignorant you are.
The only people who are creating that argument are you and the Brown Shirts.
at best, saber as related to drafting (especially HS guys) came into play when deciding on skill sets to look at. maybe liking guys that showed plate discipline already?
but no way Nimmo was drafted on some sabermetric basis!
again, were any of you guys in the drafting room??? how do you know what they took in consideration??? people, please, stop with this smoochfest with this guys!!! omar was a bad GM, horrendous if you ask me, but he was a good evaluator, let’s not discredit his players and his role this quickly..
Stop trying to change the subject. You claimed there was arguement about Omar’s drafts vs Alderson’s sabermetrics.
What sabermetrics does Nimmo excel in that makes him worth a first round over slot deal?
Were YOU in the drafting room? How do YOU know what they took into consideration? ASSume much? Stop with the hate fest on something you clearly do not understand.
No, YOU are the one doing that by bringing up with word Sabremetrics and Moneyball in all your responses when you don’t understand either.
another fan of me… the legion keeps growing..
really have to look at the % for other teams too to claim it is atrocious. And someone like Kazmir should count on the positive side of the ledger, since he was a productive ML player.
Also, not all of those guys were high 1st round picks. Big difference between #2 and #29.
To me, the excitement was not so much that Nimmo was going to be a can’t miss star (there aren’t any of those!). More so that it indicated the team now was willing to spend money and take a shot at a high ceiling, potential star, instead of going with safe (aka cheaper) low ceiling picks like Kunz.
Get enough of the high ceiling types, and the few hits more than make up for the misses!
Like I keep saying, it’s not about 1 player. Nimmo can very well be a bust. It’s the fact that we’re getting guys with such a high ceiling that matters.
I agree with the main point of the article: most first round picks are not superstars. The major leagues represents the best of the best, even the bench players have to be considered the top players in the country. So to be fair to management and to be fair to Nimmo, we should not pencil him in for the Hall of Fame yet.
At the same time, you can’t say that a failure rate (or success rate) of 50% is bad. I think it was Dipodesta who listed the Met pitching prospects and said the Mets would be doing well if half of them are successful. Before you condemn this success rate, you need to look at other teams (as “Any” wrote). I just looked through Baseball America’s Prospect book to see what happened to a team’s top prospect for past years. The number that are in the minors, or out of baseball is really high.
I didn’t look at other teams because this was a Mets story on a Mets website. I am sure there are plenty of other teams with the same 50% or even worse, but that wasn’t the point of this. The point was that for all the excitement surrounding Nimmo and him signing, there are plenty of examples of someone who never lives up to the hype.
well, that is the nature of prospects in this sport. the majority never make it.
The reason other teams were referenced was due to calling the met % “atrocious”. hard to use such a strong word without having some sort of benchmark to work against.
Sometimes a 12th rd selection turns out better than the #2 pick of the draft. That’s just how it goes. Injuries play such a big part with teenagers/young athletes. No one can predict if a kid’s body will be able to withstand the rigors of a 162 game season. In that regard, there’s no scouting that will predict it. It’s sheer luck of the draw.