Those two guys are the one’s who got us started in Latin America…….finally. Dotel, Cruz, Scutero, Escobar, Chavez.

Overall, just goes to show you that even with top notch scouting – which would be preferable – prospects are often a crap shoot. So the more picks and signings you have, the better the odds are that you’ll have pieces that will either help the major league club, or can be used while still prospects in trades.

As it stands right this second all we’ve gotten out of that draft is a productive bench player and a cross over guy for the pen with the chance to get something out of Stinson and who knows maybe even Ramirez too.

Bench guys and relief pitchers are important to develop but it’s only in adding them to the Jennings, Latos, and Cahills’ where they really help you.

5 years isn’t enough time to fully evaluate a draft but just the fact that other teams still have some high end hopes alive in their system and we don’t doesn’t make this draft seem like it’s going to look any brighter down the road. Then again if Murphy were to be an average defender it could wind up being an OK draft. We’ll see.

And I can’t see how a draft where we picked Murphy, a good RP in Smith(had a 2.01 ERA last year), a potentially useful pitcher in stinson, and when our top pick that year was used to trade for the best pitcher in baseball, as an “absolute disgrace”.

People are fond of calling 3B his “natural” position and while he knows what to do there he’s just never been very good at it………..anywhere. He’s only had 200 minor league games at 3B and has a .920 FP. That’s not even average.

I don’t see him helping out a shorthanded pitching staff one bit and with Duda, Thole and Wright they need all the help they can get. I don’t think its a sure bet at all that Murphy can 3B and I’m more than open to being wrong but I see Murph as a great piece on the bench and I’m quite sure that almost any other NL team would as well.

Then half the time we do get a guy we trade him before he’s fully developed and turn that guy into yet another below average player.

Sixty percent of the position players we have had 100 or more AB’s from in a year have produced somewhere between 0.9 WAR and a negative WAR. SIXTY PERCENT! it would be hard to have these inept results even if you were trying to get them and I’ll bet it’s not that much better on the pitching side either.

Can it really be a surprise that we’ve only made the post season 3 times in 23 years even while sporting the Leagues highest payroll?

Incidentally Fonzie was an IFA, I’m sure you already know this because after all, you are the Fonz.

Murphy may not have great HR power, but he has great gap power – He was in the top five in the league in doubles befroe he got hurt, which is pretty amazing considering that he started the year on the bench.

And I think with Citi Field now being a normal size, i can see Murphy hitting 15-20HR’s a year – He has more power than you think.

Some of those overslot selections will move up but I’ll bet the round after is filled with plenty of hopeful overslot guys.

Still and all back in 2006 – 2010 we could have and should have been doing a heck of a lot more in this area and considering we gave up so many #1′s and #2′s why not spend some of that on a 10th or 11th round overslot selection and “recoup” the pick we gave away?

It’s not like our farm system’s overall weakness wasn’t well known.

and again, I’m not saying it’s a good draft, I’m just saying it isn’t an awful draft.

Certainly having Mulvey in the system allowed for us to make the Santana deal but was he the best pick we could have made in the 2nd round? Mulvey and Smith both allowed us to make trades but they kind of go under separate headings in the GM’s ledger called horse trading.

As for the pure draft itself I would say we got a tremendous bench/reserve/PH in Murphy with a shot at being more than that but the history of guys moving from corner IF to MI isn’t exactly littered with success stories and the only reason Murphy has had so many chances is because of the pitiful condition of the farm system to begin with, as well as a decent set up/cross over guy.

We also gave up our #1 pick to make up another defficiency in our bullpen to prop up our 2006 – 2009 team and busted on our 2nd rounder.

Stinson will get a shot, Stoner hopefully won’t be needed and no one else from the draft is still even playing ball other than Edgar Ramirez and plenty of guys drafted by other teams still have a chance, some of them a pretty good one.

Smith and Murphy are both competently able to fill a role on the ML roster but neither is likely to be a cornerstone and there were a fair number of cornerstones taken anywhere from the pick we gave up for Wagner all the way down to the 10th and 11th round.

Joe Smith in the 3rd is decent but David Robertson in the 17th is outstanding and Bentances and Latos in the 11th and Desmond Jennings in the 10th are the type of difference making draft choices that really move an organizations future in a positive direction and rather than constricting your options like Wagner did, they expand them starting one year after being drafted.

Failing to have picked up any real difference makers in the 2006 draft we still could have salvaged something from it by turning our #1 pick (Billy Wagner) into the 20th and 39th best picks in the 2010 draft which would have been a very effective use of free agency and maybe picked up a difference maker in that draft. Sadly we dumped the remaining portion of his salary (4 M), his buyout (1.5 M) and the signing bonuses those two picks would have commanded (3 M) for Chris Carter who was no difference maker himself and there is no way that I will ever believe that anyone even in a position to be a GM would have made that trade for any reason other than being directed to from ownership.

Difference makers! That’s what the whole ******* draft is all about. We didn’t get any. some other teams did, some a them a few.

Plenty of room for improvement here.

So while I don’t think it’s a good draft, it’s certainly not an awful draft either.

That doesn’t mean there weren’t very good reasons for taking a particular guy over another one or perhaps the draft budget necessitated taking more signable choices or something along that line or maybe we’re drafting as well as anyone else but we’re not developing well or something but the idea should be to see if there’s anything we can learn from our results in order to improve them.

For example with the 4th pick (Holdzkom) great stuff and a real cheap price because he had no where else to go having been kicked out of HS and college. Not ideal obviously but probably just a practical reality that taking a flyer on the guy and saving money allowed for a more expensive pick later.

Futhermore I found your list of “could have had’s” incomplete as well as how some of them are making it more difficult for us in our own Division right now.

The two picks that the Phillies got for “losing” Wagner helped them acquire Blanton and Halliday which goes right to my oft stated point that 1st and 2nd round draft choices can wind up seriously assisting your Major league team in as little as a year even when they wind up ultimately busting as it appears Cardonis (2006 supp rnd pick – Blanton) may have.

By keeping your top picks you can talk to any team about any player instead of limiting your choices to just those players that are free agents and the more choices that are available the better your results should be.

Among players passed up that could have been selected with the #1 draft choice were also Ian Kennedy, Hank Conger, Joba Chamberlain and Daniel Bard.

Mulvey was a workhorse at Villanova and as a smaller guy I think that’s a red flag especially as a strike out pitcher who uses a slider extensively at 18-20. (Braves don’t allow their prospects to throw a slider until AA) In three college seasons he had 244 innings, 222 strikeouts, 96 walks 8 complete games, .264 BA, 4.43 ERA. He was a very well regarded prospect but maybe the workload and his 6’1″ 170 lbs frame is why he slid. Not saying he was a bad choice but high walks and high strikeouts equal high pitch counts.

Joe Smith was a college relief pitching pick that hit as well as you could hope for.

All teams can look back and see guys they missed out on and review what their thought process was at the time and once you get past the 5th round the differences are very small. Some guys make it, most by far don’t but some teams do consistently get more success than others. David Robertson went in the 17th round 2006 and Dellin Bentences in the 11th to the NYY. That’s not to complain about the 29 teams that passed them over but just to say those were big hits and will be paying big dividends for the NYY for years to come.

Doug Fister went after Scott Schafer. Mike Leake went after Stegall but no complaints. Why not hunt the potential conerstone? Most guys here don’t make it here so why not try for the guy who if he does, makes it huge. Alan Craig went after Nathan Hendrick. David Freise and Desmond Jennings went after Barfield. Padres got Matt Latos in the 11th. Phillies took big risk/reward 5 tool HS kid Dominick Brown in the 20th round. Red Sox got Josh Reddick 27th.

We did select some HS players which give you the best chance for top production but I wonder if we took one’s that were the least expensive due to no college committments (other than Stegell) and maybe weren’t fully vetted for off the field stuff and therefore weren’t as costly to sign.

One other question is the large amount of college players selected indicative of looking for quick help even without the higher upside or a product of a miniscule draft budget? I’d say both and if that’s the case then it really begs the question of why you would hire a GM who’s strength is in amateur talent evaluation and then hamstring him with a low draft budget.

Murphy in the 13th has really been a good hit but I really can’t credit our scouting dept on him as Bernazard’s son put us on to him although the college player with one tool is a very typical type Met draft choice.

There were also some HS kids drafted in later rounds who didn’t sign but were clearly identified by their respective teams scouts and scouting Director like Mike Minor TB, Paul Goldschmidt LAD, Brett Anderson AZ, Andrew Cashner Colorado Matt Laporta and Brandon Belt Red Sox and theoretically with a little more to work with in the draft.all these chronic holes to fill could be whittled down to a manageable few pretty quickly.

One thing about the 2006 draft is that it was new hire Amateur Scouting Director Rudy Terrases’ first of 5 consecutive drafts he ran for Minaya and while the draft itself wasn’t great certain teams did pretty well even just pulling one top prospect out of it like SD with Matt Latos who gave them a couple good years and a top notch catcher.

Best draft this year? NYY Ian Kennedy, Joba Chamberlain (both obtained by losing Tom Gordan) Zach McCalister, Dellin Bentances, and David Robertson.

Boston did nicely as well with Bard, Masterson, Kalish, Belt (dns) La Porta (dns) Reddick and Lars Anderson.

The books not finished on the 2006 draftees yet and while it wasn’t terrible there is definitely room for improvement.