20
2012
ESPN New York: DePodesta On Mejia, Wheeler, Not Signing Second Rounder, Prospect Hype, Fan Expectations
An article by Craig Lerner
Over at ESPN New York, Adam Rubin talks with Mets VP of Player Development Paul DePodesta who shared some insights on a variety of topics. In Part 1 of the interview, DePo sheds some light on Zack Wheeler’s innings workload, Jenrry Mejia’s transition from starter to reliever, and the following question in which he addresses fan expectations and hype:
Q: In New York, the prospects get hyped. And it’s good in a way in terms of generating fan excitement, and perhaps even creating a market with other teams to deal the players at peak value. Do you worry, though — say with Matt Harvey, but also more generally — that if he comes up and has a productive major league career but he’s not Stephen Strasburg that on merit he would have done really well and yet the expectations will be so great that he can never live up to them?
DePodesta: “I’m concerned about it on that front, I think, with a lot of players, just in general. I think sometimes expectations can be unrealistic for these guys, even from the time they’re drafted. The baseball draft is very different from the NBA or the NFL. These players aren’t ready to perform at the highest level when they’re drafted, even when they’re drafted very high. And the attrition rate, even very high up in the draft, is staggering. It might be 50 percent of first-rounders that actually become good major league players. And that probably drops by half once you get into the second round. And it probably drops by half again when you get into the third round. Those top-round picks, there still is an awful lot of fallout.
“So if a guy becomes a solid No. 3 or 4 starter, and that was your first-round pick, you should be very, very happy. You won on that pick. But I don’t think that’s generally the expectation. I think people think of first-round picks and expect to have a potential superstar. That’s actually very rare. It just doesn’t happen very often. But, generally, sometimes we can get a little too excited about somebody’s talent.
You can read the rest of Part 1 of Rubin’s interview here.
In Part 2 of the interview, DePodesta identifies Cory Mazzoni and Rafael Montero as two players who could move quickly to the majors as Josh Edgin did. He also discusses the strategy behind not signing second round pick Teddy Stankiewicz and that it will make them more competitive in next year’s draft. Some insight on why the Mets gave 16-year old German Rosario the highest international bonus ever by the organization is discussed and why they liked him so much. Also this on how far the overall minor league system has come along in the last two seasons:
Q: Last topic: I’m sure everybody takes a lot of pride in the contributions from the farm system to the current major league team. But those young players predated you with the organization. Obviously development is one component, so how much credit do you/your regime deserve for producing those players compared with what you inherited?
DePodesta: “I don’t know. As you noted, all of these players predated us. For that matter, most of the staff on the minor league side predated us. I mean, we made very, very few changes in staff over the course of the last couple of years. We did bring in Dick Scott as our field coordinator. We have brought in a new pitching coordinator. I think there are some processes that we’ve pushed pretty hard throughout the minor leagues. To the extent that’s had an impact, I don’t know. And I wouldn’t want to say or take away anything from all the work that was done with these guys beforehand.
“When we first came aboard, I think I remember saying I think the system was a lot better than I think people were giving it credit for. And I think that’s born out. There were a lot of good players here. Our job on the development side is to try to maximize the abilities of those players. And I’m proud of the job development has done, both before I was here and also since we’ve been here. And I do think Dickie Scott has done a terrific job in leading that charge on the field at the minor league level.”
Interesting question by Rubin, with an interesting response by DePo.
About the Author: Craig Lerner
I'm a data analyst and researcher for a leading news agency who loves life and is hooked on the Mets. I love following the Amateur Draft and have a particular fondness for the Mets Minor Leagues who I follow each day. Give me a cold beer, a summer day, and a Mets game, and I'm good to go.
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“So if a guy becomes a solid No. 3 or 4 starter, and that was your first-round pick, you should be very, very happy. You won on that pick”
Lol, says the guy who throughout his career has done nothing as a GM, or assistant GM or scout…. Omar minaya as a scout is 10x better than this clown..
Wait a minute, so then Mike Pelfrey wasn’t a bust? Looks like tagee owes Mike Pelfrey and Omar Minaya an apology. He should have been very, very, very happy with that pick. :–)
1. If you think that Pelfrey became a solid # 3 or # 4 then you are clueless.
2. If you don’t think that Pelfrey was a solid # 3 or #4 then obviously you have a reading disability or you just wanted to pick a fight with Alex68.
Amazin, Maniac is taking a shot at Depodesta. He’s on TeamCORE… Depodesta is a loser GM who is just another sabergoon who uses boxscore to determined the ability of a player etc..
Firendly Fire, Friendly Fire! LOL
Maniac was taking a poster to task (not Alex) for complaining about Omar’s drafting ability.
In fact this entire article seems to suggest all that crap we were hearing earlier in the season about how the players from our Farm that were doing good were a product of the OVERHAUL Sandy made happen in the MiL system.
As was just said…They didn’t do a lot just put a little bit of focus on some things that may or may not have been focused on before!
I like the way he weasels his way around Rubin’s question without even mentioning Minaya once yet throwing around Dickie Scott’s name like he is somehow responsible for the emergence of Ruben Tejada and Valdespin, or development of Harvey, Flores, etc.
Are you suggesting that Omar Minaya, Sandy Alderson or Paul DePodesta have or will have more to do with an emergence of a young player becoming a solid big league player than field coordinators and minor league coaches?
Dick Scott, Wally Backman, Tim Teufel, Terry Collins when he was minor coordinator or whoever etc all have more to do with ANY young player becoming a productive big league player than Omar, Sandy, Steve, Paul, or JP.
That’s probably why he didn’t credit Minaya for these players emergence, because Minaya didn’t teach them anything.
Who drafted them?? if a player is picked in the first round, and he becomes a bust, then who gets the blame? the scout director or the GM of the team??? IF nimmo or that Backup IF we picked this year become bust then who is to blame? i am sure noone even knows the scoutign director of the mets minors, so sandy will get the blame… sure as hell will get the glory if they do become studs…. Get it!?
“Who drafted them??”
- In most instances, the Scouting Director. You don’t wanna hear that though because you want to divide credit up and assume the GM of any team is reading through over 1,500 scouting reports and seeing tape of over 1,500 high school and college players.
-”if a player is picked in the first round, and he becomes a bust, then who gets the blame?”
- I can certainly concede a GM has more to do with a 1st round pick than any other pick. However, you may blame the GM if Nimmo or whoever becomes a bust. But if he becomes a bust for any reason other than injury, it’s in all likelihood the scouts and coaches fault. The target is the GM because he’s the face you see.
The GM hires amateur scouting directors for a reason. The problem is people like to point a finger at the GM because the GM is the name and face they know.
Who tells the scouting director what to do?
The GM!
Sorry this npoor argument has been soundly debunked months ago.
The scouting director says the name when they are on the clock but the scouting director doesn’t create the draft board all by himself. His input and reports are used to help make the draft board up and they rely on his opinions on players, but the entire FO meets before the draft and discusses every player that gets on the board and the only thing the scouting director actually does on draft day is to pull the names off the board as they get picked and then say the name of the guy thats left at the top of that board when our time is up!
To suggest otherwise jus5t shows that you have no clue about how a corporate structure or chain of command works,
Middle management makes suggestions to his superiors before he acts, those superiors tweak and make small changes and then he carries out those orders with approval of his boss.
It is not as you suggest the guy gets hired has no interaction with his bosses, just does whatever he wants, takes whoever he wants GM and FO direction and philosophy be damned!
My point exactly… Even if the scouting director is the one in charge of drafting later players, it still is the GM fault’s if a player bust, becomes is also the GM’s job to find a good scouting director.. Either way u look at it, the GM gets the biggest chunk of the blame or success…
So if you do a bad job at work, does your boss get fired because he hired you or do you get fired because you did the work poorly?
I am in no way suggesting Omar, Phillips, Sandy have 0 to do with players drafted.
I am suggesting that if that player becomes successful in the big leagues (and wasn’t a no brainer guy like say Harper), then the GM has much less to do with that than field coordinators and coaches etc. Which is why DePodesta gave credit to those guys.
I love how we’re knocking DePodesta for giving OTHERS credit.
If i do a poor job it does reflect on whoever hired me no? Come on dude, it’s common sense.. All i am saying is that my boss will recorgnize me, but whoever is leading the team will get the bulk of the credit… It’s just the way it is..
just so we’re clear, who’s fault is it that the players taken in the early portion of the 2007 and the entire 2009 draft were terrible?
Read this yesterday. Rubin did a good job with the questions he asked. I was in particular happy he asked about Stankiewicz.