Comments on: Let’s See A Little More Of Matt Harvey, Before We “Omar Minaya” Him

By: Fonzie13

Fonzie13 — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 02:15:09 +0000

That must’ve been another Fonzie, Ray. I’m a middle aged frustrated Met fan. Lol. Alfonzo had a big following so I’m sure I’m not the only one to use his name on Met blogs.

By: Sloatsburg Mets Fan

Sloatsburg Mets Fan — Sat, 24 Nov 2012 11:54:01 +0000

Sylow59,

I love your comments. It always shocks me when I hear PD people say “It’s not about wins and losses it’s about development.” If that weretrue Mark Langston would be Cy Young. It’s not just the Mets but nearly every PD person and in other sports too. In the NFL they treat the pre-season games that way. That’s a JOKE ! Winning needs to be more of a focus during development. I don’t mean have a single A guy throw 160 pitches in one game just to win it but there needs to be a focus put on winning. You can’t just flip a switch.

By: raysadecki

raysadecki — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 18:50:20 +0000

the thing about locking up your young talent is it leaves a lot less talent out there in the FA pool. there is virtually nothing out there in the pitching dept. this year making it imperitive to develop and keep your young pitchers now more than ever.

By: raysadecki

raysadecki — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 18:47:24 +0000

Its good to see you here Fonzie, I used to see you on metswiki or whatever ed calls it now. I remember you were a young kid but always had good posts there.

By: doekie

doekie — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 18:37:57 +0000

What the Rays did with Longoria and Moore was also a sign of confidence to them.

If possible I would give Harvey the same deal Moore got.

By: jessep

jessep — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 18:20:24 +0000

Right but I think what people like me are trying to explain is that signing Harvey today to a long term deal is NOT anything like signing Reyes & Wright and what Omar did.

It IS like Tampa signing Moore or signing Longoria.

Longoria signed a deal in April, 2008 worth $17.5 mil with 3 club options at the end. This gave Longoria guaranteed money before he even took a big league at bat.

Moore was signed after 5 big league appearances.

Reyes was in his 4th year when he signed and Wright in his 3rd.

It’s different. The Rays took a calculated risk but with a young player you never know what the future holds so a player looks for guarantees early. That would be the same if they signed Harvey today.

Extending a player like Ike Davis would be more comparable to the Wright/Reyes contract

By: Nathan

Nathan — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 18:14:27 +0000

I don’t think many will give Warthen any credit on R.A. Warthen may have a good re pore with his pitchers but his value has not been accepted by too many people that I know. He may be a freaking pitching genius but such is the life of a coach. Niese has developed, Gee looks as good as he could hope but it’s just so unclear. The bullpen has been a complete disaster and I think Warthen is the target for most of the fans dissatisfaction.

By: Sylow59

Sylow59 — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 18:01:41 +0000

I moved here in 2007. I rarely hear anything positive about either, but there’s more venom against TLR.

Regarding the reclamation projects: is anyone wanting to give Warthen credit for RA? More than likely Duncan was in the right place at the tight time on some if them.

By: Nathan

Nathan — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 17:40:32 +0000

When I was there, most people seemed relatively agreeable with TLR. Duncan was not talked about much until the reclamation projects started to come along. I left in 2004 so I missed most of that. I know guys who hated TLR’s handling of the pen and constant over-thinking but the results were often acceptable. I didn’t know about the different strategies from Duncan, that is interesting.

By: Sylow59

Sylow59 — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 17:30:59 +0000

Fwiw they never allowed Duncan to coach anyone except at the ML level. Their minors had a pitching philosophy that was different from Duncan’s. Kind of blows the whole Duncan is God’s gift to pitching arguement. They kept Duncan because TLR wanted him, and they kept TLR to keep Pujols happy. Nobody here liked TLR or Duncan

By: Nathan

Nathan — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 17:25:27 +0000

I lived in the Lou for about 7 years. I loved it. I agree the Cards do a good job of producing winning talent. However, I am haunted by images of the Cubs producing power arm after power arm who can’t stay healthy. A winning mentality is a huge thing but it seems like these guys come to the ML’s with a certain skill set that allows them to succeed and management capitalizes on this set. The cards do it the, Rays and others do it. What worries me as a Mets fan is why do our guys tend to lose themselves when they get to the show? It seemed like there was little to no consistency from low-a to the ML’s for years. I really do not like the direction our team has taken in the past few years but I will say that some semblance of consistency may be eking through.

By: Fonzie13

Fonzie13 — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 17:25:15 +0000

Yup. John Hart pretty much locked up all their young stars. He developed so many star players he had no room for a few of them. Baerga, Belle, Manny, Thome. Traded off guys like Brian Giles, Sean Casey, Richie Sexson and I’m sure i’m missing a few but that’s a lot of talent from one minor league system.

By: Fonzie13

Fonzie13 — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 17:18:25 +0000

Hart was the first GM I can remember that bought out arbitration years of most of his top young talent in their 1st and 2nd years in the bigs. Belle, Lofton, Baerga, Manny, Thome. That’s how he kept that team of stars together with a low payroll. He probably could’ve kept it together longer had he bought out some free agent years but who knows if the players and or ownership would’ve agreed to it. Hart’s minor league systems have produced more star quality players than any other GM that I could think of.

By: Bayonne Mets Fan

Bayonne Mets Fan — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 17:11:19 +0000

“They stress winning at all levels through their system. The goal is to get the players used to winning and to learn how to win rather than accumulate stats”

Now THAT sounds like an excellent philosophy to me – teaching the importance of WINNING throughout the entire farm system. I like that. And you’re right, the Cards are always good and they never draft high because they’re always at the very worst pretty good.

By: Sylow59

Sylow59 — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 17:07:57 +0000

I live in St Louis, hence follow the Cards to a certain degree. They do a few things:

They love power arms. Granted this is nothing new, but they’re loaded with them at huge moment.

They try to keep players on the same team through their development. The goal is to emphasize teamwork. It also tends to show who is team vs me oriented.

They stress winning at all levels through their system. The goal is to get the players used to winning and to learn how to win rather than accumulate stats. It also makes them learn losing at the team level stinks.

They never get a great draft position. But they have a great farm and they are always in the thick of it with a mid-level payroll.

I must say whatever they do seems to work. And the fans here seem to enjoy it.

By: Nathan

Nathan — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 16:32:45 +0000

The Rays must be uber-confident in their minor league development to have not been bitten by this. I know they traded Kazmir just as the wheels were coming off but I am more interested in how they seem to know who is going to be effective. I truly think that the “system” itself has to be given credit for producing talent such as they have. I always marveled at how some teams always turned out effective ML and yet the Mets turned out flop after flop for so long. I wonder sometimes if the MiL coaching and player development strategies of teams like the Rays aren’t the real source of success. Do you think it is a coincidence that so many Mil’rs fail to make an impact but certain teams seem to be able to get the best out of their system? I know high drafts help a teams chances but that really can’t be all of it, can it?

By: this is stupid

this is stupid — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 16:24:25 +0000

XtreemIcon beat me to it.

By: this is stupid

this is stupid — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 16:23:52 +0000

The rays are the only ones that sign people like this so cheaply, and so quickly ( it was done after moore’s first start).

By: XtreemIcon

XtreemIcon — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 16:13:49 +0000

No one did this like the Rays do. Not Omar, not the Indians, no one. Moore was signed after one major league start. Longo was called up on April 14 and signed longterm on April 18. That is much different than signing a guy after one season, or before he bits arbitration. Omar or the Indians or anyone else has no claim to this strategy at all.

By: Joe D

Joe D — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 16:02:35 +0000

I’m not saying Minaya was the first, guys. I’m saying rather than looking at other teams and using their players as an example of this. We are Mets fans. We’ve done this too. Minaya did it. Let’s compliment our own team rather than looking at the Rays and at Longoria or Moore as some sort of precedent. It’s happened before. Right here in Flushing.