Paul DePodesta: Fired up to select Dominic Smith! Chance to hit for average and power while playing great defense. Special human being, too! Keith Law: Smith is one of the best pure hitters in the high school class, showing a smooth left-handed swing with power and a plus glove at first base. When he keeps his weight back, his swing is outstanding, with great balance through contact and good hip rotation to generate power from [...]

With the 48th pick in the 2013 MLB Draft, the Mets selected RHP Andrew Church, who has committed to the University of San Diego. The talented young man is a right-hander out of Palo Verde High School in Nevada. Listed at 6’3” / 199 LBs, Church still has some growing to do. His secondaries are below average right now, but his body projects out to add a little more bulk. His fastball should pick up [...]

The New York Mets today announced the selection of first baseman Dominic Smith from Serra High School (CA) with the 11th pick of the 2013 First-Year Player Draft. Smith, 17, who bats and throws lefthanded, hit .493 (33-67) with seven home runs and 38 RBI in 27 games to help Serra to the CIF D3 title this season. The 6-1, 200-pound native of Los Angeles, CA also appeared in six games on the mound for [...]

Back in November, the Mets announced they had signed a right-handed relief pitcher named Greg Burke to a minor league deal with an invitation to spring training. When I heard of the signing, it reminded me of the scene at the beginning of the movie Major League where the Cleveland fans are all giving their take on roster moves the team made, and the guy in the diner asks “Mitchell Freidman?” In similar fashion, after the signing [...]

Somewhere along the line baseball became more than just a game. Once upon a time, baseball was a simple game. The goal is to score more runs than your opponent. Each team is given 27 outs to score as many runs as they can. In order to score runs, a team’s players have to get on base. Once a player gets on base it was the other players’ jobs to drive them home to score runs. [...]

As our Mets Minor League expert Petey Pete unveils Brandon Nimmo at No. 5 in our 2012 MMO Top 20 Prospects, here’s an interview Joe Spector did with Nimmo in October. Enjoy the read, Mets fans! – Joe D. In his first year as General Manager of the New York Mets Sandy Alderson and his team of baseball executives led by Paul DePodesta, the Mets vice-president of player development and scouting entered the 2011 Draft [...]

This contribution was borne out of several discussion this offseason in our MMO chat room in which many have heaped praise on Paul DePodesta and J.P. Ricciardi for their player evaluation skills and success in the draft, while knocking the Mets farm system and the player evaluation skills of Omar Minaya. I wanted to compare the three as fairly as I possibly could, and I thought the best way to do that would be to [...]

I am one of the regulars on a weekly Kult of Mets Personalities podcast, and if you listened to it, you would know that I am the resident Mike “Big Pelf” Pelfrey homer. I root for him probably harder than any other Met. I don’t know why either, but I feel a personal connection to Big Pelf. It’s mostly because I saw him pitch in his major league debut in 2006. I always felt he [...]

So now that the Mets have parted ways with both Luis Castillo and Oliver Perez, there are a variety of opinions on how this soap opera has panned out.  Should they have stayed on because they were owed a king’s ransom, the Mets would essentially be paying them either way, right?  Or does this truly show that the new world order on the Mets front office team has an agenda, one that says, if you [...]