On Monday, Brodie Van Wagenen will have his first draft as the General Manager of the New York Mets. Even though he has lieutenants in Omar Minaya and Allard Baird, you really don’t know which way the Mets are going to go in this draft. Really, you can never be quite sure when there is a regime change.
Seeing the young players who have been the core of this current Mets team, the new regime has big shoes to fill. In fact, they have bigger shoes to fill when you consider just how good Sandy Alderson’s first draft was as the Mets General Manager.
Alderson’s first ever draft pick as the Mets General Manger was outfielder Brandon Nimmo. Nimmo has shown himself to be a good leadoff hitter with a career .383 OBP. Last year, he had a big season with his 149 wRC+ being the second best in the National League.
Overall, Nimmo has been a productive player and a fan favorite. If he was all which was reaped from this draft, you could say job pretty well done. Looking deeper into this draft, the Mets produced much more than Nimmo.
With the Yankees having signed Pedro Feliciano (a pitcher who never pitched for the Yankees), the Mets received a supplemental round pick. With that pick, the Mets drafted Michael Fulmer. With respect to Fulmer, he has shown real promise as a starter already winning a Rookie of the Year and being named an All-Star. However, for Mets fans, Fulmer is known as the guy who brought them Yoenis Cespedes, a player many fans credit for winning the pennant.
Fulmer was not the only 2011 draft pick moved to help win that pennant. The Mets 21st round draft pick, John Gant, was traded along with Rob Whalen (Mets 2012 12th round pick) to obtain Kelly Johnson and Juan Uribe. In addition to being an important trade chip, Gant has pitched well as a reliever with a 1.7 WAR.
Another contributor to the Mets 2015 pennant was Logan Verrett, a pitcher the Mets drafted in the third round. With the starters needing days off heading into the postseason, namely Matt Harvey, Verrett would step up huge as a fill-in starter. His big game was a win in Colorado against the Rockies where he allowed one earned over eight innings.
In addition to Verrett, we would see Robert Gsellman and Seth Lugo step up the next year and pitch the Mets into the 2016 postseason. In 2016, Gsellman was 4-2 with a 2.42 ERA, and Lugo was 5-2 with a 2.67 ERA in his time split between the rotation and bullpen. Since that time, both pitchers have moved to the bullpen with Lugo emerging as one of the best relievers in all of baseball.
Seeing how much Gsellman and Lugo helped the Mets in 2016 and have pitched well out of the bullpen for the Mets, it needs to be noted they respectively were a 13th and 34th round draft picks.
That’s just those draft picks who have had a big impact on the Mets. Of the players signed over the 50 rounds, the Mets produced 13 Major League players. That list includes Cory Mazzoni (second), Tyler Pill (fourth), Jack Leathersich (fifth), Daniel Muno (eighth), Phillip Evans (15th), Travis Taijeron (18th), and Chasen Bradford (35th).
The Mets also drafted and were not able to sign AJ Reed and Jharel Cotton. Three years later, Reed was drafted in the second round by the Astros and has played in parts of three MLB seasons. Cotton was drafted the following year by the Dodgers, and he would make his Major League debut in 2016 pitching to a 2.15 ERA for the Athletics.
Overall, the Mets front office did an excellent job identifying talent in the 2011 draft. It has resulted with the team having an everyday player and two key relievers on the 2019 team. It also led to the team acquiring three key pieces for the 2015 pennant. All told, this is as good as it can get for a single draft.
The 2011 draft was important in winning a pennant, and it may prove important in the Mets winning another one. It has also left Van Wagenen and this current regime with very big shoes to fill. We will see if they are up to the task.
