The always enjoyable to read Ted Berg, now with USA Today, sets us straight on how fans view their top prospects and writes:
Great players in the minors almost always graduate to the next level, but great players in the Majors have no place else to go. On the rare occasion a minor leaguer is in fact good enough to dominate in the bigs, he doesn’t hang around on the farm for long. Class AA hitters never face guys like Clayton Kershaw more than a couple times a season, and Class AAA pitchers might only be asked to retire Mike Trout once.
Drafting, signing and developing good young players is the surest route to Major League success, and no one in his right mind would argue against a team fostering organizational depth. It is quite simply the way to win, and more reliable than spending big money in free agency.
But attaching all of your hopes to any single young player is a fool’s errand, as there’s a very good chance that prospect will never pan out to be as good as the big-league journeyman your team is thought to be pursuing to help secure a playoff berth. The vast majority of baseball fans wildly overrate their team’s best prospects, when many of their team’s best prospects will amount to next to nothing in the show.
Except my team’s best prospects, of course. My team’s best prospects can’t miss.
I think Ted might be onto something…
Things looked so hopeful in 2007 when Baseball America printed this…
On Wednesday, MMO will start unveiling our Mets First Half Report Cards and Best & Worst Moments Of 2013 So Far. As a teaser, here’s our winner for Best Mets Broadcast Commercial:
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