In an organizational roster analysis by August Fagerstrom on FanGraphs, he discovers plenty of unique outliers.
For one, the Oakland Athletics have only four homegrown players on their 40-man roster – that is, of the 40 players who comprise the current A’s roster, only four were actually drafted by the organization at some point. The MLB average is 17 and only one other team has less than 10.
On the flip side, the New York Mets have 27 homegrown players on their 40-man roster, the highest percentage in the majors. The differences in organizational philosophies, he says, are very stark between the A’s and the Mets.
“The organizational ladder for the Mets dates all the way back to 2001 when franchise-favorite David Wright was drafted in the first round. Jon Niese and Bobby Parnell were both drafted in 2005, Juan Lagares, Daniel Murphy and Ruben Tejada followed in 2006, and a whole host of current 40-manners came in 2007, including starters Jenrry Mejia, Lucas Duda, Dillon Gee, Jeurys Familia and Wilmer Flores.
“It’s interesting because the Mets have been undergoing something of a rebuilding process over the last several years, which could help explain their stockpiling of homegrown players. They trust their draft selections, and so they want to see them pan out.”
Of course there are other factors that feed into this which are borne out of necessity. Most of the homegrown players go back to Omar Minaya, and Sandy Alderson has yet to trade for an active MLB player that sticks, only minor leaguers thus far. But mostly, the financial distress the team has been under for the last six years also explains why the Mets have the third fewest free agents on their roster – just six out of their 40 roster allocations. And the Mets were again an outlier of sorts where those free agents are concerned.
“I added up the 2015 salary commitments for the free agent acquisitions of each team, and I added up their projected WAR for 2015, taken from our in-house depth charts, which are based on Steamer projections. Using these totals, I was also able to calculate $/WAR — how much each team is paying for their wins.”
The Mets are paying $11.9 million dollars per 1.0 WAR which is the second worst $/WAR in the majors behind the Philadelphia Phillies.
It points out that the few free agents the Mets have signed are not really giving the team any value, which has the Mets vastly overpaying for their projected production in 2015.
