Quoting Anonymous Scouts
by JayWise on Nov 12, 2009 1:32 PM EST
73 comments
I'm not particularly good at these short blurbs, so here we go. I was reading Metsblog when I stumbled across a reference to a Joel Sherman article in which an anonymous scout was quoted as saying "The Mets minor league talent is way under the talent base of the Phillies, Braves and Marlins."
I also recall Adam Rubin, as part of his duties with baseball america, discussing Famiglia and using the quote of one anonymous scout in order to discount Famiglia's development.
Here are my questions:
1) Do you think that the Mets minor league talent is "way under the talent base of the Phillies, Braves, and Marlins?"
2) Do you have any thoughts on quoting of anonymous scouts for articles to prove or disprove your point?
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I would agree with it
The Braves are top-heavy but don’t have great depth. The Phillies have Brown, Taylor, and Drabek up top but then a lot of their other top guys are at the lower levels. The Marlins have a decent system throughout, and the Mets don’t have anyone like Mike Stanton.
Vroom vroom party starter
www.raysprospects.com
anonymous scout
It was actually 4-5 anonymous non-NL east front office types, not an anonymous scout.
Heyward, Stanton and Brown are higher ranked prospects than any one Met. Although some may prefer Mejia.
I like the depth of the Mets talent these days but i am more familiar with it. Martinez, Mejia, Davis, Flores, Niese, Thole, Holt, Havens, Tejada, Nieuwenhuis, Allen, Familia is a pretty nice group of guys who haven’t lost their rookie eligibility yet.
lol
I was gonna post a correction and say I meant some (not many) may prefer mejia to Brown. Definitely not the other 2, and brown mostly no as well. I have seen some criticism of brown coming out of AFL. Not much, but a tad. vaswt majoirty of cases, yes, you are right.
who's been criticizing him?
John’s report on him is pretty glowing. I haven’t seen any bad reports, so just curious who it was
Project Prospect
And it isn’t heaping criticism, just some chinks in the armor. And John, if you read his post today about AFL, mentions Brown and I think alludes to what others have been mentioning: his swing is off a bit-which John says may just be fatigue. This was in the overall context of john saying he was really impressive.
Yes, John and most are glowing.
I can no longer find the project prospect mention, other than in a secrch of the site i found how the story began, but the rest seems to have been purged. It is here:
Third story down in the search.
It started like this: “We’ve gotten to see Domonic Brown play multiple times already during our AFL trip and he has not impressed us. His load is really awkward and he isn’t …”
It went on to say that he isn’t really coordinated. That criticism is repeated when they ranked the top 15 corner outfielders (he came in 5th). They said he is an impressive fast-twitch athlete but not as coordinated as you’d think, and they worry about his swing.
Then Adam Foster said this in the Top 15 Corner OF discussion:
“Dom Brown has two ugly errors in the outfield already tonight — dropped a can of corn and ran in only to have a ball sail over his head. Scouts around me are buzzing about how awkward he has looked in the outfield this fall. He is not a good defender. While his arm and speed are good, his instincts are not. He has looked a little lost in the outfield every time I’ve seen him. Thomas Neal may be a better defender than him.”
So it isn’t just Adam, but some dreaded anonymous scouts sitting around him. :)
second story down
in the link, is where they ragged on his swing and coordination. Third story down is the top 15, and the discussion linked to that top 15 is where they said the buzz has been how poorly he is fielding in the AFL.
ok thanks
i take proj pros with a grain of sea salt… but he does mention other people as well.
grrr, anonymous scouts.
PP
It does have some different takes but always interesting.
Not only does he mention other scouts, but even John said there were folks in attendance at AFL who found his swing loopy, if i recall the word right. So i don’t think PP is being singular. But certainly less glowing than the major sources.
At least PP is citing 1st hand looks
You can still discount these, but I’d much rather hear what Adam Foster has seen 1st hand than Joel Sherman or even a lot of the BA guys who don’t see as many of these guys play “live” as one would think.
Also, reading between the lines a bit. Brown is a very big athlete (6’5"?) who probably “looks great in shorts” (to use a football scouting analogy). However, comments like an “awkard load” and wrong routes in the OF both translate to me as a player who is perhaps an “all world” athlete but not an organic baseball player. Much can go wrong in the swing mechanics of big tall players.
Fat man is no more,
Bursting on through Heaven's Door
Come on in, says Bill
by Wilbur Wood on Nov 14, 2009 12:31 PM EST up reply actions
That jives with what Law and others have said, i.e. the knock on Brown is that he’s actually still fairly raw, all things considered.
by PhillyFriar on Nov 13, 2009 12:21 AM EST up reply actions
I don't care about 1).
But we’re going to have to live with 2). “Deep Throat” scouts are as American as Apple Pie.
Fans are typically idiots.
by The Typical Idiot Fan on Nov 12, 2009 2:41 PM EST reply actions
The problem is
Every met prospect has red flags. Mejia has command issues at higher levels and the AFl, Martinez has never put up numbers warranting his ranking unless we adjust for age, Flores is is still raw. Holt doesn’t really have a 2nd pitch. Davis is good, just not as good as guys like Stanton/Morrison/Brown/Taylor. Thole, Tejada, Havens either. Niese is just a decent #5 option at this point, behind someone like Drabek.
I’m not saying that these players aren’t good, but opposed to other prospects in the division, you can’t really bring up their skills or performance without qualification.
You can say that about literally every prospect, though.
No prospect is perfect.
"I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf"
-Tug McGraw
Is he going to hit 1.000?
Just being facetious, but outside of like 2 or 3 guys, there are legitimate criticisms to make.
"I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf"
-Tug McGraw
The problem is
Every met prospect has red flags. Mejia has command issues at higher levels and the AFl, Martinez has never put up numbers warranting his ranking unless we adjust for age, Flores is is still raw. Holt doesn’t really have a 2nd pitch. Davis is good, just not as good as guys like Stanton/Morrison/Brown/Taylor. Thole, Tejada, Havens either. Niese is just a decent #5 option at this point, behind someone like Drabek.
I’m not saying that these players aren’t good, but opposed to other prospects in the division, you can’t really bring up their skills or performance without qualification.
Mets....
have always been vastly overrated and over-hyped on these types of websites and have produced nothing in the last 5-6 years. But every year we have to hear about how great so and so is….Milledge, Gomez, Guerra, FMart and now Meijia.
Its time for Mets fans to face reality. Their team sucks and their system sucks!
Mets production in last 5-6 years
2003 – Jose Reyes
2004 – David Wright
2004 – Heath Bell
2006 – Mike Pelfrey
2007 – Matt Lindstrom (he came up with the Marlins, but did he spend any time in their minor league system?)
This is just off of the top of my head.
Oh, I meant that I don't think that he was in the Marlins minor league system for even a year
So, he did all of his development in the Mets system.
Also,
2009 – Bobby Parnell (3.46 ERA out of the bullpen)
This is 2009
2003? 2004? That was 6-7 seasons ago. My original statement still stands. The Mets haven’t produced anything since David Wright in 2004.
And come on, Heath Bell? Mike Pelfrey?
2003 = 2009 - 6seasons
and as for Heath Bell…. 2.72 ERA in 241.1 IP, 44 saves, in the past 3 complete seasons
Even assuming I accept your premise that 2003 wasn't 6 seasons ago...
that only eliminates Jose Reyes. You still have an elite 3b, a good closer, a solid setup man, a decent closer…that’s not nothing. And that was off the top of my head
and
thats why i said 5-6 years, to exclude David Wright.
Throw out Wright and then what do you got? Basically a big nil.
So, you want to exclude the two most productive players the mets have brought up
when discussing their minor league system? I’d like to define the Mets minor league system by 1980-1986, 2003, 2004, and the years that Nolan Ryan and Tom Seaver came up, but that would just be silly.
I used 2004 as a cutoff because
Minaya came in 2004 and nothing has been produced since then.
I fail to see the logic in your arguement. Using the 1980-1986 Mets system is completely irrelevant. Using 2005-2009 is the past five years.That is what affects the team today and the shape their organization is in, not what they produced 1980-1986
As far as Minaya, he has had mixed results
His signings of Beltran, Wagner, etc. gave him only 1 year with a first round pick.
One of those years (i want to say 2007), he wasted all of his early picks on relievers.
His international signings seem to be successful at first glance, but there haven’t been any on-field results yet.
His 2008 draft class seemed to be pretty damn good, with Holt, Havens, and Davis all maintaining prospect status (and all likely starting AA or higher next season).
He foolishly traded away certain assets with no returns (Lindstrom, Bell).
Minaya's first year was really 2005
And they actually have been pretty productive since then. It’s just that it normally takes 5-6 years for talent to reach the majors. In 2005 alone, Omar signed Mike Pelfrey, Fernando Martinez, Jon Niese, Bobby Parnell, and Josh Thole.
I happen to think 2006 was Omar’s worst year yet for adding talent (partly from no draft picks in the top 60), but even then Mulvey, Smith, Murphy, and Stoner have all made the majors, and Ruben Tejada likely will. That group is notably lacking in ceiling though.
But in 2007-2008 the Mets added a lot of talent, and 8 guys from those years either made year end league top 20 lists or were mentioned as having just missed. That’s a pretty solid group of guys on the way.
So really under Minaya they are on a pace to produce 3-4 solid big leaguers a year. That’s not really much better than average, but it’s a definite improvement. If you compare to who other teams actually signed since 2005, you’ll see that’s not bad. Phillies rookie J.A. Happ for example was signed in 2004. From 2005, they only produced Josh Outman, Mike Zagurski, and Matt Maloney so far. The Phillies also had a very good draft in 2006, including Kyle Drabek, Adrian Cardenas, Domonic Brown, and Jason Donald. But only Andrew Carpenter and Antonio Bastardo from that year have yet appeared in the majors, and only for brief cups of coffee. You shouldn’t really expect much impact from Omar’’s guys for another year or two, either.
I agree that some guys have been over hyped in the past, and the Mets don’t have any really elite talents right now (and I’m seeing some guys get over rated and put in the top 30 on some of these lists). But the Mets depth is getting under rated now as well. Minaya has made a mess of the big league team, but he’s actually done a pretty good job of building up the farm and improving the player development.
I'd also like to point out that I don't really get what your argument has to do with this thread
Do you want attention? or is this just something that you needed to get off of your chest?
sick of
ridiculous posts by Mets fans.
Just in the past few days we’ve been treated to Pelfrey and Castillo for Mauer, Castillo and Maine for Zambrano, etc. No one on here over hypes their prospects more
It gets annoying
This has nothing to do with that
I’ve been posting here for a while and I’m certainly not afraid to rip on the Mets. I’ve never made one of those trade proposals, so if you have a problem, why don’t you go over to those threads and sound off. This thread is on the validity of citing anonymous scouts in articles by journalists, and whether people think that the Phillies, Marlins, and Braves have much better farm systems.
Pelfrey is an average MLB pitcher.
That doesn’t just fall out of the sky.
"I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf"
-Tug McGraw
so....
in six years the Mets have produced 1 “average” MLB pitcher (although his 1.51 whip and +5 ERA says below ave) and 2 relievers over the past 6 years. That has got to be one of the worst in the majors
Where are you getting 2 relievers from?
I’ve already named at least 4:
1) Heath Bell
2) Matt Lindstrom
3) Joe Smith
4) Bobby Parnell
also, Brian Bannister and Jesus Flores
But I’m not arguing the Mets were a good system. I actually think they were still doing a pretty poor job in 2002-2004 before Minaya, and only really began to turn things around in 2005 when Minaya took over.
Which means the talent mostly hasn’t reached MLB yet and the system is really only starting to show some depth right now.
in 6 years would also include one of the best players in baseball, David Wright.
You could also say Carlos Gomez, one of the best defensive centerfielders in baseball who still has plenty of upside offensively.
"I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf"
-Tug McGraw
What about Daniel Murphy?
He hasn’t found his spot yet, but all things considered, he isn’t that bad.
I was just talking about former mets prospects playing on a major league level
And whether or not murphy is over-valued, we have no idea where he’ll end up. The point is that major league level talent, whether bench material or not, is still production by a farm system.
Sure
You’re right. He’s a major league player. In fact, he’s a pretty good hitter. I just think he’s a 1B only and don’t like his bat there… but the kid can hit better than a good percentage of major league players and he’s a pretty slick defender. So, while in context Im not a fan of what he brings to an MLB team and I believe there are lots of guys with similar skill sets around, Murphy is actually pretty good at the game of baseball.
To be fair...
Fernando Martinez looked like a legitimately fantastic prospect in 2006. A 17 y/o slugging .500 in the Midwest League will open anyone’s eyes whether he’s a Met prospect or not.
Guerra was just a result of a flawed thinking process where people here and elsewhere vastly overrated pitcher age-relative-to-league. Not sure that was a product of him being in the Mets system.
In fairness: yes, Mets prospects tend to get overhyped. But the same is true of Yankees and Red Sox prospects as well. Maybe it’s a media thing, but it’s not specific to the Mets, and when you think about it, it’s probably helped them recently: an overhyped Gomez was deemed good enough to be the centerpiece of the Santana deal.
by PhillyFriar on Nov 13, 2009 12:26 AM EST up reply actions
I actually agree with this.
But what DOESN’T happen with the Red Sox or the Yankees or any of the other big market teams like the Cubs or Dodgers, and why I believe that some Met fans overcompensate when it comes to their prospects, is that the Mets’ farm is consistently undersold by the media storm in NY. Constantly, there’s speculation about trades and such, and one thing that is consistently brought up by beat reporters is that the Mets “have no farm”. This is entirely inaccurate, and it bothers hardcore Met fans (such as myself) when beat reporters are too lazy to look at anything more in-depth or recent than a 2008 BP report. This is why I appreciate the topic of anonymous scouts in this post, because, at least in large media markets, they’re used to prove an already reached point, rather than for information that would help shape that point. So, what do they do? They quote scouts who may or may not be credible, and may or may not even exist.
"I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf"
-Tug McGraw
+1
I agree with this completely. Anonymous scouts are often used for conclusory statements, and backed by shaky logic and inaccurate facts. The article goes something like this:
1) The TEAM sucks at player development.
2) They have no farm
3) Anonymous scout said so
4) Specific quote/opinion that Prospect A is overhyped
5) Inaccurate information about Prospect A, which is often either difficult to refute (because it would require massive amounts of research) or opinion in itself (and doesn’t need to be accurate, because how can we argue against something that is opinion, even if only 2% of scouts believe it).
6) Therefore, TEAM sucks at player development.
There’s absolutely no accountability, and then I have to apologize to my friend’s cousin because I called him an idiot when he restated this argument like it was gospel. THE END
Exactly.
Adam Rubin quoted an anonymous scout that said that he really disliked Familia because of one game in which he went to where Familia walked 6 guys. Even disregarding the idiocy of judging a prospect by one game (and the fact that Familia has a BB/9 under 3), some research would reveal that Familia has never walked 6 players in a game. So did this scout forget (which makes his analysis of said game more than questionable), did he make something up (in which case he shouldn’t be trusted at his word ever again), or did Rubin come up with this quote by himself and put “anonymous scout” in to make it sound official?
So, again, where’s the accountability for this misinformation? For all we know, the same guy could give potentially useful information about another prospect, and we’d take him at his word
"I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf"
-Tug McGraw
would naming a scout - particularly in a new york post article - make any difference to you or another reader?
i realize people like to be able to measure accountability. but how many scouts can you name? the average reader of the NY post? everyone uses scouts for their prospect analysis – the guy who runs this site included. and i don’t think he names them, either. it’s easier to judge the credibility of a guy like sickels or goldstein or whoever is the one “filtering” than an individual scout. they know these guys and presumably quote/rely on guys who they think are good and ignore the ones they think aren’t.
Not that I'd recognize the name
But there’s no accountability, both for assessment by scouts and writing by journalists, without attaching a name.
Scouts...
don’t want their names thrown around. Their professional opinions are officially the property of the clubs that hire them. If you want any scouting information at all, you have to accept that journalists in this field will keep the names to themselves.
Doesn't that create an incentive to develop these anonymous scout strawman arguments?
A reporter could say “I didn’t say that, the anonymous scout did. Therefore, not only am I not wrong if it proves inaccurate, but you’d have a hard time disproving me without contacting professional scouts and creating a contrary consensus.”
It definitely does...
but it just means we need to take it all with a grain of salt.
Thank God there are now sites like this where we can discuss it, get other sources, etc…
it just means i take the guy who is writing it less seriously.
the author is deciding to be a filter. if the author stinks at it, it hurts their credibility.
This is absolutely true.
Every time I meet a new scout, after introducing myself, the first thing out of their mouth when I ask them a baseball question is “Are you gonna blog about it?”
They’re always half-joking, but they make it clear that their name is never to be used.
by Andy Seiler on Nov 12, 2009 4:06 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
Anonymous scouts should stay anonymous...
…so I don’t beat the ever living hell out of them.
"I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf"
-Tug McGraw
It isn't anonymous scouts
Sherman says it is 5 non-NL east execs, and mentions one AL GM. So it is one of 14 guys. I don’t blame Mark Shapiro for not wanting to say “Sheesh, ya shoulda seen the dreck Omar tried to unload on me for Clif Lee and Martinez.”
No problem with anonymous scouts
Information from anonymous scouts is usually accurate, and it appears to be accurate here. The Mets minor league talent right now is below the Braves, Phillies, and Marlins.
That said, some sportswriters with agendas do use anonymous quotes at times to give misleading impressions. For instance, the Marlins last year were ranked the #2 system in baseball, and the Braves #6. The Phillies were ranked #12, not too far ahead of the Mets at #17, but the Phillies have also had a very good year on the farm.
But the Mets talent, even if behind those three at the moment, is deeper than it has been in years. The big weakness for the Mets right now is they have no elite talent. The Mets have no players who should rank top 30, and you can debate whether they have any top 50. I think Mejia, Davis, Martinez, and Niese are all top 100, but probably all in the 40-80 range.
I happen to like Mejia alot, and think he has as high a ceiling as any Mets pitching prospect since Pelfrey or Kazmir, but he’s still not going to be an “elite” guy unless he gets some command of that breaking ball. He was only 19 this year, and the pitch has shown some promise, so he’s worth keeping an eye on, but at the moment he’s best working only FB and CH, which makes him look more like a bullpen arm.
And Davis is solid, but probably something like the 5th best 1B prospect out there right now. No major flaws, but he still strikes out a bit much and needs to continue to improve on hitting breaking pitches. He does have strong hands, and had a solid college track record, and was in his first full season, so some of these things could improve still. But right now he looks like maybe an average future starter.
The other two guys, Martinez and Niese, are guys who really should have graduated this year, but missed BA cutoffs for that only due to injuries. Leave those two out, and the Mets might have a bit below average top 10. Martinez in particular might be a top 30 guy if healthy, but frequent injuries have raised doubts about his durability.
Beyond that, Flores and Holt are guys who aren’t top 100 guys in my view, but who have been oversold by the NY hype machine. Holt has a nice FB, and if all goes right will end up like John Maine, a solid #3-#4 with a good FB and some command of not better than average secondary stuff. Flores has some hitting potential, but is likely athletically limited to 1B or 3B.
On the other hand, I like both Havens and Nieuwenhuis quite a bit, as guys to keep an eye on for next year. And then somewhere around 9 or 10 in this system you have Josh Thole, who doesn’t have a high ceiling, with not much pop, but who can flat out hit. Thole has an average at best arm, is poor at blocking the plate and receiving throws form the outfield, and will allow some passed balls. He’s athletic enough and will get out and field his position OK. But if you are going to be a one tool guy, being able to hit is the one tool you want to have. This is a guy who over the last 2 years, his last 1076 PA, has hit .324 with a .401 OBP. He’s hit over .300 everywhere from A+, to the AFL, to AA, to MLB, to now destroying the Venezuelan Winter League. I still don’t think he’s more than a lefty offensive platoon/bench catcher, but that’s still a pretty useful guy to have at the bottom of your top 10.
On Familia, another candidate around that spot, what was wrong with the quote from that scout is it should have been fact checked a bit. The scout reported he walked 6 guys when he saw him, but he never walked 6 guys in any game this year, and only walked over 3 once. So the guy is reporting on likely his worst outing of the season, and maybe misremembering as well. That said, the doubts about his mechanics are legit. He needs to improve his extension and follow through, and the ugly mechanics will lower his stock, and are a legit reason he might not rank top 10 here, and might be behind Urbina or someone else.
That said, the Mets still have a good bunch of other somewhat interesting candidates at that spot, including also Puello, Allen, Tejada, Matz, Marte, Moviel, Rustich, and Carson. The depth there is better than it’s been for a long time.
The Mets system has been pretty bad for awhile. My main issue is with people blaming Omar, when things have so clearly improved under Omar. From 2002-2004, the three years prior to Omar, the Mets system produced only Kazmir, Lindstrom, Milledge, Bannister, C. Gomez, J. Flores, Muniz, Humber, Evans, and Carp. And The last 4 of those have been pretty fringy. In 2005-2006, in his first two years alone, Omar signed 10 players who have already seen time in MLB: Mike Pelfrey, Jon Niese, Fernando Martinez, Joe Smith, Kevin Mulvey, Bobby Parnell, Daniel Murphy, Josh Thole, Tobi Stoner, and Eddie Kunz. Kunz and Stoner may be fringy, but the other 8 mostly look like useful guys. Please compare that to MLB talent other teams have singed in 2005-2006.
Then in 2007, Ramon Pena’s first year in charge of the international talent, they signed Jenrry Mejia, Jeurys Familia, Wilmer Flores, Jefry Marte, Cesar Puello, Jordanny Valdespin, Eduardo Aldama, Angel Cuan, and Wlifredo Torvar all in the international market. That’s more talent than most teams get out of the draft in one year. And yet one of these sportswriters claims Pena was fired for inability to develop Latin talent. Hello??? Pena now has moved on to become Director of Latin American Operation for the Cleveland Indians, where he will likely make an already strong system even stronger.
A fair assessment of the Mets is that they have gone from being a rather pathetic system several years back, to being a solidly productive, roughly average system. The problem with most of these sportswriters is that the first guys they will run out of town will be the guys who are most clearly responsible for bringing about any improvement.
If you don't like anonymous scouts being quoted...
Then don’t read anyone who covers prospects. None of them can see every guy a huge amount. Scouts can’t be quoted by name. It sucks, but it’s the way things have to be. You just need to decide which writers are bullshit and ignore them.
Maybe I'm not being clear
I don’t mind the use of opinions of anonymous scouts to generate an opinion that a writer will stand behind. I have a problem with quoting an anonymous scout and using him as a strawman to make a shaky argument. E.g.:
“Some scouts I’ve spoken to believe that he’ll end up in the bullpen. At this point, I’m inclined to agree with them.” – good
“PROSPECT has no real value, according to an anonymous scout. ‘I wouldn’t trade him for a bag of balls. His fastball is straight and he doesn’t seem to be developing,’ he told me recently” -bad
Do you see the difference there?
Its the same thing
Your drawing an artificial line. The only actual difference is degree of severity. You cant expect writers to stand behind everything they hear from scouts. If they did, youd just be complaining he hadn’t seen the guy himself anyway. The logical extremity being that no one ever should write about guys they didnt see themselves – and see a significant sample of. That’s impossible. We just have to rely on the writers to be intelligent about it and stick to sources they trust and respect.
I never said that I wasn't drawing an artificial line
So does this mean that from now on I should ignore Adam Rubin because he pulled those shenanigans? That would make it pretty hard to follow the Mets’ prospects.
Bias
There has been a nation-wide media bias vs. the NY Mets farm system since the late 1990s after the famous “Generation K” trio and some other highly touted prospects had collapsed. Ever since then, the Mets´ farm has been ranked in the middle or bottom half of farm systems in Baseball. Both when it was actually warranted (1998 – 2001, 2005-2007) and when it actually wasn´t (2002-2004, 2008-2009).
About 6 years ago, the Mets´ system featured prospects such as David Wright, Jose Reyes, Scott Kazmir, Aaron Heilman, plus lesser touted guys like Brian Bannister, Mike Jacobs, Heath Bell or Ty Wigginton. Yet, even that group never made any “top 10 systems overall” rankings back then even though in retrospect, they were certainly deserving.
Right now, what the Mets´ system clearly lacks is a consensus top 20 overall top prospect that makes people go overboard. That´s why some may rank the generally thinner Braves´and Marlins´ systems ahead of the Mets´s system – because they have Heyward and Stanton who are both projected as future stars whereas the Mets´ don´t have an advanced “future star” prospect at this point. Either raw types like Mejia or Flores or Martinez or projectable types like Davis or Niese who figure to become good complementary players instead of difference makers.
The Phillies have more highly touted frontline talent and more depth, so that´s the only NL East system, I´d really pick over the Mets´ system at this point.
And the media bias will only end when the Mets are able to field a strong major league team that features several home grown prospects.
uh, what?
First you say that there’s been an “unfair” bias over the last few years that suggests the Mets minor league system always sucks . . .and then you say that sometimes the Mets minor league system HAS been poor.
So yes, shockingly, people ARE biased against bad farm systems.
"And the media bias will only end when the Mets are able to field a strong major league team that features several home grown prospects."
Well, I didn’t see that in 2006, when David Wright and Jose Reyes were the best pair of homegrown prospects in baseball.
"I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf"
-Tug McGraw
Yet, even that group never made any "top 10 systems overall" rankings back then even though in retrospect, they were certainly deserving.
I see your point, but assessing a system in retrospect is a dangerous proposition.
And the Mets’ ranking over those years (when they produced Wright, Reyes et al.) was adversely impacted by how quickly those guys were promoted (or, in Kazmir’s case, traded). As a Phillies fan, I equate it to a macro version of why Cole Hamels never got ranked as a Top 50 prospect: by the time he put up a full year’s worth of stats in 2006, he had exhausted his rookie eligibility.
They ranked 10th in 2004
After the 2003 season, Reyes and Heilman had already graduated, but Kazmir, Milledge and Wright were top prospects, and Huber was pretty well regarded at the time as well. I think the truth is these rankings are always too reactive to previous talent. There were people who dissed Reyes in 2002-2003, and called him over rated, and had to begin to admit they were wrong after a strong rookie season. The graduated talent, combined with the pipeline, probably led to a good ranking.
They were also over-rated at 13th heading into 2007, though even then the comments were that the system got thin very quickly, but that they liked the top end talent. But that was probably partly also in response to a strong young MLB team in 2006, and maybe an impression that the organization was turning things around. You will likely see the same with some Phillies prospects right now, based partly on the big league success causing them to get the benefit of the doubt.
But the talent that has come through St. Lucie this season is the best it has been since 2002-2003, when Reyes, Wright, Bay, Kazmir, Jacobs, Pagan, Huber (and Brazell, Peterson, Yates, DiNardo, Keppel, Roberts and Musser) all came through A+. The Mets probably will get under rated based on the disaster that the big league club has become, the unproductivity of the farm in previous years, and the disarray the current front office seems to be in. But the actual depth of talent right now isn’t that bad, and is much better than a few years ago.
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