Note: Mets Need a Big-Market Farm System
In a chat yesterday for Baseball America, site-editor Jim Callis wrote that the Devil Rays, Red Sox, Reds, Rangers and Yankees have the best group of minor-league prospects in MLB.
The Red Sox were ranked eighth by Baseball America last off-season, up 13 from 2005, while the Yankees were ranked 24, the same as in 2005.
…so, basically, it’s possible to spin a system around in just a few years…begging the question: where are the Mets…
According to Baseball America, the Mets had the 10th Best Farm System in MLB after the 2004 season - after having traded Scott Kazmir and Matt Peterson a few months earlier.
Omar Minaya joined the Mets in the Fall of 2004, and further traded Mike Jacobs, Yusmeiro Petit, Grant Psomas and Gaby Hernandez, among others, during his first 12 months in an effort to quickly acquire proven, major-league talent.
…as he has said in the past, minaya’s argument is that in order to make a quick 180–degree transition, from a 71–91 team in 2004 to getting one game away from the World Series in 2006, he had no choice but to a) sign major free agents, like Carlos Beltran, Billy Wagner and Pedro Martinez, which also cost him top draft picks, while b) also trading his best young talent for proven veterans like Carlos Delgado and Paul Lo Duca…in other words, he had to cripple his farm system to quickly improve the major-league team…fact is, he did both…yes, the team won quickly, but he did in fact weaken their minor league talent pool…
…and so, here we are again…the Mets are good - far, far better than 2004’s team - with a pretty good crop of young talent in Fernando Martinez, Kevin Mulvey and others, and three top picks in the coming draft…yet, minaya is being tempted to decimate his farm system, again, to acquire one pitcher: Johan Santana…
…as i have said, at this point, given the pressure to win and the desire to field a popular team for the debut of Citi Field, i would give up this club’s best young pitchers to get santana, who will almost certainly always be better than Mike Pelfrey, Philip Humber and Kevin Mulvey…
…to do this, though, if he’s going to trade several prospects for one pitcher, minaya has got to abandon his team’s painful loyalty to MLB’s slotting system…
For more on the ‘slotting system,’ check out Ken Davidoff’s recent column for Newsday, during which Minaya insinuates a need to sway from his previous draft style.
