Read: Phillies & Mets, the Draft and Over-Slot
In a report for Newsday, David Lennon talks with Phillies GM Ruben Amaro Jr. about the Mets and Omar Minaya, and building a potential back-to-back World Champion.
In the mid–to-late 90s, the Phillies lost 90 games in back-to-back seasons, after which Ed Wade took over as GM, hired Dallas Green as a top adviser, among others, and drafted Chase Utley in 2000, Ryan Howard in 2001, Cole Hamels in 2002, and acquired Shane Victorino as a Rule 5 selection in 2004.
“I don’t know how many people he fired and hired, but he really revamped the entire system,” Amaro told Lennon. “The fact of the matter is, without bringing that type of talent into our system, we wouldn’t be here. That was Ed’s goal. The goal was to get here and stay here and we had to do it from kind of the ground up.”
Additionally, as Lennon points out, “The Phillies deep farm system allowed them to make the key midseason trade for Cliff Lee.”
…i have talked to a few player agents over the last week, and to a man they all say it is a given that the Mets are notorious for not spending heavily on the draft… and, since this is understood going in, top players do not slip to them…
…for instance, if a future player believes the Mets will pay ‘over slot,’ his agent will begin telling the market that his client will demand a lucrative ‘signing package,’ and, as such, low-spending teams will avoid drafting him because they know he will not sign for what they’re only willing or able to pay, and so the player slips in the draft, on purpose, where the 
big-spending team will scoop him up and meet his demands… this is what the Red Sox have been doing for years… it’s not a fair system… but, it is the system… and, since it can be manipulated, the Red Sox, Phillies, and others, manipulate it, helping to stock their farm system… for instance, by doing this, and doing it well, the Red Sox essentially end up drafting three or four ‘first-round quality prospects,’ every year they draft…
…from what i understand, this is not exclusive to big-market teams any more… for instance, the last two seasons, smaller-market teams have started forgoing less-impactful, major-league free agents, say, a bench player or two for $5 million, a journeyman relief pitcher for $5 million, and, instead, are re-allocating that $10 million to the draft, where they believe they can get a better return on investment…
To read more, including quotes from Amaro about his close friend, Minaya, read Lennon’s report, here.
