I can really only think of one response to the previous post….

We are now just 24 hours from what is, in my opinion, the biggest day of Omar Minaya’s four-year tenure as the Mets’ general manager. As I explained in a previous post, the Mets’ two first round selections and sandwich pick, which gives them three picks in the first 33 selections may be the ultimate determining factor in this team’s success over the next five years.

The two main reasons for this are because:

1. “Small-market” teams are locking up their young superstars so they will not only never reach free agency until they are over the age of 30, but more importantly never hit arbitration. This will make free agent classes more diluted in the future.

2. Teams who elect not to sign a star player to a long-term deal are trading them for packages of prospects who come from the draft before they lose this player via free agency. (Ex: Johan) Thus, the importance of having a deep system will be even more critical.

I recently took part in a MLB Blogger Mock Draft, where I selected Stanford C Jason Castro with the 18th pick and Arizona St. 1B/OF Ike Davis with the 22nd pick, two prospects who are both as close to being MLB-ready as any other college prospect, and especially at two positions where the Mets are severely lacking depth in their minor league system, I felt that Castro and Davis were the two best options of available players in the mock draft.

With the 33rd pick, I selected Mississippi RHP Lance Lynn. At 6′5″, 270 lbs., Lynn is a monstrous presence on the mound in the mold of Aaron Harang. In 15 starts this season, Lynn went 7-4 with an unimpressive ERA of 4.50 and a 1:1 H/IP ratio. But, Lynn did strike out 110 in 90 innings in a hitter-friendly SEC Conference with a rising fastball he throws in the 91-93 range and an explosive slider that gets up to 87 on the radar gun.

In the second round of the mock draft, I selected Virginia 2B David Adams with the 68th overall pick. Adams, a 6′2″ 210 lb. second baseman, was a first-team preseason All-American but had a less than stellar senior season, batting .285 with 6 home runs and 51 RBI. He also had a .385 OBP and 16 stolen bases in 19 attempts. This was after a junior season in which Adams batted .372 and made Baseball America’s Top 30 Prospects list. Adams is a sure-handed fielder with excellent footwork who projects to be taken in the top two rounds and ranks second on most 2B prospect lists behind fellow ACC’er Miami 2B Jemile Weeks.

In his final mock draft, Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus, who along with ESPN.com’s Keith Law have the most in-depth scouting reports and inside information, projects the Mets to select high school RHP Tim Melville (Holt, Missouri) with the 18th pick. At 6′5 and armed with a 95-mph fastball, Melville is as highly ranked as they come out of high school and will need to be paid a hefty amount to pass up his commitment to the University of North Carolina. He has drawn comparisons to Yankees RHP Philip Hughes.

Goldstein projects the Mets to take the aforementioned Jemile Weeks with the 22nd pick, who Goldstein says the Mets are very high on. Weeks, the little brother of Milwaukee Brewers 2B Rickie Weeks, is a switch hitter, and at 5′9″ and 155 lbs. is ranked as the best baserunner in the draft. Despite his small frame he is projected to have solid gap power and has already hit 11 homers in the Hurricanes’ first 58 games this season. (The Hurricanes are a ridiculous 50-8 heading into the College World Series). Scouts say he has impeccable footwork around the bag, a quick release on his throws, and is a very intelligent and fundamentally sound player. He is batting .366 to go along with his 11 homers, has 57 RBI and a .447 OBP.

FYI: Goldstein projected Castro, my 18th pick, to go to the Brewers with the 16th pick, and Davis, my 22nd pick, to go 28th overall to the Yankees.

The first round of the First Annual Baseball Blogger Mock Draft has just been completed. Here are the results:

1. Tampa Bay Rays- Buster Posey, C, Florida State (Keith Law)
2. Pittsburgh Pirates- Pedro Alvarez, 3B, Vanderbilt (Bucco Blog)
3. Kansas City Royals- Tim Beckham, SS, Griffin GA HS (Royals Authority)
4. Baltimore Orioles-Brian Matusz, LHP, San Diego
5. San Francisco Giants - Justin Smoak, 1B, South Carolina (El Lefty Malo)
6. Florida Marlins-Kyle Skipworth, C, Patriot HS, Calif. (Future Fish)
7. Cincinnati Reds- Gordon Beckham, SS, Georgia (Reds Minor Leagues)
8. Chicago White Sox- Brett Wallace, 3B/1B, ASU (Zoner Sports)
9. Washington Nationals - Yonder Alonso, 1B, Miami (Nationals Farm Authority)
10. Houston Astros - Aaron Crow, RHP, Missouri (Kiley of Saber-Scouting)
11. Texas Rangers - Eric Hosmer, 1b, American Heritage HS, Fla. (Rangers Farm Authority)
12. Oakland Athletics - Ethan Martin, 3B/RHP, Stephens County HS, Ga. (Taj of Athletics Nation)
13. St. Louis Cardinals - Christian Friedrich, LHP, Eastern Kentucky (Erik of Future Redbirds)
14. Minnesota Twins - Jemile Weeks, 2B, Miami (SethSpeaks)
15. Los Angeles Dodgers - Tim Melville, RHP, Holt HS, Wentzville, MO
16. Milwaukee Brewers - Brett Lawrie, 3B/C, Brookwood SS, Langley, B.C. (Patrick Ebert of Brewerfan.net)
17. Toronto Blue Jays - Shooter Hunt, P, Tulane (Pistol of Batters Box)
18. New York Mets - Jason Castro, C, Stanford (Andrew of Hot Foot)
19. Chicago Cubs - Casey Kelly, SS, Sarsota Florida (HS) (Joe from View from the Bleachers)
20. Seattle Mariners - Aaron Hicks, RHP/OF, Wilson HS, Long Beach, CA (David Cameron from USS Mariner)
21. Detroit Tigers–Joshua Fields, RHP, Georgia (Erik of Future Redbirds)
22. New York Mets- Ike Davis, 1B/OF, Arizona State (Hot Foot)
23. San Diego Padres- Andrew Cashner, RHP, TCU (Geoff Young of Ducksnorts)
24. Philadelphia Phillies- Tanner Scheppers, RHP, Fresno St. (Phuture Phillies)
25. Colorado Rockies- Zach Collier, OF, Chino Hills HS, Chino Hills, Calif. (Tom of Up in the Rockies)
26. Arizona Diamondbacks-Allan Dykstra, 1B, Wake Forest (From RJ of Beyond the Boxscore)
27. Minnesota Twins-Conor Gillaspie, 3B, Wichita St. (SethSpeaks)
28. New York Yankees-Gerrit Cole, RHP, Lutheran HS, Calif. (River Ave. Blues)
29. Cleveland Indians-Tyson Ross, RHP, California (Bryan Smith, Baseball Prospectus)
30. Boston Red Sox-Reese Havens, SS, South Carolina (The College Baseball Blog

The Mets are in a very interesting position with their two first round picks. Our organizational depth has been ranked as low as 29th in the major leagues. So, that would tell you that we need to draft the best available talent to try and revamp our depleted system. But, we are also aging at Catcher, 1B, 2B, and SP with not too many minor league options to use as fillers on the major league roster, so that would tell you that we need to select more MLB-ready college players.

Castro is a 6′3″, 210 lb. junior catcher for Stanford. Castro, a left-handed hitter currently leads the Cardinal this season with a .373 batting average and 56 RBI. He is second on the club with 11 home runs. More impressively, he has thrown out 27 of 68 attempted base stealers.

I was not looking to take Castro at 18, but Minaya may be worried that the Tigers will snag him with the 21st pick. Being a former catcher himself, I can see Minaya leaning towards Castro with his first pick, and being a Stanford man, you can deduce that he will get along well with Rick Peterson in game planning.

Davis is a 6′4″ 205 lb. junior first baseman/outfielder for Arizona St. Also a lefty, he has drawn comparisons to Shawn Green. He is the son of former Yankees and Twins closer Ron Davis, who earned 130 saves over his 11-year career.  Currently, Davis is batting .381 with 16 homers, 69 RBI, and a .455 OBP. He is second on the team in all of those categories to 3B Brett Wallace, who we projected to go 8th overall to the Chicago White Sox.

Again, there were several very talented high school players available in Collier and Cole, but Davis is very advanced and could be playing first base at Citi Field by mid-2009. We are going to continue with the sandwich round and I will post who I select with the 33rd overall pick later today.

Next Saturday, June 1st, the First Annual United Baseball Blogger Mock Draft will take place and I (representing Hot Foot) will be making the selections for the Mets. Erik from Future Redbirds, a St. Louis Cardinals blog, was kind enough to help organize it and some of the better baseball blogs out there will be representing their respective teams, such as Athletics Nation (Oakland), Bryan Smith from Baseball Prospectus (Cleveland), Bucco Blog (Pittsburgh), and River Ave. Blues (Yankees).

As I wrote in an earlier post for Hot Foot, the future of the Mets’ solely lies on their three first-round selections. It is absolutely critical that Minaya get valuable players from at least two of the three players selected. The Mets will select 18th, 22nd, and 33rd in the June 5th draft. The 18th and 33rd selections came from the Atlanta Braves as compensation for the signing of Tom Glavine.

In my earlier post, I predicted that the Mets would select Yonder Alonso, University of Miami 1B with the 18th selection, but my wishful thinking got the best of me. Nearly all reports are stating that there is no chance the slugging switch-hitter will fall out of the top 10. I will post my mock selections on HotFoot next weekend.

The first six weeks of the 2008 baseball season have angered Met diehards to no end because of frustrating losses, no pitching depth, and an appeared lack of passion or focus from our everyday players, the bottom line is that the future of this franchise rests in the hands of Omar Minaya on June 5th.

For the first time since 2005, the Mets have a first-round pick, and this year we have two (2) first round picks and three (3) selections in the first 33. The 22nd overall pick is ours for finishing last season with the 9th-best record, and the 18th and 33rd overall selections are compensation from the Atlanta Braves for the free-agent signing of Tom Glavine.

The landscape of the league has been changing the last few seasons and the impact of the draft now basically determines your organization’s success. The days of signing big-name free agents are going to dwindle down the drain for two main reasons.

1. “Small-market” teams are locking up their young superstars so they will not only never reach free agency until they are over the age of 30, but more importantly never hit arbitration.

2. Teams who elect not to sign a star player to a long-term deal are trading them for packages of prospects who come from the draft before they lose this player via free agency. (Ex: Johan)

The trend of locking up younger players was started in Cleveland in the early 90’s when then-general manager John Hart locked up Carlos Baerga, Albert Belle, and Jim Thome among others. More recently, the new Indians have done the same with Grady Sizemore, Victor Martinez, Fausto Carmona, et al., and to Minaya’s credit, he also did with Jose
Reyes and David Wright, and hopefully soon John Maine.

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