Frayed Knot

What I meant by 'Top-20' was having a player who rates that high on the league-wide 'Top-100' type of lists. In recent years, the knock on the Met system has been that while they've had those elite level prospects (Milledge was in the 9-15 range in last year's lists) their system has lacked the depth that you'd like to replace those top prospects when they either flop or simply "graduate" to the ML It's like having a great HS team but knowing that you're in trouble down the road because you've got lousy sophmore & junior classes. One year BA described the Mets as having; maybe the best 1-5 of anyone (Reyes, Wright, Kazmir, Huber, Heilman) ... but also the worst 6-10. This year's crop sounds like it might tend towards the opposite. Better depth, but I'd be surprised if any of the current crop are among the elite level. Even our best guys are either very young or have enough questions attached to them to keep them from cracking the top level.

A Boy Named Seo wrote: Is Mota the first guy to fully accept getting pinched and not blame it on poppy seeds, flax seed oil, or some hopped-up wheat grass smoothie? Matt Lawton fessed up after getting caught. And, of course, Jason Giambi apologized for ... well, somethin-er-other.

In part it'll depend on who's doing the rating. BA tends to like touting young, toolsy types and could be fairly bullish on guys like Martinez and the pitcher Guerra because of what they've done despite being young for their league. Some fan-driven sites might go further than that simply so they can claim that they were touting these young'uns as superstars before anyone else. The more conservative Baseball Prospectus will probably want to see more before they go hog wild and may treat Gomez's AA experience combined with he raw tools (speed/arm) as the better bet. Will also be intersting to see how ours compares to the league as a whole; both our individual guys and the system in general. I don't see any 'Top-20' types because the best guys are either very young (Martinez/Guerra) or have limited track records (Pelfrey/Humber). BA had the NYM system ranked as 28th overall last year and said they had it tagged for dead last until the late signing of Pelfrey ("Milledge plus a bunch who wouldn't make other teams' Top-10", was their description). Figure it to rise this year (how could it not?) now that Pelfrey has a year under his belt, Humber looks healthy again, and the recent Latin signings have responded reasonably well to agressive promotions - although it's probably still a long way from the top.

30 - Beltran 29 - Reyes 28 - Wright 27 - Delgado 26 - Glavine 25 - Wagner 24 - LoDuca 23 - Martinez 22 - Maine 21 - Heilman 20 - Valentin 19 - Sanchez 18 - O Hernandez 17 - Bradford 16 - Feliciano 15 - Chavez 14 - Floyd 13 - Nady 12 - Trachsel 11 - Oliver 10 - Franco 9 - Green 8 - Perez 7 - Mota 6 - Woodward 5 - Milledge 4 - Bannister 3 - Williams 2 - Castro 1 - Tucker

Bradford's price (also a FA) just went up.

50 games for violating the drug program (per WFAN) The penalty will be served at the start of the 2007 season. He is a FA

Getting around to the hurlers ... Tough year to rate the pitchers, much tougher to order than the hitters; lotsa partial year guys. And, while 13 different starters may not have set any records, our crew involved 13 guys who made at least 3 starts each. THAT probably hasn't happened too often. Glavine - Led the team in wins (tied), starts & innings pitched. The only starter who lasted from day 1 thru the playoffs. Top pitcher in Win Shares. Wagner - I'm convinced now that no one will ever like the closer, but Wagner had a lower ERA, lower WHiP, Higher K/9, plus a lower BAA & SLGA than any of the other relievers all while usually working the money inning(s) Martinez - Great April, good May, then a slow decline into a big mess. But he was still 3rd on the team in IP with the best peripheral numbers anywhere. Maine - Part 1 of the booty from the Benson trade out-pitched the more heralded El Duque overall plus had a good post-season Heilman - One bad stretch in mid-season and a Game 7--9th inning HR can't ruin a good overall season Sanchez - I think some are giving Duaner short shrift here. Despite not being there for the 2nd half + playoffs, the 1st half games were really more important before the 2nd half cruise control and he was absolutely dominant at time while pitching almost as many innings as some of the full-season types. O Hernandez - Occasionally erratic, but stabilized the rotation as injuries started to take hold ... then got injured himself Bradford - So boringly effective that you would find yourself stunned when he didn't come through. Feliciano - He and Bradford almost have to be listed side-by-side. They just have to. Trachsel - I wonder how often a team leader in wins gets put this far down the list. Ahhh run support! Oliver - All purpose lefty compiled a lot of innings while pitching very few important ones Perez - Exciting & frustrating, often at the same time Mota - Leaned on heavily in the playoffs for someone who had all of 18 IPs in the regular season Bannister - Only 8 games/6 starts. Not many hits but lots of baserunners. Williams - A lot like Perez w/o the playoff boost R Hernandez - Grabbed at a desperation deal at the deadline, then used only sparingly. Julio - After Met fans decided they hated him in advance, they almost didn't seem to notice when he strung together a bunch of good games Pelfrey - The future isn't yet Bell - Alternated looking good and getting pasted Soler - 8 starts, a couple of gems but also 4 train-wrecks Ring - Showed a lot of promise, just in real small doses Outside looking in: Zambrano, Lima, Gonzalez, Owens, Fortunado, Humber Now I have to figure how to combine the two halves.

did we ever put together a consensus order? 30 - Wright 29 - Martinez 28 - Floyd 27 - Glavine 26 - Reyes 25 - Beltran 24 - Piazza 23 - Cameron 22 - Benson 21 - Heilman 20 - R. Hernandez 19 - Seo 18 - Diaz 17 - Zambrano 16 - Castro 15 - Jacobs 14 - Looper 13 - M. Anderson 12 - Meintkiewicz 11 - Matsui 10 - Woodward 9 - Padilla 8 - Cairo 7 - Ishii 6 - Trachsel 5 - Koo 4 - Bell 3 - Offerman 2 - G. Williams 1 - Aybar Did this ever get fully incorporated into the posting levels? No

]Shit, those are some nice numbers...is [Durham] available? If only someone here had led a campaign to get him earlier!! A show (read: sponsor tie-in) on this "clutch" team was run on ESPN last night - I flicked by a couple of times. Like most discussions on clutch they admitted they couldn't nail down any way of defining it. They gave Bill James a sound bite or two, talked about "close & late", and "BA w/RiSP" numbers, then in the end pretty much wound up pulling a kind of Potter Stewart on the whole deal: I can't define it but I know it when I see it'. Problem was (at least as far as I could tell) they used some of those supposed clutch stats to make their choices w/o any consideration as to what the players' normal stats were. IOW, it turns out that the guys with the real good "clutch" stats were ... the ones with real good stats to start with! Wow, whoda thunk that?!? And how'd those clutch abilities help young Mr. Wright out last week?

.,

Yes, the 1st round figures include the supplemental picks as well (that's how more than 300 signed) There are also a handful of supplementals for the 2nd & 3rd rounds. I've heard that Gammons statement referred to a bunch of times and I'd like to know what his actual words were. I believe it was in response to questions about the 2nd day of the draft and trying to counter charges that is was a "useless" exercise due to the fact that there's a history of good players emerging from late rounds. I suspect his comment was along the lines of how the odds were similar to those selected anywhere BUT the 1st few rounds - which, when you see the low pcts past rounds 1 or 2 - isn't far off. Some seem to have interpretted his remarks as saying that all rounds are the same and an admition that the whole draft was a crapshoot -- something I can't believe Gammons would actually say.

Remember that the Mets, in effect, owe Glavine $3mil from the "rebate" he gave them this past year - meaning that this reported $25mil is really $22 as far as what he's "earning" for the future. Still a bigger deal than I would have imagined, plus I didn't think that Glavine was even interested in committing to a 2nd year at this point.

The Super Bowl is a different animal, but TV ratings for ANY event (sports or otherwise) don't come close to what they would have been years ago when there were fewer others options for viewers.

]only the NFL and March Madness seems to keep it's mega audience of the pre-cable/dish explosion days Even the mega-audiences of MNF were are fraction of what they were from the days fo the 1970s & '80s by the time it was finally dropped from network television. No network show has anywhere near the pct of viewing world that they had back then.

I found that BA study of draft picks that I mentioned earlier (this thing was run a couple of years ago but I kept losing it) What they did was to examine 10 years of drafts over the first 10 rounds and categorized the resultant career of each player with 1 of 6 labels. - 'Flops' were for those who never reached the big leagues at any point - 'Cup of Coffee' is for those who had only brief stints in MLB - 'Fringe' players are bench players or back of the bullpen types - 'Regular' denotes a starting position player or someone who holds down a regular starting spot or key relieving role - 'Good' players are those closer to the top of their position - and 'Star' was for those at an All-Star level Obviously the above categories are somewhat subjective and - even though the didn't use the most recent drafts when they did this - it's still possible that some players from those closest years could still "move up", it does give a good idea of the likelihood (or not) of a given draft pick succeeding. And I don't do this to further the Corey Ragsdale debate (on whom too much energy has already been expended) but because, in general, I think fans have an overly optimistic view on the overall success rate of picks - particularly once you get past the first round. Round# signedFlopsCup-o-CFringeRegularGoodStarReg or Better1st30134.9%20.3%18.3%14.0%8.3%4.3%26.6%2nd22352.9%29.6%8.1%6.3%2.2%0.9%9.4%3rd21168.2%18.0%7.6%5.2%0.9%0.0%6.1%4th20470.6%19.1%6.4%3.4%0.5%0.0%3.9%5th20471.1%16.7%6.9%3.4%2.0%0.0%5.4%6th20177.7%11.4%6.5%3.0%0.5%1.5%5.0%7th19975.4%14.1%6.5%4.0%0.0%0.0%4.0%8th19380.6%12.8%2.0%2.6%2.0%0.0%4.6%9th19080.5%13.2%4.2%1.6%0.5%0.0%2.1%10th18679.6%11.8%5.4%2.2%0.5%0.5%3.2%

Yancy Street Gang wrote: Maybe Soriano can say, "I'm looking for $119 million and a tent" to which the Orioles can't say anything more than, "Baltimore has a nice Aquarium and we're famous for our crabs." That's probably accurate. And, as we all know, a team would never (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) skirt the rules before the (Now 12th?) deadline.

a) Welcome Soriano won't - or, at least shouldn't - get that kind of money. As dangerous as he can be, he doesn't have the OBP, or the middle of the diamond defensive skills, to command that kind of scratch. c) Supposedly, sides aren't allowed to be discussing money at this point (except for the FAs current squad)

metirish wrote: Anyone know how Concepcion is doing,FK has him as a questionable top 10 prospect...has he fallen back or is he on the up? Keep in mind that's nothing more than my non-expert guess. But it also could be treated as a good sign in that we now have others who can push him out of a top-5 spot. The recent high draft picks (Humber, Pelfrey) and Latin signings (F Martinez, Guerra, Gomez) are better, younger, and/or more polished. Concepcion's problem is that he was always older than his level, having only acheived his somewhat lofty perch by having a good year against younger players in split-season Brooklyn. But, just as you don't get into college via good marks in grade school, prospects have to keep progressing if they want to get anywhere. Standing still is, in effect, the same as regressing.

MFS62 wrote: What bothers me is that the organization kept promoting him even after disasterous seasons, not letting him develop at one level before moving him up. I wonder if the same thing happened to many of the others (90%+ according to your post)who didn't make it. He admittedly had tools when drafted. I believe the organization may have done him an injustice by not giving him the coaching that would have allowed those tools to be turned into baseball skills. Again, I don't think any of this makes Ragsdale different from virtually any other prosepct. There's no point in warehousing guys at those lower (short-season) rungs of the farm. Those are there as much to find out whether the new boys can play well with the other kids and to teach them to live away from home (or learn English in the case of the Latin kids) as much as anything. Look, either this guy will get better at some point or he'll wash out and start learning the phrase "want fries with that?". If/when he becomes a 6-year guy he'll have some other options to boot. In the meantime, he's drawing a paycheck and filling a spot that needs filling while not adversly affecting anyone in the org.

99% of the "news" at this time of year consists of either sportswriter speculation, or player/agent/GM posturing. I'm paying very little attention to what's being written.

The thing is, you constantly hold him up as THE PRIME example of draft picks gone wrong when, in fact, his journey is far more common than not. BA once did a study of 10 years worth of draft picks (late '80s thru mid-'90s I think). Of the 223 2nd Round picks (only counting those who signed) less than 10% (21) became regular players and only 7 of those 21 became what BA considered "good" regulars or legit "stars". Meanwhile, over half (118) [u:579cf6afbf]never played a day[/u:579cf6afbf] in the majors, with the remainder consisting of those who got just a brief cup-of-coffee (66), or those who hung around for a few years as fringe MLers (18). And bonus money is so structured these days that very few get anything above what the "slot" dictates. I don't think that was anything unusual about the size of his bonus or that it's the reason he's not flipping burgers at this point.

I'm not sure Melville had his ship captain pursue that overgrown fish as much as MFS chases after Ragsdale. He's an organizational infielder at this point but the minors are full of those guys. Meanwhile, there's no way that mgmt is keeping him around in some vain attempt to recoup 2nd round bonus money from 5 years ago. The dollar amount (whatever it was) simply can't be that high and it's not like Ragsdale's presence is blocking younger stars.

Vic Sage wrote: Okay, so far thats: My guesses: L.Milledge (OF) -- Too much ML time, no longer a prospect C.Gomez (OF) -- Top 5 guy in our system, I'll be more interested to see how they view this guy in the wider universe of all prospects (that list comes out in early March) M.Pelfrey (RHP) -- Top 5 P.Humber (RHP) -- Ditto F.Martinez (OF) -- Ditto again, J.Flores © -- Top 10 H.Owens (RHRP) -- Not sure how he's viewed J.Niese (LHP) -- Top 10 D.Guerra (RHP) -- Top 5 A.Concepcion (OF) -- Top 10? M.Lindstrom (RHP) J.Smith (RHP) M.Carp -- Top 10 Anderson Hernandez, SS -- Might not be eligible, and wouldn't rank too high even if he is Brian Bannister, RHP -- Top 10 if he's still eligible Alay Soler, RHP -- Too much ML time, not eligible and what has happened to: Emmanuel Garcia, SS Brett Harper, 1B, -- possible top 10 Robert Parnell, RHP -- moving up I'd guess, but nothing eye-popping, possible top 10 Ryan Coultas, SS Matthew Durkin, RHP German Marte, RHP Shawn Bowman, 3B Nick Evans, 3B M.Pinango C.Coles Michel Abreu (1b) Kevin Mulvey (RHP) -- Not much of a track record to date Bobby Malek (of) -- Future utility guy at best Brandon Nall (RHP) Steve Schmoll (RHP) Dustin Martin (OF) Drew Butera © Blake Eager (RHP)

Edgy DC wrote: But a player-coach would presumably not count against that limit, as he is already welcome there as a member of the roster. Well yeah, if Franco fills a player/coach role and the limits are '25 + 5' (I think it's either 5 or 6) it's not like he'd be counted twice. I was being general in response to Yancy's "unlimited?" question.

That '# of coaches rule' is part of what set Keith off upon seeing that female trainer in the SD dugout. Because it was one of their 'Camoflauge Uni Nights' the trainers were also dressed in very similar camo, making the chick look like she was uniformed personnel or, to Keith's eyes, like some sort of mascot/groupie who didn't belong. Don Zimmer is also now an "extra" coach these days. He's there instructing and whatnot before the game but is out of uniform and the dugout at game time.