New York Mets: Top 2012 Prospects
The Sound of Oncoming Hope... or the 7-Train?
Reese Havens, hopefully all healed up and ready for action, remains the best infield prospect on the farm-poor Mets.
It's so hard being a big market ballclub. Unfairly forced to compete on an uneven playing field while smaller teams scout, draft and moneyball all the good talent away. All the persecuted big market teams can do is burn suitcases full of money in a desperate attempt to keep up with the Royals and Rays.
Well, that's what it must feel like in New York and Baltimore, anyway.
In New York, Mets fans are chewing on a big greasy slice of that pain, and it comes with stinky anchovies on top, too: last season, the team was in such awful financial shape (thanks, Bernie Madoff!) that management was forced to dismantle a contending team in the kind of cost-cutting fire sale that would make Crazy Eddie blush in humiliation.
Now, you may think that a clever ballclub in such a bind could fall back on some inexpensive talent from its own minor league system to fill its needs, or at least flip some expensive stars for a busload of top prospects.
Sadly, the Mets' dealmaking and player development work has been as disappointing as their fiscal responsibility. While the dumping of Carlos Beltran provided a top pitching prospect (albeit one who didn't make the cut in San Francisco), the Mets netted almost nothing else from their desperation moves, including no more than poor draft pick compensation (second or third round, depending how you count) in exchange for MVP shortstop Jose Reyes. Considering how many teams could have used Reyes at 2011's trading deadline, the failure to get anything for his loss was shameful.
Yes, ex-Giant Zack Wheeler is a legit top-end starter if he can handle the change to the higher-pressure East Coast. And maybe this season will be the third-time-lucky for perpetual breakout candidate Jenrry Mejia. And maybe Reese Havens will overcome his glass body and start producing the way his tools suggest he can. Heck, even Brandon Nimmo is a viable MLB outfielder, though probably only a fourth one.
And in addition to those fine youngsters... well... well, there isn't much else, friends.
This system has some talent, yes, but it doesn't have the kind of big-league ready talent that the Mets so desperately need to fill out their ballclub, which means ownership is going to need to get very clever very soon.
The Mets need to develop a serious farm system if they are ever going to become the perpetual contending team that the nation's largest media market demands, but so far they're not even close to having such a system. Instead of demanding big-name free agents, all those radio call-show lunatics should be calling for the heads of the Mets' scouting departments. The team will not ever live up to its market potential unless it starts giving player development a whole lot more attention.
The Mets need to scout more, draft better, and make smarter, longer-view trades than the type they've historically been known for. The team also needs to keep pressing hard in the international market, too, which is the one place they have had good success. (Conveniently, that's also where the franchise's shamefully-limited budget will go a lot further.)
Given that, and a few years to simmer, the old Metropolitans could once again rise like the Big Apple, shiny, healthy and... um... worm-free.
Until then, bring your kiddies, bring your wife, and meet the Mets... such as they are.
The usual disclaimer: Scouting Book's Prospect Rankings change very often, to reflect the latest and most promising prospects and situations. These listings recalculate every day as we include new input, correct errors (thanks for letting us know, helpful readers) and MLB situations evolve. For more information on our system, read this blog posting.
Next Up: Baseball's Best Lefty Pitching Prospects
