Just one quick thing I’d like to mention
Jeff Passan has written an article about the Mets, which is, by and large, completely fine. It just has this one little thing wrong with it:
Since 1985, the Mets have signed and developed five players who later wore their uniforms in an All-Star game. Five. Wright, Reyes, Todd Hundley, Edgardo Alfonzo and Bobby Jones. Even Kansas City can say it has passed eight homegrown All-Stars through its system.
The point Jeff is making is that the Mets have a terrible player-development system. And that is a true correct point; they do. But this is a highly disingenuous way of making that point, because there’s a rule, as Jeff Passan well knows, that says that every team must be represented on the All-Star team. If you make a team of Neifi Perez and twenty-four dudes you picked up off the street, well, one of those twenty-four dudes is going to the All-Star Game. So Kansas City, a team owned by Flintheart Glomgold, is probably going to send an awful lot of home-grown players on account of they never sign any decent veterans. The New York Mets, meanwhile, have had in recent years players called Carlos Beltran, Johan Santana, Fransisco Rodriguez, Carlos Beltran, Pedro Martinez, Mike Piazza, Tom Glavine, and Carlos Beltran, all of whom are very very good players. So their compulsory pick is pretty easily filled.
Something worth considering here is that, according to the roster, the Mets sent four players to the All-Star Game in 2009, a year in which they won 70 games. So maybe All-Star Game selections isn’t the best data for making your point, Jeff.
