The MLB draft is Monday June 6th, and many teams are drooling at the talent available this year. Many experts have been quoted as saying that this is the deepest draft in some years, offering a multitude of talent filled with raw, toolsy high school players and impact-ready college talent. As the scouting and baseball landscape is changing before our eyes, you're starting to see teams a lot more efficient with their decisions to draft players, and seeing those results within a couple of years instead of 10 years down the line. Which got me to thinking about the Mets and how the draft coming up on Monday could be the first step to a drastic turnaround for the organization.
With the level of money due to come off the books for the 2012 season, and with news breaking today that the organization will sell a minority stake of $200MM to an investment group, there is plenty of reason to be optimistic if you're a Mets fan. GM Sandy Alderson is one of the best in the game, and will also benefit from the new cash flow, as it will likely take some of the pressure off of him when deciding about which players to acquire in the draft. The Mets have always been big spenders both in free agency, and in the international scene. Once highly touted prospect Fernando Martinez never really panned out, as well as some other notably high dollar international signings. In all reality, you'll be able to tell what the Mets are planning by who they draft. If they take college level players that are closer to helping now, chances are they'll hang onto David Wright and build around him. If they go young, chances are you'll see them unload the players worth getting value for and shoot for a rebuild.
The biggest question that I have, is that if the Mets go into a full rebuilding mode how will that help the financial situation? For a team that has said they expect to lose upwards of $70MM this year, wouldn't drafting and signing talent that's able to help immediately make more sense to avoid a potential disaster? If so, Alderson has really no choice, because the ownership group signs his check as well as giving the final okay to signing players they acquire. A team trying to acquire Reyes will likely have to overpay, and given the most recent trends of the trading deadline, a deal as big as the Mets would need to let Reyes go will probably not happen. A deal for Wright would equally take a package as big, likely bigger because he is under control for a couple more years and that would offer the acquiring team financial certainty. Beltran is the guy that will go almost surely if the team paying gives them talent better than that they think they can acquire with the draft picks in the 2012 draft.
It just seems all too likely that the Mets will in fact NOT go into a rebuilding phase, and more likely that they try to improve their club for the immediate future. Only time will tell what their plans are, and if I were a Mets fan I would be watching intently this Monday.
