Quote:
Originally Posted by FatJack
It's Rick "Bengston", not "Bengton". Here he is with Pompano Beach in 1973. And you've neglected to include the likes of George Kazmarek, Al Shirley, Reese Havens, Brad Holt and Lee May Jr. And one of my personal favorites, Nathan Vineyard who lasted all of 35 innings as a starter in the low, low, low minors (where's Class D when you need it?), finishing with a career record of 0-5 with an ERA of 7.39. Out of baseball before he turned 20. I think I might be tempted to take that bet from you.
Though I think the Mets should stop taking catchers in the first round, I do tend to give them a pass on Chilcott. All the revisionist history aside, the scouts were evenly split between Chilcott and Jackson and Chilcott's almost immediate (and, ultimately, career ending) injury was not something that could have been foreseen. And, as Casey said, you have to have a catcher or you're going to have a lot of passed balls.
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Oh, we've certainly had our share of whiffs. How about that Tom Thurberg? Or Ryan "I hate baseball…but thanks for the $850,000 signing bonus" Jaroncyk? And there's the whole parade of not-quite-good-enough OFs, from Billy Beane to Lastings Milledge.
But I'll still make that bet: I checked out the Phillies and while they can scrape up a few good position men (Lieberthal, Utley, and an "oufield" where Lonnie Smith plays center between Luzinski and Pat Burrell), the pitching staff comes down to Cole Hamels and Larry Christenson, and then a drop-off to Pete Smith and Pat Combs, and an even steeper drop-off after that. (Carlton Loewer, come on down!) I'm pretty sure we can take them. Although, ironically, they've done a better job of drafting our catchers (Stearns, d'Arnaud) than we have.
How about the Pirates, say?
1B: Jeff King
2B: Neil Walker
SS: Craig Reynolds
3B: Richie Hebner
LF: Barry Bonds
CF: Andrew McCutcheon
RF: Jermaine Allensworth
C: Jason Kendall
Bench: Pedro Alvarez, Willie Greene, Dick Sharon, Dale Berra, Sammy Khalifa, Steve Nicosia
SP: Gerrit Cole
SP: Kris Benson
SP: Paul Maholm
SP: Jameson Taillon
SP: Bryan Bullington
RP: Brad Lincoln
RP: Rod Scurry
RP: Jim Winn
RP: Vic Black
RP: John van Benschoten
RP: Sean Burnett
Serviceable starting nine, even with the complete lack of OFs after the two stars, but I think we bury them on the mound.
The Yankees? Well, that's really unfair because they gave up the pick for a free agent 9 of 11 years between 1979-1989, but they've managed to be decent the rest of the time, I guess:
1B: Ron Blomberg
2B: Rex Hudler
SS: Derek Jeter
3B: Pat Tabler
LF: Terry Whitfield
CF: Carl Everett
RF: Brian Buchanan
C: Thurman Munson
Bench: Eric Duncan, Charlie Spikes, Matt Winters, Jim Lyttle, and God-knows-who-else. (Dennis Sherrill? Bronson Sardinha? Slade Heathcott?)
SP: Scott McGregor
SP: Ian Kennedy
SP: Eric Milton
SP: Phil Hughes
SP: Bill Burbach
RP: Joba Chamberlain
RP: Matt Drews
And now we're down to Ryan Bradley and Andrew Brackman here, too. Just not enough depth, the few successes aside.
(Btw, I'm not giving the Yanks credit for Mark Prior or Gerrit Cole, since they didn't sign either of them. Not being able to get the guy's name on a contract is a miss, however accurate your scouting was, IMO.)
Maybe the Dodgers?
Nope:
1B: Paul Konerko
2B: Blake DeWitt
SS: Dave Anderson
3B: Damian Rolls
LF: Franklin Stubbs
CF: Bobby Valentine
RF: Chris Gwynn
C: Mike Scioscia
Bench: James Loney, Mark Bradley, Tom Goodwin, Bubba Crosby, Jason Repko, Terry McDermott
SP: Rick Sutcliffe
SP: Clayton Kershaw
SP: Bob Welch
SP: Rick Rhoden
SP: Chad Billingsley
RP: Scott Elbert
RP: Jamie McAndrew
RP: Chris Withrow
RP: Darren Dreifort
RP: Steve Howe
Their starting rotation crushes ours, but the team on the field is mediocre at best. You could boost the lineup by pushing Konerko to 3B (he played about 30 games there from '98 to '00) and inserting Loney, but you'd really be toying with the defense, then.
Well, no point in totally hijacking the thread, but I think my point stands. Overall, the Mets have done a fairly decent job with the #1s, the notable and well-remembered misses aside.
And yes, Chilcott was very highly rated, albeit I don't know how badly we needed a catcher after having stolen Jerry Grote from the Astros the previous winter. And
the pre-draft coverage in the Chicago Tribune not only projected the Mets' taking Reggie (I guess they never asked M. Donald Grant what he thought about black athletes who date white women…), but said that the catcher the Athletics were likely to take at #2 was not Chilcott but Tom Grieve (who went third, to Washington). So the Mets not only goofed in taking a catcher, they took the "wrong" one, per the experts.
Ah, well.