New York Mets on the way to justify effectiveness of their Minor-League system - MLB Feature
As eight home-grown players made to the field on Opening Day, one of the biggest challenges the New York Mets had to respond to was an efficacy of their Minor-League system. Historically, the Mets had suffered with a famine of indigenous quality players
and therefore the contention was even more pressing against this backdrop.
By looking at their current performance and the way home-grown players Daniel Murphy and Kirk Nieuwenhuis has lifted the side, it seems they have come a long way.
It is easier to jump on the conclusion without paying heed to other side of the story. Home-grown players who have made the chunk of the contribution belong to the offence. The fact pitchers have not been equally impressive points to a humbling of an immediate
change in opinion about the Mets one may come up with.
After-all pitchers become as much a part of the winning equation and if the Mets do not produce any of their own, the stigma of dearth of an indigenous talent with them will remain.
Mike Pelfrey is one of the few starters the Mets can draw the pride from and can very well put him upfront in response to an argument.
However the fact that he has been far from what the club will expect and a reality of most of the wins coming to the Mets resulted from starters like Johan Santana, R.A. Dickey and Jon Niese present every reason in negation of the argument.
Off-course Dickey, Santana and Niese are not home-grown products and thus Minor-League system they have can easily be put under a dubious spotlight.
Unfortunately for the Mets, throughout the last decade they had to rely largely on trades or buys to fill up the void. Worse is, even then they hardly drew the kind of success they will fancy every time they purchased a new starter. It dumfounds the fans
then that why after all the possible options being exhausted, results did not come off.
This takes us to a point to understand the reality. With no home product imminent and a last resort to outside options, management has grown perplexed in decision making.
Every time they go for a big purchase, results never come and as soon as they realise it they chuck the player and replace him with new one, only to find him failing similarly. In the process, they thoroughly overlook the point to give every player a proper
time for giving his best.
What happened with Philip Humber is a case in point, a pitcher who is making history at the moment by playing with the Chicago White Sox, after being abandoned by the Mets.
Chequered decision making has marred their ability to develop their own infrastructure. No-wonder home grown golden arms remain to be seen in the Mets since 1984 when Dwight Gooden emerged miraculously from their nearly eternal in-fertility.
The issue is not with the talent however, questions demand scrutiny of the steps taken up in this regard so far.
Building a local set-up from where future stars can churn out ensures long-term survival of a team. There is always room for improvement, successful measures San Francisco Giants have employed a lot of lessons the Mets can learn and set things right. One
will hope that sanity will soon prevail.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and in no way represent Bettor.com's official editorial policy.
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