Hug Your Prospects

Sandy Alderson says he'll protect the Mets' farm system. We should all be thankful.

Over the weekend, Sandy Alderson said something that, to a prospect-hugger like me, sounded like a dream come true.

“We're going to sort of recommit to our farm system and try to stay away from those prospects and our really good prospects in significant trades,” he said on MLB Network Radio. “We expect to be somewhat active in the free agent market, as opposed to the trade market. We don't want to give up our young guys."

After the way the Mets have operated for the last 15 years, it was sort of like feeling the first drops of rain in the desert. The Mets are going to build up responsibly and sustainably? They’re going to balance homegrown and free-agent talent? They’re going to turn prospects into actual, contributing players?

In the year 2 A.K. (After Kelenic), it seems too good to be true. But now, maybe it actually will.

The Mets have always had trouble striking that perfect balance between prospects and outside talent. In building the contenders of 2006 to 2008, they shed farm pieces left and right. Then, in the dark ages of 2009 to 2014, the team sometimes seemed like nothing but homegrown pieces, sometimes at the extent of, you know, baseball talent. Josh Thole, Ruben Tejada, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Jordany Valdespin, Bobby Parnell, Robert Carson…but somehow, the Mets still managed to lose out on youth with actual potential. In 2013, the Mets sent Collin McHugh to the Rockies for Eric Young Jr. The next year, McHugh signed with the Astros. He’s been in Houston for six years now, and has pitched to a 58-35 record with a 3.63 E.R.A. Young Jr., meanwhile, had a .625 OPS as a Met, and hasn’t played at the MLB level since 2018.

So it was refreshing to hear from Alderson that the Mets will protect their youth. Now that the Wilpons are out and Steve Cohen is in, the front office has money to work with. Why not use it? On balance, signing a free agent is definitionally better than making a trade. If the Mets had just signed a free-agent second baseman and closer, Jarred Kelenic might be getting ready to start at Citi Field next season. 

That’s not even to mention the fact that trades made under the Wilpons always seemed to have a slightly bitter taste of paper. The Mets would sacrifice a genuine, quality player, and somehow no matter who it was, the return would be a minor-league relief pitcher. Then, later, it would turn out that in addition to the minor-league relief pitcher, the Mets had also received several hundred thousand dollars, which wasn’t quite as helpful as a better player might have been. Will Steve Cohen get up to those same shenanigans? According to a New York Post report, Cohen expects to lose about $400 million in his first two years running the team, and he’s fine with it. So, a few hundred thousand or a better player? Cohen’s choice is obvious. A mere bag of shells!

Protecting prospects from frivolous trades, while obviously sensible, is also the right move from a narrative and emotional standpoint. Prospects are the essence of baseball. They’re hope, youth, and possibility. To watch a prospect develop from high school kid to draft pick to major league player is to watch the system work as it should. Even to observe the latent potential in a young prospect is to experience what makes baseball great. Anything can happen. The possibility is there. Give him a chance, and watch what this kid can do. 

It’s what makes watching Jarred Kelenic star for the Mariners so painful. It’s also what makes potential trades of other top prospects so reflexively repellent. It’s hard to go a day without seeing a proposed trade that includes Brett Baty, Francisco Alvarez, or Matthew Allan. But now Sandy says he’ll hang onto those pieces for dear life, and Mets fans can breathe a sigh of relief.

Why sacrifice prospects when you don’t have to? Brett Baty could be a superstar, the next David Wright. Francisco Alvarez has shades of Piazza. Allan looks like a young Gooden. Top prospects are Spring Training, Opening Day, the sun coming out, the leaves turning green. They’re all future, all potential. The baseball world is theirs for the taking. To hear about a 19-year-old slugger tearing up the minor leagues is to experience the joy of baseball in its purest form. It’s pure hope and potential, unencumbered by the problems that the real world will one day inevitably present.

Sandy Alderson says he’ll protect the Mets’ farm system. It’s a good strategic decision: in the long run, it will help the Mets win. But it’s also more than that. From a narrative, emotional, baseball standpoint, it’s also, plain and simple, a beautiful thing.