What the Yankees and Mets Got in the Draft

Unlike in the NBA or NFL, players selected in the Major League baseball draft are not expected to contribute to the big-league roster immediately, or often for years. But both the Mets and Yankees seemed to draft with the current problems with their respective teams in mind.

For the Mets, the issues addressed were in the starting lineup and depth of starting pitching. For the Yankees, the effort was made to collect high-ceiling young pitchers, hoping enough will stick to make a pitching staff.

The Mets had three of the draft’s first 33 picks, one pick originally their own, the other two as compensation for Tom Glavine signing with the Atlanta Braves. With the 18th pick, the Mets selected Isaac Davis, a first baseman and outfielder out of Arizona State University.

Clearly, Davis would be most valuable if he can fill corner outfield positions, and many scouts think he can. But for the Mets, the drafting of a polished college hitter with a lefty bat could well be in order to replace the older and struggling Carlos Delgado. The first baseman turns 37 later this month, and his contract option for $16 million almost certainly will not be picked up by the Mets.

Davis has the lefty bat to replace Delgado’s, and it is easy to see the 6-foot-4 slugger move quickly through the system, especially with a team that aggressively promotes its top players.

With the 22nd pick, the Mets selected Reese Havens, a shortstop out of the University of South Carolina. While a shortstop wouldn’t seem to be a priority for a team with Jose Reyes, Havens, like Davis, is a polished hitter who can help the Mets at multiple positions. Havens may profile at higher levels as a second baseman; some scouts have even speculated that he would be best at catcher. In both instances, he is projected to be a far better hitter than either incumbent second baseman Luis Castillo or catcher Brian Schneider.

With the 33rd pick, the Mets selected right-handed pitcher Bradley Holt out of University of North Carolina-Wilmington. Holt is a tall pitcher with a dominant fastball that touches 96 miles per hour, but he dropped to the Mets because of a lack of a secondary pitch. This tells us that the Mets are happy with the progress made by another tall starter they drafted without a secondary pitch: Mike Pelfrey. Between Pedro Martinez’s age and Oliver Perez’s pending free agency, the Mets are looking for Holt to help them in the near future as well, though more likely in 2009.

As for the Yankees, their first three picks came at numbers 28, 44, and 75. And at 28, they signaled their plan to use their seemingly bottomless pit of money by drafting Gerrit Cole, a high-school right-handed fireballer who can already throw a fastball in the upper nineties. He also possesses a plus slider and changeup, according to scouts, and a familiar agent to the Yankees—Scott Boras, who represents Alex Rodriguez (and engineered A-Rod’s opt-out during Game 4 of the World Series). Drafting Cole seems to indicate that there is no permanent rift in the Yankees-Boras relationship.

At pick 44, garnered from Colorado as compensation for the Rockies signing Luis Vizcaino, the Yankees picked Jeremy Bleich, a polished lefty out of Stanford University. Teams generally pick college starters hoping they will move quickly, and with Mike Mussina in the final season of his contract, New York could well be hoping to replace one Stanford product with another soon.

With Joseph Bittle, the Yankees are clearly responding to a lack of depth in their bullpen. Bittle is a closer from the University of Mississippi, and posted an absurd strikeout rate in his role with the Rebels. Now get this—his best pitch is a cut fastball, like a certain other closer popular in the Bronx. Expect Bittle to move quickly—many college closers in recent years have managed to make major-league debuts the season they were drafted, from Chad Cordero to Craig Hansen.

For both the Mets and Yankees, these players won’t solve the roster weaknesses tomorrow. But both teams drafted well enough to see results surprisingly soon.