Making the Future Brighter, Part 2

Although I am not someone with the skills to evaluate prospects, I've been interested in scouting and development for quite a while. Years ago, as I began to question the lack of sustained success by the New York Mets, I began to look around at the clubs that were much more successful — particularly in smaller markets than New York. The biggest common denominator was an ability to find and develop Major League ballplayers. There are a lot of moving parts in scouting and development. All of them have to be working properly for a club to attain and sustain success at the Major League level. As important as developing a good number of contributing Major League ballplayers, it's even more important that some players become impact Major Leaguers.

Celebrating the New Culture

As I was finishing up yesterday's post, the news was breaking on the Mets making another significant front office hire. Former Red Sox assistant GM Zack Scott was named as Senior Vice President/Assistant General Manager. He's reunited with new Mets GM Jared Porter, who he worked with for years with the Red Sox until Porter left to join the Cubs. Scott was also a finalist for the Mets GM job.

It's What You Don't See That Matters

Tim Britton had an excellent piece in The Athletic yesterday about new Mets owner Steve Cohen. It was rather long, heavily researched, and, as with anything written about Cohen, done without any cooperation from the man himself. Despite his willingness since buying the Mets to engage with fans on Twitter and do the lengthy interview with Steve Gelbs for Mets Hot Stove, Cohen notoriously avoids speaking with print reporters. Interestingly enough, although Britton notes that "more than a dozen" people were interviewed for the piece, twice that number of folks declined to give interviews, even anonymously. Hey, if I worked for the guy, I'd probably take a pass, too. Not worth it.