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A side discussion broke out in one of the Bernazard threads about his role (or lack of it) in player development.
Here, courtesy of Tim Good-Times (Bontemps) in the NYPost is a summary of how things have gone during Tony B's (now terminated) tenure as player personnel dude.
2005 Draft
The Mets lone top 10 pick during Bernazard's tenure with the team was in his first draft, when they selected Mike Pelfrey with the ninth overall pick. While Pelfrey has turned into a solid major league starter (25-26, 4.49 ERA, 1.48 WHIP), he hasn't turned into the kind of impact player that some later draft picks (in particular Tampa Bay's Matt Garza and Cincinnati's Jay Bruce) have.
The Mets did do a nice job of developing some later picks in that draft, particularly two rookie pitchers currently on the staff - starter Jonathon Niese (7th round) and reliever Bobby Parnell (9th). They also picked catcher Josh Thole (13th), an All-Star this year in the Double-A Eastern League.
2006 Draft
The Mets' top pick in 2006, Kevin Mulvey (2nd round), was one of the pieces involved in the trade for Johan Santana. The next pick, Joe Smith (3rd), was a dependable reliever for the team before being shipped out last winter in the J.J. Putz trade.
One of the Mets more notable mid-round selections occurred in this draft as well in Daniel Murphy (13th), who now is the team's starting first baseman. The other player of potential note from this draft is pitcher Tobi Stoner, who now is with Triple-A Buffalo.
2007 Draft
The Mets had five picks in the top 100 in this draft, and all five of them have pretty serious question marks at this point. The top pick, reliever Eddie Kunz, is doing OK with Triple-A Buffalo, but doesn't seem like he's going to be the dominant closer the Mets hoped he'd be when they took him with their first pick in the supplemental first round. Their other supplemental first rounder, left-hander Nathan Vineyard, had shoulder surgery last year and has hardly pitched in the majors.
Scott Moviel, the Mets first second round pick, is another projectable pitcher at 6-foot-11, but is still far from a finished product. Right-hander Brant Rustich, who was drafted out of college, still has yet to advance beyond High-A, while their third rounder, Eric Niesen, has bombed so far in several starts with Double-A Binghamton.
This seems to have been the Mets best draft in terms of mid-round talent under Bernazard. Lucas Duda, a seventh-round pick, has performed well through Double-A, while pitcher Dylan Owen (20th) is in Double-A and pitchers Michael Antonini (18th) and Dillon Gee (21st) are in Triple-A.
2008 Draft
The 2008 draft class could prove to be a pivotal one for the Mets organization. With three first round selections, the Mets had a chance to quickly stock their system with three long-term answers at the big-league level. So far, it looks like they got at least one of them right, with the other two up for debate.
The one that they've nailed - at least so far - is the third one, right-hander Brad Holt (33rd overall). He's shot through the minors, and after a bit of a rough start with Double-A Binghamton, has quickly found his groove there as well. He's now mentioned as one of the top prospects in the Mets' system, and could be in the rotation in Queens as soon as next year.
The other two, first baseman Ike Davis (18th overall) and middle infielder Reese Havens (22nd), have left more questions than answers. Davis, the son of former Yankee reliever Ron Davis, took nearly 300 at-bats to hit his first major league homer. Since then, though, he's been on a roll. This season between High-A and Double-A, Davis is hitting .295 with 14 homers and 52 RBI. He could be the Mets starting first baseman as soon as next season, and could be the team's answer there for years to come - both offensively and defensively.
Havens, on the other hand, has spent much of his time as a pro hurt with various nagging injuries. He's shown some serious pop in limited action (12 homers in 80 career games) but needs to prove he can stay on the field.
The rest of the organizations' '08 draft class has had too little time in the system to judge one way or the other. The same can be said of last month's draft class, of which several top picks have yet to sign.
International signees
Under Bernazard's watch, the Mets have signed several prominent Latin American players who developed into known quantities. From the 2005 class, pitcher Deolis Guerra was part of the Johan Santana trade, while Fernando Martinez has developed into one of baseball's top prospects.
In 2006, the Mets inked Ruben Tejada, who is starting as short for Double-A Binghamton, as well as Francisco Pena (Tony's son). The Mets also signed Maikel Cleto that summer, who turned into the biggest piece of the Putz trade. The organization followed that up with inking two of its current top 10 prospects, Wilmer Flores and Jefry Marte, in 2007, along with its top overall prospect right now, Jenrry Mejia.
FK: To compare the above record to what a team should reasonably expect to get out of the same situation draft & money-wise is always speculative and shirley something beyond what I'm capable of assessing (not to mention that the players are still young enough and their acquisitions recent enough that we're talking about a still-moving target). Armed with hindsight it is, of course, easy to see who the "right" picks were, but one can always find a player drafted later that looks better than an earlier one even if the one you got was is developing nicely.
Bottom line is I think the both the pct of success coming from the draft and the rate at which they develop is the area that fans in general most consistently over-estimate. It would be great if hitting studs and ace hurlers were strewn all over every draft but that's just not the case in a sport where nearly 1/3 of all 1st round picks never spend a day in the majors and only around 1-in-4 even becomes a regular much less a star. The 'our picks always suck' lament or the one where they don't turn out to be what we were "promised" they'd become are pretty universal themes amongst fans of all stripes.
My guess is that that record would stand up at least reasonably well against most; particularly when taking into consideration that there was just one top half of the 1st round pick (Pelfrey) in the whole bunch, but then it's tough to demand prime draft positions, competitive teams each year, and numerous big-name FA signings all at the same time.
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