Young Prospects In Baseball
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Looking back at the 2007 offseason, I think one thing can safely be said, besides the ridiculous amounts of money being spent, most teams are making a movement to protect their young prospects.
The only notable move I can really recall that involved a group of prospects for a vet was the young pitchers of <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Detroit (including Humberto Sanchez) for Sheffield.
Now lets take a look at the Mets, they have four prospects at the Outfield position, if you include Johnson and Milledge as prospects. The only prospect, or young guy, they got rid of was Bannister and Lindstrom (with someone else) and in both situations, they got prospects back.
The reason I feel that this is going on is the expense of veterans and the shallow pool of good free agents. Teams want to hold on prospects that could potentially become amazing
Now some might argue that this always happen. I have to disagree. Look back at the Mets last year. Two of their top 5 prospects, Petit and Jacobs were traded away, now the Mets did get some serious, serious talent for that trade, but still they gave them up. Actually on the topic of the Marlins, other teams, like the Red Sox, gave up a lot of top ranked prospects for guys like Mike Lowell and players that are around All Star Level or right below, not All Star and above.
Overall, I like this movement. I for one like young kids. Just about all Mets fans would rank either Wright or Reyes in probably their top 2. In a way, baseball made its own “salary cap” Instead of placing a restriction how much a team is willing to pay to get a player in order shift talent everywhere, teams now just put a lot of faith in their farm system. What this means is a lot more eyes looking at the minors, which is always a good thing.
Simul-Posted on Daily Baseball
