When Sandy Alderson took over as the Mets General Manager, one of the areas of emphasis was supposed to be building a sustainable farm system that would give the Mets continued success throughout the years.  This, in turn, would prevent the Mets from having to give out those proverbial second generation contracts Alderson purportedly despises giving to players.

Now, in order for that to happen, the team was going to have to not only draft well, but they were going to have to identify international talent.  If the Mets had indeed done well in those efforts, the Mets Opening Day roster would have looked something like this:

C – Travis d’Arnaud; Kevin Plawecki
1B – Dominic Smith
2B – Gavin Cecchini
3B – Asdrubal Cabrera
SS – Amed Rosario
LF – Yoenis Cespedes
CF – Juan Lagares/Brandon Nimmo
RF – Michael Conforto

But as we know it doesn’t.  One of the reasons why is the team has not developed position players as well as the organization, or really anyone would have liked.  If you are not being so understanding, you would say the Mets whiffed on high draft picks by drafting players who are either backups or career minor leaguers.

Look, no one has a perfect draft record, and we should remember this regime did draft Conforto and Michael Fulmer.  The problem there is they traded Fulmer away.  That is something they are reportedly not willing to do with Nimmo despite the fact he is blocked by Cespedes, Conforto, and Jay Bruce for the next three years.

With respect to Cecchini and Smith, the Mets have decided at a minimum, neither are ready to start next season in the majors.  This would be easier to swallow had either received a real shot of proving their abilities.  Instead, the Mets will go with broken Adrian Gonzalez and who knows what at second.

Overall, the 2017 Mets are not what Sandy Alderson envisioned what they would be when these players were first drafted.  That’s fair to a certain extent because no one imagined that the Mets would look this way when the team won the pennant in 2015.