The Shifting Definition of Draft Performance

Last week, I posted a bit of sarcasm on my Facebook page in response to the news of Omar Minaya’s new job in San Diego. I’ve never been a huge fan of Minaya, stemming from his not-so-magical run as GM of “Los Mets” (we all know how his run ended). Granted, he wasn’t hired by the Padres as a GM, but to see him back on the job makes me feel a little bad for San Diego. A friend of mine commented on my link and suggested that Omar “drafted okay” in terms of his performance as Mets GM. That sparked an interesting debate on Omar’s drafting performance based on his ‘Top Picks’ in each of his years as GM. In the end, we realized that both view ‘drafting success’ a bit differently.

This morning, my friend put up an in-depth post over at Mack’s Mets, analyzing Minaya’s “Top 30 Picks” over his years as Mets GM. Now that the focus of the debate has shifted to his “Top 30 Picks”, my opinion on the subject of Minaya’s drafting performance changed, but not drastically. I come from the “what have you done for me lately” school of thought, and in my mind, Minaya’s drafting performance has produced, count it, two well-performing major leaguers in Jon Neise and Ike Davis. I could add Dillon Gee to that list, but he’s not a Top 30 Pick, so lets see how he adds on to his eye-opening 2011 performance in the upcoming season. You can read my full opinion in my friend’s writeup.

So I raise the question to my readers: How do you define “Draft Performance”?