The Mets head into the 2026 draft with the 27th pick in the first round and just two selections inside the top 100, a setup that puts even more pressure on David Stearns to make the right calls. The farm system has already seen some of its best young talent move on, and while Stearns’ first few draft picks have shown promise - especially Carson Benge, who has already emerged as a cornerstone piece as a rookie - the front office can’t afford another miss that lands among the franchise’s biggest draft busts.
That history is a rough one.
One of the clearest modern examples came in 2022, when the Mets used the 10th overall pick in the 2021 draft on Kumar Rocker. Steve Cohen was thrilled when Rocker, viewed as one of the class’s top talents, slipped to New York at No. 10, and fans immediately started imagining him as a future rotation partner for Jacob deGrom.
But the Mets were spooked by Rocker’s medicals, slashed their offer, and ultimately couldn’t get a deal done. That meant they effectively gave up a first-round pick in a draft that produced players like Jackson Merrill and Colson Montgomery.
Rocker has since made it into the Texas Rangers’ rotation after they drafted him in 2022. The Mets, meanwhile, used the compensatory pick they received for not signing him on Kevin Parada, who has not developed at all. It’s the kind of one-two punch that turns a bad outcome into a brutal one.
The Mets have had better luck in some drafts than others, and Sandy Alderson’s early years brought a run of useful big leaguers in Brandon Nimmo, Dominic Smith, Michael Fulmer, Kevin Plawecki, and Michael Conforto. But Alderson’s first-rounder in 2012, Gavin Cecchini, never came close to matching that standard. A high school shortstop with plenty of amateur buzz, Cecchini never fully turned that promise into production.
He appeared in only 36 major league games, with 32 of them coming in the second half of the lost 2017 season. In 83 at-bats, he hit .217 with one home run and nine RBI.
After the 2019 season, he was out of the organization and never played in another big-league game. The sting only gets sharper when you remember the Dodgers grabbed Corey Seager six picks later.
The top pick has not been kind to the Mets, either. They have hit on it once, with Darryl Strawberry, but missed badly twice - including in 1984, when they took Shawn Abner first overall.
Abner signed for $150,500, then the highest bonus in baseball history, but he never became the star the Mets hoped for. New York traded him to San Diego in December of 1986 in the deal that brought Kevin McReynolds to Flushing.
Abner’s career never took off from there. The Padres got only middling production before moving him to the Angels and then the White Sox, and a serious knee injury ended his career in 1993. He finished with a .227 batting average, 11 home runs and 71 RBI in 392 games, a poor return for the top player in the draft.
The Mets also took a big swing in 2008 when they had three first-round picks. Ike Davis became the best of that group with a solid major league run, but Reese Havens was supposed to be the slick shortstop answer out of South Carolina.
Instead, injuries kept him from ever getting traction. He moved slowly through the minors, never really stood out, and peaked at Triple-A Las Vegas in 2013, where he hit .237.
Havens retired after that season without reaching the majors, a particularly painful outcome with Jose Reyes gone in free agency after 2011 and shortstop open for the taking.
And then there’s Bill Chilcott, the name that still sits near the top of any Mets draft-bust list. New York took him first overall in 1966 out of high school, but a serious shoulder injury in minor league ball in 1967 derailed everything.
The Mets released him in 1971, he tried to restart his career across town, and he retired in 1972 without getting past Triple-A. He became one of only three top overall picks never to reach the majors.
The pain is compounded by what the Mets passed on that year: Reggie Jackson, who went second to the A’s and became a Hall of Famer.
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