The only two players selected by the Mets in the 2002 and 2003 amateur drafts worth mentioning, respectively, were Scott Kazmir and Lastings Milledge. You can take that with a grain of salt, as the 2004 draft failed to produce even one.
Such was the state of the minor league system inherited by then general manager Omar Minaya in 2005.
In an effort to balance both short and long-term goals, the contracts of his many higher priced acquisitions were timed to expire just as a crop of new talent was expected to emerge from a replenished farm system, whom in turn would then be led by veterans Jose Reyes and David Wright.