In the Mets’ war room during the 2006 draft, among the team’s officials in attendance was a relatively young area scout named Steve Barningham, whom the organization had hired about seven months earlier to search for talent in North Florida.
As the draft wore on, and scouts around the room made cases to draft players they had spent months following and evaluating, Barningham kept nagging the Mets to draft Daniel Murphy, a sweet-swinging hitter from Jacksonville University.
Barningham knew it was a tough sell. Scouting directors tend to prefer players who fit cookie-cutter profiles — players with big power or a stellar glove or blazing speed — whose future is easy to project.