NY Mets lose draft-focused analyst to NL East rival

The biggest theft the Washington Nationals have pulled away from the New York Mets might be Daniel Murphy after the 2015 season. The Mets kind of left him unchained, letting the postseason hero leave for their NL East rival where he’d finish as the MVP runner-up in his first year in D.C.

Less immediately impactful but maybe more hurtful was a loss over the weekend. Desmond McGowan, who had been with the Mets organization since 2021, is leaving for the Nationals to lead their amateur scouting. Classified as a draft-focused manager of data science, his direct impact isn’t fully understood.

We can, however, come to a conclusion that McGowan was surely behind some of the better Mets draft picks in recent years. The Mets, to their credit, have been savvy in the later rounds of the draft. First-rounders Kevin Parada (2022) and Colin Houck (2023) haven’t turned out well. Christian Scott, Jonah Tong, Nolan McLean, and A.J. Ewing are among the non-first rounders who are trending toward becoming absolute steals in round three or later.

It’s a quiet change to the Mets franchise we won’t immediately understand

A story from 2021 upon the hiring of McGowan reminds us how far the Mets have come in a half-decade. Analytics weren’t a strength under the previous ownership group. Steve Cohen gets credit for spending on free agents. His openness and heavier focus on “nerding up” the front office deserves praise, too.

McGowan came over from the New York Yankees long before the Mets began their barrage of taking from the Bronx, predating Carlos Mendoza by several years. The move isn’t lateral with what appears to be an elevated role for McGowan.

The Mets should be fine without McGowan. A look at their current front office directory and we see a lengthy list of people in the analytics department.

This isn’t Jeremy Hefner and Antoan Richardson going to the Atlanta Braves. We’ll know immediately the kind of impact they have. With McGowan, it’s not until an 18-year-old high school kid from a small town in Texas gets drafted and years later eliminates the Mets from the NLCS when we’ll have a reason to grieve. They can cry when he convinces the front office to trade McKenzie Gore for a Mets prospect he scouted that flames out quickly.