exactly. Hunter made it sound like the Mets fucked up by not signing him. Im sure he didnt know why. They get an extra first next year so who cares. Maybe thats why he dropped to the Mets. other teams knew something the mets didnt.
I am aware of the reported arm issues. It not so easy to just accept the company line here though.
- Kumar Rocker was rumored to have some arm issues, which is why he fell in the draft to begin with. The Mets must have been aware of the arm issues before drafting him; if they weren't, that's just negligence on their part.
- The Mets draft a kid with reported arm issues. They actually made an offer to sign him. So arm issues aren't the reason the Mets didn't sign Rocker as Lightweight would have you believe.
- The Cohen Mets didn't sign the kid because get this - they were $1M apart in negotiations. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss....
So no, it's not so cut and dry to take the Mets PR line about the Mets discovering some kind of unforeseen arm issues which were totally impossible to have known about before hand and handcuffed them from signing Rocker. They still could have signed Rocker; they wanted to sign him; they made him an offer; but in the end, they pulled a Wilpon on cheaped out.
The ironic part? Their entire draft plan strategy revolved around signing him, so this is a double fuck-up by the baseball ops team. They had enough amateur draft money budgeted to sign him too.
As far as the actual extent of his injury, it's a he-said she-said situation; the Mets believe that the MRIs showed concerning damage while Rocker's team has stated multiple orthopedic surgeons have assessed the MRI shows no significant changes from his previous one in 2018.
Getting a compensation pick this year doesn't negate not signing one of the premier pitchers of this year's draft, who they very much wanted, and again would have signed, but cheaped out on.