ST. LOUIS — Michael Wacha, Matt Harvey and Zack Wheeler?
As tantalizing as that bedrock rotation for the future might sound, the Mets never came close to making it a reality with the 12th overall pick in the 2012 draft.
Wacha, the stud Cardinals rookie, is the toast of baseball during a postseason in which he is 4-0 with a 1.00 ERA. He could have been Mets property — the Cardinals snagged him with the 19th overall pick in the draft two years ago — but the organization was intent on getting a position player in the first round. With the 12th overall pick, the Mets instead selected high school shortstop Gavin Cecchini, who spent the 2013 season at Single-A Brooklyn.
“Our guys liked Wacha a lot in 2012 — one of the top college pitchers on the board,” Mets VP of player development and amateur scouting Paul DePodesta told The Post on Friday.
But the Mets also liked their organizational pitching depth. At the time, Harvey was less than two months from making his major league debut and Wheeler was dominating at Double-A Binghamton. Jenrry Mejia was returning from Tommy John surgery and the Mets had four pitchers they drafted in rounds 2-5 of the 2011 draft — behind outfielder Brandon Nimmo — that were creating a buzz (Cory Mazzoni, Logan Verrett, Tyler Pill and Jack Leathersich). That didn’t include Michael Fulmer, whom the Mets had received with a compensation pick. The Mets also had young pitchers under their control on the major league staff in Jon Niese and Dillon Gee.
“Therefore, we were really focused on position players at the top of the 2012 draft,” DePodesta said. “We didn’t even sign a pitcher in that draft until our fifth selection. So, we really liked Wacha, and he was high up on our board, but as an organization we needed to use our high picks that year to create more value in our position player prospects.”
The 19-year-old Cecchini played 51 games for Brooklyn in 2013 and batted .273 with no homers and 14 RBIs, but missed three weeks with an ankle injury.
“We see him as an everyday shortstop in the major leagues,” DePodesta said. “He was one of the youngest players in the [New York/Penn] League.
“For a guy who should have been a freshman in college, it was pretty impressive.”
But scouts are lukewarm, at best, on Cecchini.
All Wacha has done is dominate October. The righty fireballer was the winning pitcher in Game 2 of the World Series against the Red Sox on Thursday after allowing two earned runs on three hits over six innings in the Cardinals’ 4-2 victory. The series, tied 1-1, resumes on Saturday at Busch Stadium.
Before Wacha surrendered a two-run homer to David Ortiz in the sixth on Thursday, he had extended his scoreless streak to 18 ²/₃ innings.
“After I gave up the home run, Yadier [Molina] came out there,” Wacha said Friday. “He said, ‘Get us back out there with no more runs. We’re going to score for you.’ ”
Molina wasn’t kidding. The Cardinals scored three runs in the seventh, with help from Boston pitcher Craig Breslow’s throwing error, to take a two-run lead, putting Wacha in line for the victory.
Wacha’s rise began on his final start of the regular season, when he took a no-hitter into the ninth inning against the Nationals before Ryan Zimmerman reached on a two-out infield single. In his next start, Wacha took a no-hitter into the eighth inning in Game 4 of the NLDS before Pedro Alvarez homered.
In fairness to the Mets, there were 17 other teams that passed on Wacha, a Texas A&M product, before the Cardinals selected him.
“He was a consensus first-rounder,” DePodesta said. “If anything, it may have been a bit of a surprise that he lasted until 19th.”