NEW YORK -- Bunched together, the brightest faces of the Mets' farm system crowded into a photo frame on Monday -- all of them at different stages of their development, but with a singular goal.
There was Amed Rosario, the Mets' Sterling Minor League Co-Player of the Year; Dominic Smith, the Double-A Binghamton Co-Player of the Year; P.J. Conlon, the organizational Pitcher of the Year, and so many others. All of them played well enough to earn accolades from the Mets, not to mention a free trip to New York City.
"I really improved on my year and finished how I wanted to finish," said Smith, who hit .302 with a career-high 14 home runs at Binghamton. "I helped my team win a bunch of games, and just played hard. I feel like I took strides in the second half to do that."

A pair of Sterling Award winners, T.J. Rivera and Brandon Nimmo, were already in Flushing as September callups. For the other dozen Mets Minor Leaguers, Monday's agenda -- a tour of Citi Field, a press junket, an on-field ceremony and a community-service event -- offered a chance to experience life in the big leagues.

Rosario and Smith, the Mets' first- and second-ranked prospects, respectively, according to MLBPipeline.com, have climbed enough to the Majors that they could soon grow used to this sort of thing.
"It was an excellent year," said Rosario, who hit .324 with 19 stolen bases over two levels. "I got to do a lot of development, so just based off that, I would call it an excellent year."