Even in the free-agency era, the importance of a strong farm system cannot be overestimated. Good minor leaguers can be an on-field asset. They can bring something back — a draft pick, a player, an international signing slot. Fifty years earlier, Murphy knew the Mets’ development of homegrown pitchers (Seaver, Koosman, Gentry, McAndrew, Ryan) would be their present and future. He resisted trading any of them.

2. Hire the right manager

When Murphy took over the Mets before the 1968 season, fans were getting restless. The losing had gone on too long; there was too little improvement in the team’s six seasons. Murphy felt the Mets needed an attitude adjustment. He had signed much of the young talent as the Mets’ chief scout. He had wrangled Hodges, a rising managerial star, from the Washington Senators, to New York with a trade. And he was convinced that the 1967 Red Sox — who jumped from ninth place to the World Series in one season — benefited from the gruff discipline of Manager Dick Williams.

“I’m a bad loser,” Murphy said once. “I’ve always been with winners, and we didn’t always have the best club. But we had the winning spirit.”

The 1967 Mets were managed by the uninspiring Wes Westrum on the way to a 61-101 record. Then a team vice president, Murphy was summoned during the 1967 World Series to coerce the Senators’ general manager, George Selkirk — his former teammate on the Yankees — into allowing Hodges out of his contract to manage the Mets.

A skilled negotiator — Murphy was the American League’s first player rep in 1946 and instrumental in getting owners to create the first pension plan — he was unrelenting in his quest.

Selkirk gave in after the Mets threw in $100,000 and pitcher Bill Denehy for Hodges. A month later, Murphy replaced Bing Devine as the Mets’ G.M.