Offseason Chat Transcript: New York Mets

Iirc the Mets need most of a rotation in FA, an entire bullpen, and a starting CFer, not to mention a solid 4th and 5th OFer on top of the roughly $138 million they have committed to just 8 players:

Scherzer 43m
Lindor, 34
Marte, 20m
Canha, 13m
McCann, 10m
Carrasco, 11m (effectively, 14m list)
Givens, 2.5m, pro rated

Figure $137m. They might bring Vogelbach at the team option of $1.5m (but not Darin Ruf, surely). Call it $138 plus arb raises for

Alonso, 15m
McNeil, 12m
Lucchesi 1.15m
Nido, 3m
Guillorme, 3m
Drew Smith, 2.5m

and renewals for these and a few others, presumably.

Peterson, 1.5m
Megill, 1.5m

That’s roughly $177 million for 16 players.

The 2023 Mets will still need an ace. Scherzer’s just not it. A brilliant pitcher projectable to 125 innings who has had severe problems late season and in the postseason for 2 consecutive years is not the ace of a contender, someone who can lead it through the postseason. In fact, given his increased injuries and need for rest the team would do well to use Scherzer in the #3 slot or put him on diet of 5 days of rest or even make him what used to be called “a Sunday pitcher,” for obvious reasons, particularly if it wants him remotely effective in October.

So figure two extremely good starters are necessary, one of 1A quality, then hope to flesh out the back of the rotation, the 4 and 5 slots with some combination of Carrasco, Peterson, Megill, Lucchesi, and the like. Perhaps adding in someone like Tyler Anderson, v. pre-2022, for luck. That’s adding something like $50m, overall. As The Great Zaidi said, you’re not looking to fill 5 rotation slots—you’re looking to put together 162 starts.

For the bullpen, figure Diaz at a $20m AAV and at least another $20m to fill the remaining slots.

Nimmo is likely to pull down at least 5/$110m, but my sense is he can’t wait to get the he!! away from any time still employing Sandy Alderson no matter how marginal the association. Bringing Nimmo back, if you can, gets you to $289m.

There’s still $24m going to Cano, another $15m for lux tax purposes acc to the CBA, iirc, 4th and 5th OFers and perhaps a real middle of the order hitter.

This is a very old, very expensive team already locked into the FA treadmill (SEE Steinbrenner, G.), with a respectable but not impressive farm, a team that’s only likely to get older with its 2022-23 offseason acquisitions. That’s the problem with the likes of Scherzer, Marte, and even Lindor. The Mets weren’t going to be serious contenders short of a $300m payroll, and if that extraordinary expense didn’t go particularly well, the team was only going to be that much older and that much farther into those players’ decline phases just when its farm flooded the MLB squad.

Such is the price of Cohen’s ego, and an Alderson-Eppler front office.