Shuffling the Cards: A Pre-Spring Training Look at the 25-Man Roster

There are a great many decisions to be made, but following up on last week’s “Channeling Your Inner Alderson” article, let’s examine who should make the Opening Day roster:

Pitching:

Vic Black

Josh Edgin

Gonzalez Germen

Bobby Parnell

Scott Rice

Ryan Reid

Carlos Torres

Bartolo Colon

Dillon Gee

Jenrry Mejia

Jon Niese

Zack Wheeler

Jeurys Familia is likely ticketed back to AAA to work on his control issues.  Joel Carreño would really have to turn some heads as he’s not currently on the 40-man roster. Jeff Walters needs to prove last year was not a fluke and Jack Leathersich needs to figure out how to hit the catcher's glove.  

The bullpen is young with Scott Rice, Carlos Torres and Bobby Parnell being the relative graybeards at just 32, 31 and 29 respectively.  A lot of people are clamoring for the “veteran” reliever to be signed to stabilize this crew of rather green talent, but unless the veteran they have in mind is someone with huge success in the past like Grant Balfour, Fernando Rodney or Kevin Gregg (all of whom would still have “closer” as their goal) there’s not really much upside in inking experienced but mediocre pitchers still available like Carlos Marmol, Frank Francisco or Rich Hill.  The other decent arms out there on injury rehab like Joel Hanrahan and Andrew Bailey won’t help until the ASB at the earliest. 

John Lannan is most likely an insurance policy.  If Jenrry Mejia is not healthy enough to start then he would get the call as this year’s Shaun Marcum – a veteran who can tread water in the 5^th starter role until just before the All-Star break when the AAA youngsters might be deemed ready for promotion. 

Offense:

Ike Davis

Daniel Murphy

Ruben Tejada

David Wright

Curtis Granderson

Juan Lagares

Chris Young

Travis d’Arnaud

Matt den Dekker

Zach Lutz

Anthony Recker

Anthony Seratelli (must be added to the 40-man roster)

Eric Young

Figuring out the composition of the bench is quite a bit more challenging than the rotation and bullpen.  Let’s start with the no brainer members of the bench.  Eric Young and Anthony Recker seem to be locks to be on the big club.  After that it becomes murkier.  

As I opined last week Lucas Duda is essentially too one-dimensional to keep on the bench as he offers no defensive versatility and no speed.  With a $1.5 million or more contract looming, he’s at risk of being cut rather than paying another player at Eric Young level to sit on the bench. 

Josh Satin and Zach Lutz are redundant – pick one.  Personally I’d rather see them give Lutz his shot (finally) assuming he’s healthy and stash Satin in the minors as his strikeout totals were becoming alarming.  Lutz can play both of the corners, also bats right handed and has much more power than Satin.  With Young around as a utility man, the emergency starts at 2B for Satin become far less of an issue. 

Since Taylor Teagarden is not on the 40-man roster, I’d expect him to offer some veteran guidance to the pitchers in Las Vegas where Centeño should be the starter. 

Wilfredo Tovar hasn’t had enough time at AAA to say he’s mastered that level, so I expect he’ll play shortstop every day for the 51s.  However, the backup to Ruben Tejada is a very interesting question.  If they were willing to live with Justin Turner as the occasional shortstop, then there’s no reason they wouldn’t consider career minor leaguer Anthony Seratelli for that backup role as he offers power, speed, OBP, switch hitting and plays pretty much everywhere but catcher.  If so, Omar Quintanilla may be enjoying the desert sun.  Neither are on the 40-man roster, so I would expect it to be an open competition.  Let’s hope if they do move in this direction he works out better than the last jack-of-all-trades, Vinny Rottino, did.

As much as I’d like to see Wilmer Flores on the Opening Day roster, the fact is that unless they want to switch Murphy to 1B to allow Flores to play 2B where he’s recently been most familiar, it’s unlikely they would give him a 1^st baseman’s glove to learn the position at the major league level. 

Kirk Nieuwenhuis has probably worn out his welcome.  He doesn’t have the defensive acumen of Matt den Dekker, though he’s not bad.  However, his strikeouts were mounting rapidly.  Their minor league numbers are rather similar and the future for either one is as a backup outfielder.  My vote would be for den Dekker to get his shot. 

Andrew Brown flashed occasional power off the bench and in infrequent starts, but he was not consistent enough to cement a bench role.  His defense is inferior and he offers no speed.  My prediction is if they keep Lutz for power then Brown may be an odd man out.  The three starting outfielders would be backed up by den Dekker, Eric Young and Seratelli. 

Cesar Puello hasn’t been in AAA before and he needs to prove his 2013 was not a fluke and he’ll be facing the next level of pitching.  He did poorly in the post-2013 regular season efforts, so he’ll be under something of a microscope. 

It’s not likely that the Mets will make some of these moves.  The Seratelli promotion, cutting Duda, promoting Lutz and jettisoning Brown all would take more guts than they have typically shown with conservative roster management.  Still, it should make for an interesting time in Port St. Lucie next month with a full camp and a great many jobs up for grabs.