Reese Kaplan -- September Baseball As We Know It

At what point do you consider the club “out of it” as far as post-season hopes go?  To some, as long as it’s mathematically possible then you do everything in your power to try to get there.  I would be in this camp as well.  

Others think that once you reach a somewhat insurmountable deficit in the loss column, then you throw in the towel and begin planning for next year.  I’m not sure what that number is, but I think to say with less than a month to go, should the club fall into a double digit hill to climb just to reach the wildcard, it might be time to wave the white flag.  Certainly you look for signs and blowing a 6-run lead in the 9th inning would certainly qualify as one flashing in neon.  

Towards that end there are things the club needs to do to look at the possible roster for 2020.  I admit to some confusion regarding the new roster rules as I count 30 players on what I thought was supposed to be a September 1^st 28-man roster.  It turns out that the 28-man limit will not take place until 2020, so the club is still operating under the rules that applied in the past.  Recent additions include Walker Lockett, Brandon Nimmo, Sam Hagerty, Daniel Zamora, Rene Rivera, Tomas Nido and Tyler Bashlor.  Even Robinson Cano was reinstated yesterday.  Can Jed Lowrie be far behind?

Conspicuous in his absence thus far is Corey Oswalt who has twice garnered Minor League pitching honors.  All he did this year for Syracuse is go 10-4 with a 2.91 ERA, a WHIP of 1.142 and a strikeout to walk ratio of an eye popping 5.27.  Maybe the plan is to try to trade him based upon these numbers and not diminish his value by having him get pounded in the majors as he has in the past.  That could be a reason, though if the club should fall out of contention it would behoove them to take long looks at Oswalt and Lockett to see if either could be an option if Zack Wheeler departs as a free agent. 

Others who are missing in action are people who didn’t make the 40-man roster like Matt Blackham and Arismendy Alcantara.  We all saw Dilson Herrera opting out of his Mets deal when they didn’t promote him to the majors, yet Ruben Tejada signed again with his drafting organization after flaming out in his brief 2019 big league trial. 

I’m guessing that some of these decisions like Bashlor, Hagerty, Lockett and Zamora are to determine if they deserve to retain their precious spot on the 40-man roster or if they are destined to be DFAd at year’s end.  Not long ago I went through the 40-man roster and let’s just say there are a great many candidates on thin ice.

In the best of all possible worlds, Robinson Cano reclaims 2^nd base and performs as he has in the second half thus far, more like the player the club hoped they would be getting.  Jeff McNeil can slot into 3^rd base with the starting outfield usually being JD Davis, Brandon Nimmo and Michael Conforto.  When Jed Lowrie arrives, he complicates things a bit, but he’ll likely be that Ben Zobrist type of supersub player spelling three of the infielders when they need a break.  I can’t see him starting over Jeff McNeil.