Reese Kaplan -- The Not-So-Happy Recap

Well, Mets fans, I’m back in the good old United States after spending time in Canada, Italy, Israel, Cypress, Turkey, Greece and Switzerland.  Apparently some things happened in Metsville while I was gone, so it’s time to take a look at the good, the bad and the ugly.

The Good

The Mets retained the services of Chili Davis who helped instill a contact philosophy which resulted in highly positive offensive numbers for anyone not named Lagares, Panik, Altherr, Gomez or Broxton.  The further good news is that none of the above will be on the 40-man roster as the hot stove heats up.

The award season is upon us and both Polar Bear Pete Alonso and Jacob d’Best now have new decorations for their respective fireplace mantles. 

The Bad

Zack Wheeler has opted not to play for the man for whom he was traded and thus leaves the Mets with a big hole in the starting rotation.  Given the sad state of last year’s bullpen, the proffered plan of moving either Seth Lugo or Robert Gsellman to the starting rotation doesn’t seem to be a particularly good idea to anyone but BVW.  Granted, Lugo would be doing cartwheels as his impending free agency approaches since starters get paid stupid money compared to middle relievers.  However, you don’t take a weakness and make it still weaker to address another problem.  Well, I wouldn’t, anyway…

Jed Lowrie is apparently still doing his Citifield version of Where’s Waldo?  Even his former agent and now boss was left without a solid answer when asked what could be expected from him this year.   Ditto Yoenis Cespedes.

The Ugly

Carlos Beltran is back in a Mets uniform, not to swat balls over the fence, track them with his glove or swiping bags.  No, he’s not even here to steal signs. 

He’s being asked to do what he’s never done before – manage a baseball team.  At least the last guy had some time under his belt as a pitching coach.  Beltran doesn’t even have a single inning of coaching or managerial experience.  It was clearly a choice made for someone who BVW and the Wilpons felt they could control, who would not command solid managerial candidate money and finally could allow them to pat themselves on the back for wresting someone away from the Yankee organization.  Someday they need to get over that kind of jealousy. 

If I Were a Rich Man…

The Mets clearly identified issues they need to address.  They want to improve CF defense if possible.  They need another starter.  They need to fix the bullpen.  On the first one, there is not much there in terms of free agency, so they either go into 2020 with Brandon Nimmo between Michael Conforto and J.D. Davis or Jeff McNeil, or they’re going to have to go into the trade market.  Marcell Ozuna was once a centerfielder but he’s since moved to a corner position. 

For pitchers, it would seem to be easy to address the loss of Wheeler by adding Gerrit Cole, Madison Bumgarner or Stephen Strasburg, but these are the penurious Mets who routinely look for value propositions and not proven talents in their prime.

For bullpen, don’t color me surprised that a winning team like the Braves already moved to address a need by signing free agent Will Smith on the first day of eligibility after he declined his QO.  The Mets under Sandy Alderson “waited for the market to come to them” which was baseball-speak for “see who will whore themselves out for pennies on the dollar as Spring Training approaches.”  How’d that approach work for ya?

There are plenty of other reliever fish in the sea, but it would behoove them come up with some semblance of an aggressive plan.  I could even live with the rumored move of Lugo to the rotation if he was replaced with two solid arms like Dellin Betances, Will Harris, Daniel Hudson and Drew Pomeranz to name a few.  Add two of them to go along with Justin Wilson, Jeurys Familia and Edwin Diaz, then maybe you can risk Lugo transitioning to the starting five. 

Tom quantified the ability for the Mets to go over the luxury tax threshold for a single year until many salaries are off the books at the conclusion of the 2020 season.  My take was that $75 per head would only require a blip of 27,000 in the annual attendance to pay the luxury tax penalty.  We did play meaningful games in September.  Now let's build upon that to take the next steps...