Mike Freire - So, What's The Target?

I used to play fantasy sports quite a bit when I was in college since all of my roommates and friends were sports fans and we never shied away from some friendly competition.  During that time, I liked fantasy baseball more then the other sports since the season was longer and you had more time to plan and execute your strategy (or more time to recover from bad decisions, which was more common).

Playing that game made you focus on the entire roster in the effort to have the most balanced team. Ironically, the fantasy rosters and real life rosters are pretty similar (25 slots), as you can see below;

C, 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, LF, CF, RF, C2, CI, MI, OF4, OF5 and UTIL

SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4, SP5

SW1, RHR, LHR, RHS, LHS, CL

***Outside of the obvious abbreviations, CI means corner infielder, MI means middle infielder, SW means swing pitcher (possible starter and/or long reliever), while the back bullpen includes general relievers, set up delivers and a designate closer (CL).

So, how does this translate to the real life Mets?

I think this framework does a good job of identifying what positions the team needs to address during the offseason. You also have an extra body to play with this year since rosters are expanding to 26 players, instead of the previous cap of 25 (that slot will either add to the bullpen depth OR to the bench depending on injuries, etc).

In my estimation, the following 14 positions are accounted for;

C (Ramos), 1B (Alonso), 2B (Cano), SS (Rosario), LF (Nimmo), RF (Conforto), SP1 (DeGrom), SP2 (Syndergaard), SP3 (Stroman), SP4 (Matz), RHR (Familia), LHR (Wilson), RHS (Lugo), CL (Diaz)

Here are the 12 positions that are either up for grabs or represent outright vacancies on the roster, with the underlined positions deemed to be "starters";

CF, 3B, C2, CI, MI, OF4, OF5, UTIL, SP5, SW1, SW2 (or extra UTIL) and LHS

I know that some of the listed openings will be filled by players that are already on the roster but have not been officially linked to a position yet, such as Jeff McNeil (3B?), JD Davis (CI?), Luis Guillorme (MI?), Jed Lowrie (UTIL?), Dominic Smith (OF4?) and Robert Gsellman (SW1?).  I am sure that I am missing some additional folks on the 40 man roster that could play a role as well (such as the reclusive Yoenis Cespedes).

The random player or two aside, as you can see, almost half of the roster is in a state of flux and some of the players that will fill the void(s) are not yet New York Mets.  This is either worrying if you don't trust those in charge OR an excellent opportunity for the team to improve on their 86-76 record from a year ago.

What is your take on the open positions and who do you think BVW is targeting as the Winter Meetings and the free agent frenzy begins?