20/20 Vision on Our 2020 Mets!!

Happy New Year, oh faithful readers of Mack's Mets and fellow Met-fanatics!!!! We hope you're having a great start to the year, as we welcome back our very own Reese Kaplan!! That means that the Mack's Mets family are now all off of the Disabled List and are ready to attack this coming season!!

As I'm sure many of you do, I regularly discuss our beloved team with my best friend of over 40 years throughout the entire year, but we tend to discuss things in greater depth during the off-season, as we focus on what went right and wrong from the prior season and what can we expect regarding roster additions during the Winter months. Now, with only 41 (GTS) days until pitchers/catchers report, let's do 2 things today- let's briefly discuss the Mets of 2019, and then briefly preview the coming season! We'll have the second part of this conversation again, in a few months, as the roster becomes more defined and we have an even better idea as to whom will be heading to Queens in the coming season.

First, let's flashback to February, 1978; it was the first season after the devastating trade of "the Franchise" George Thomas Seaver, as well as that of slugger Dave Kingman, and as a 14 year old fan at the time I tried to find every conceivable way for the Mets to actually contend that season. Maybe Pat Zachry could rediscover his ROY form of 2 years earlier; Jerry Koosman would surely have another great season; perhaps Nino Espinosa and Craig Swan would step up and become stalwarts of the rotation; Dan Norman, Steve Henderson and Lee Mazzilli would be an all-star trio in the outfield; Len Randle, Doug Flynn, Tim Foli and Willie Montanez would form a great defensive infield; and The DUDE, John Stearns, would be the starting catcher in that season's all-star game!! Okay- to say these scenarios were a stretch would be putting it far too lightly, but as a huge fan AND a teenager, I still had years to go before I would ever be accused of being jaded. 

Thankfully, the Mets team of 2019 was FAR from that ill-fated team of '78, and many of our favorites actually DID perform up to (and even bettered) their projections - and yes, JACK FLYNN, I was RIGHT about Pete Alonso hitting over 50 homers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (No I would NOT let you forget THAT one!) In fact, there is a very good chance that Alonso, Rosario, McNeil, Conforto, Davis and Ramos will duplicate (and in some cases, exceed) their excellent offensive years of 2019, while the ever-reliable Jacob deGrom will most certainly put in another stellar performance that will keep him in Cy Young Award contention for yet another season. 

In fact, not only was the 2019 team light years ahead of that '78 squad but, quite frankly, if just ONE of either Diaz or Familia had put up an average season in the bullpen, the team wins far more than 4 additional games and instead of the eventual World Champion Nationals making the play-offs, it was our beloved Mets in their place!! 

Sadly, there are some fans who have become so jaded that they couldn't even appreciate how far the team had come in one year from the 2018 model, and with just a little more luck it may have been deGrom standing tall in Houston instead of Strasburg! And NO, I have not been smoking skunk-weed again; just do the math. And I'm not even speculating about what very good (and healthy) seasons from Thor, Stroman and Cano would have done!!!

Like any off-season, the game that fans play is "who are we going to sign and trade for" so that we will win the World Series in the coming year. I'm sure no one bet that our additions would be Rick Porcello, Michael Wacha and Jake Marisnick; each one looking to either rebound from a challenging or injury-riddled season, or in the case of Jake, hoping for more playing time. Granted this wasn't an overly inspiring group of additions, but, quite frankly, there wasn't the need to overhaul a roster that was so close to the promised land last year (and man, it's always hard getting used to saying that a mere day into a new year/decade!) It was more a case of filling in some holes and upgrading where possible. And then came one of the two most important additions of the off-season (the first one being the hiring of new manager, Carlos Beltran); the team received a wonderful Christmas/Hanukkah present in the form of reliever (and ex-Yankee) Dellin Betances!! Now, the skeptic in me says "great, that's THREE relievers that need to bounce-back from injuries or under performance now." However, I'd rather see it as though our chances of having one of the three of them have a return to form has improved by at least one-third!! Now imagine if TWO of them return to form...oh, the mind HURTS from the thought!!!

Moving forward, we can most likely count on an addition to the catching ranks, and then some restocking of the AAA roster much in the same way as Brodie did last season, with ex-major leaguers on a combination of minor league and major league minimum deals. There are still 9 potential bullpen arms on the 40-man roster, and one would think that the chances of at least a single arm going from pathetic to just league-average would be in the cards, and then this once huge weakness is transformed to a position of strength. In fact, Baseball Prospectus just ranked the Mets bullpen as potentially being the #2 group in the National League, a spot I think we would all gladly settle for!! Add in a (hopefully) healthy Cespedes and a return-to-form for Brandon Nimmo and the prospects for a successful 2020 get better by the day. 

Bruce Boisclair, Butch Benton and Elliott Maddox they're not; and thank goodness for THAT!!!!

Next Week: A look at the new manager, Carlos Beltran, and some insight into the Mets Front Office