Jealousy is a terrible thing. You see your rivals do things to bring their clubs further down the road to post-season contention by securing players like Will Harris, Will Smith, Travis d'Arnaud, Darren O'Day, Starlin Castro, Daniel Hudson and Eric Thames, then you see your own club "improving" through the additions of Yefry Ramirez, Steve Gonsalves and career .227 hitter Jake Marisnick. One (or more) of these things is not like the other...
With the tepid (to be generous) performances of Edwin Diaz, Jeurys Familia, Jed Lowrie, Robinson Cano, Yoenis Cespedes and others, it was most surprising to see the Mets rally into a contending style team for the post-All Star Game portion of the season. It looked as if there was a foundation formed, though different than what was anticipated, and this off-season was going to be used to build upon the fine improvement achieved late last year. Instead, there was a lot of waving goodbye to free agents, scrap heap picking other clubs' cast-offs and one solid addition of an injury ravaged reliever. Why does it appear that the guy the Mets brought in to shake up the conservative thinking of the past has all of the sudden gone all head-in-the-sand while his competitors seek to improve their teams?
Several theories have surfaced as to why the Mets are not moving more aggressively towards post-season probability. Most of them have money as the root of all inertia. First there was the wished-for but not-even-rumored possibility that the Wilpon family finally would take their money and run by inviting one of the minority owners to ascend the ranks of power. No one rightly saw the Steven Cohen change coming, and although it's technically not a real deal just yet, the highlights suggest it's merely a matter of dotting the i's and crossing the t's.
Of course, no one knows if this deal was an exclusive offer to Cohen or if the shares merely went to the highest bidder from anywhere? If that possibility was on the table, then it would explain the reluctance to go even deeper in debt with a higher payroll which would make it that much more difficult to entice someone to join in on a financially unfavorable enterprise. Towards that end, one could see why there was so little effort put into spending money and increasing payroll. The specter of the payroll penalties hitting would make any prospective outside investment that much dimmer.
Interestingly, many folks are grasping onto the Cohen news as the panacea to the years of Wilpon weaknesses. Granted, any port in a storm is a valid cliched approach to fanning the flames of misguided optimism. Being a perpetual pessimist, I will believe Cohen changes nothing until he actually does. Consequently, I view the change as potentially positive as we have seen very little commitment to winning from the Wilpon brigade, but I'm not expecting the Mets to transition into a Steinbrenner-era Yankee club spending its way into championships.
With the payroll changes likely happening after 2020 when the payroll picture is quite different, it's entirely possible the club can be rebuilt with some significant increase in spending without crossing the $208 million plateau. Marcus Stroman, Yoenis Cespedes, Jed Lowrie and others will likely no longer be here and that difference alone could mean two superstar caliber talents joining the club without actually increasing payroll. I'm not as optimistic about 2020 as I am about 2021 and the future, but to be fair the off-season is not yet over and more changes could still occur.
9 comments:
Reese, I will respectfully disagree.
The bullpen could move into the 3.50 to 3.75 ERA range from last year's 5.00 result with just some small amount of luck - that would add several wins.
Lowrie was truly better than Todd Frazier in 2017 and 2018 - if he is healthy again, that could be an upgrade.
If Nimmo is healthy, he is a huge upgrade over the slop that filled in the 3 months he was out.
That said, I would still like to see another pen arm added, to avoid using reliever (and even starter) call ups, who frankly have been mostly awful in 2018 and 2019. That would add wins over 2019.
And a back up catcher, unless they are expecting a lot more out of Nido (or Sanchez) than I am seeing from those two.
A healthy Cespedes return would be a great problem to have.
I'm with Tom, there seems to be a lot of upside. I of course am an optimist by nature... there were just so many injuries and under performances by many key guys. I guess on the flip side there are always injuries that are going to happen. I'm still really not happy about Nido as our backup and would love to see them upgrade Gsellman.
We now have evidence that Reese is fully healed (mentally if not physically). His perpetual pessimism has been a counterpoint to my own optimism for many years, here and elsewhere.
Of course, I disagree with with just about all in today's post, but it's a refreshing challenge.
Welcome back, Reese😜
Reese,
I think the biggest blunder was already committed by the Mets and that was to allow Wheeler to walk. The Mets needed to keep deGrom, Wheeler, Syndergaard together for years to come.
Now the Mets are dragging their feet with Syndergaard and Conforto. They should both be extended as they are integral parts of the team.
For 2020 I expect the team to improve simply by having a better BP. Diaz and Familia can't get worse so it can only get better. Cespedes may be the impact player that puts the Mets over the top IF and that is IF he comes back healthy and plays at close to the level he was before.
Speaking of Cespedes, if a wild boar caused me to break my foot, he would have been dinner that night for sure.
I expect the Mets to improve to somewhere around 93 wins or so.
Anonymous, 93 wins and a boar barbecue would be all right with me.
Wheeler? Time will tell. He was expensive. Will he be worth the $$?
The bullpen underachieved and should be better. Mets should be in the playoff hunt. This a solid team.
I disagree completely. The winter between 85 and 86 we were in a very similar situation. We missed the playoffs by 3 games, granted the team won 98 games that year, but it's a much easier make with the current wild card format.
But the winter of 85 and 19 are similar in that the rotation a lineup were pretty set, we dont want or need big changes. Let the group gel. If you want to be negative that's an easy thing to do and sadly with the mets you'd be right more times than wrong over the years. But this is baseball and inside all the analytics and estimates it's still about team chemistry and having the right mix to succeed. I like where we are from that prospective and I think we've got 10 to 12 more wins in this group as it stands.
Will Harris, Will Smith, Travis d'Arnaud, Darren O'Day, Starlin Castro, Daniel Hudson and Eric Thames, that worries you? Really? Not me because there is not a single difference maker here.
Jon B, I agree. Pen = playoffs.
Anonymous, I agree with most, but I think one difference maker for 2019 and 2020 would have been d'Arnaud. You need a catcher who can go 60-80 games if the top guy gets hurt. TDA is far better than Nido.
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