Reese Kaplan -- Progress Towards Opening Day (Kind Of)

Roster construction news is an ever changing medium as illnesses, injuries and incompetence constantly weigh heavily on who does and who does not make the ballclub.  Some folks are absolute givens for the team playing to a vacant Citifield, like Jacob deGrom, Pete Alonso and Jeff McNeil.  Then there are the others “mysteriously” missing from camp like Brad Brach and Robinson Cano who may or may not be suffering the effects of the COVID-19 virus.  HIPAA laws prevent announcing the test results unless the players themselves choose to do so themselves like Aroldis Chapman did across town.  

Right now there are many people not shedding too many tears about the possibility of Robinson Cano volunteering to take the season off at no pay.  Not only does it mean Jeff McNeil could return to his natural position at second base, but given Cano’s lackluster performance in his first New York Mets portion of his contract, it would likely be an improvement.  Of course, these same folks don’t think it through entirely, not realizing who would play 3rd base and who would play left field.  J.D. Davis can’t do both simultaneously (nor well).  Yoenis Cespedes may or may not be ready to play Opening Day, but DH would suit his limited mobility better than on the field.  The real winners here would be the Wilpons who might duck out from under the remainder of the paycheck due to Cano.

On Saturday I saw the first 60-man roster published but it seemed highly premature.  The club doesn’t know who is healthy enough to receive the assignments, there were something like 8 catchers under roster consideration and the outfield looked pretty slim indeed after the group with plenty of major league experience.  What called the list into question even further was that after the initial members were listed, a whole other list of players appeared with no indication of their status.  I’m guessing it was someone’s evaluation of who should be included, not anything official from the Mets.  Given that the Mets had just 51 identified (minus two MIA ballplayers listed above), it’s highly unlikely that the final 9 to 11 names miraculously were written in ink.

Of course, with more and more players being named infected or who have chosen to bypass this overgrown exhibition season of 60 games, no single team can rightly claim to have identified who is on the opening 30-man roster and who is on the 30-man taxi squad.  Availability of ballplayers seems mostly fluid.  For the Mets to be at the forefront of this decision making seems highly unlikely as they are known as feet draggers.

Whatever rendition of baseball begins in less than two weeks, everyone will be glad to have something resembling the game back, even without fans, with a DH and with the extra innings rule.  As much as the pandemic has overwrought our imaginations and stress levels, having something more normal to occupy a few hours per day of our time is going to be a welcome relief.  While no one ever expected baseball to begin in late July, no one ever expected to be wearing a face mask and disinfecting tactile surfaces multiple times per day either.  You adapt.