Mets 360 - How close are the Mets to playoff contention?

 

By Brian Joura November 24, 2020

Sandy Alderson had a press conference on Monday. Nothing really unexpected or particularly noteworthy on the surface happened. But anytime Alderson speaks at length, there are always things that jump out. To me, the most interesting thing that he said was the following:

“I don’t think we’re a player away. I think we need more than that. Do we have a good foundation? Yes. I think we have an excellent foundation.”

Did anyone think that the Mets were just a player away? It seems to me that most fans were advocating for the club to sign Trevor Bauer, J.T. Realmuto and George Springer not just because Steve Cohen has the money to do it but because all three of those guys address holes in the current roster. The rotation is thin, there’s not a starting catcher currently on the team and the center field defense last season was not good.

The 2019 Braves won the division for the second straight year and amassed 97 Wins. In the offseason they imported Travis d’Arnaud, Cole Hamels and Marcell Ozuna. If a 97-win team felt it necessary to make three significant moves – why would anyone think a team that was on pace for a 70-win season was just a player away?

The real question is: Can the Mets bring in the necessary players in one offseason to address enough needs to be a serious playoff contender?

And the answer to that likely depends on if you think they’re closer to the 86-win team they were in 2019 compared to the 70-win pace they played at last season. The big difference is that the 2020 squad was down three starting pitchers from the previous year. Right now, they’re down one or two pitchers, depending on how much, if any, Noah Syndergaard is able to contribute in 2021.

The Mets essentially had six pitchers who started the vast majority of games for them in 2019, as deadline deals sent out Jason Vargas and brought in Marcus Stroman. Those six starters combined for 19.8 fWAR. How far away are the current Mets from that total? If they add Bauer and he pitches like he did in 2020 over an entire season, you’d have to think they were pretty close.

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