Reese Kaplan -- The 2023 Winter Meeting Agenda is Very Different

With the baseball winter meetings less than a week away, you have to wonder what the heretofore very quiet New York Mets have planned to try to prepare for the upcoming season.  

We all know the issues at hand -- starting pitching, relief pitching, when to integrate the youngsters, improving the DH position, upgrading the offensive output from the catcher(s), and figuring out who will be in the outfield.  

When Billy Eppler was brought on board last season he was part of the team that quickly signed the best available free agent outfielder in Starling Marte.  Then he was told to bolster the starting rotation.  In came the best of the available best in Max Scherzer for a salary that made the Wilpon-beaten Mets fans eyes nearly pop out of their heads.  

He engineered a trade to bring in the final pre-free agency year of Chris Bassitt.  He added the power hitting bat of Eduardo Escobar and the solid but unspectacular bat of Mark Canha.  

In the bullpen he brought in veteran Adam Ottavino, made a trade that sent Miguel Castro crosstown for Joely Rodriguez and auditioned a lot of returning hurlers to fill out the rest of the pen.  

Finally, let's not forget they wanted to have a more seasoned and successful manager take the helm.  He helped bring in none other than three time Manager of the Year, Buck Showalter.

Now today isn't the time to gauge the pros and cons of each of these moves, but rest assured for whatever the finally tally is that reached deep into Steve Cohen's pocket, the end result was 101 wins and an appearance to play October baseball.  

The club was sailing along in first place for most of the 2022 season by as wide a margin as 10 games ahead of the second place contender.  Let's not forget that Buck Showalter won his fourth Manager of the Year award, too.

The big differences for the 2023 season are in the risks of the MLB agreed upon rules for free agency and how short term solutions do not help build long term success.  

A great example of this folly is already in the air with discussions floating around about getting Adam Ottavino back on a one-year deal, possibly a reunion with Michael Conforto on a one-year make good deal, even released Cody Bellinger's short term rental has gotten a lot of press.

No, this year there's a different approach needed to build that framework outlined by Steve Cohen for a five-year plan to win.  He has already done the hard part -- gotten fans, media and the rest of the big leagues fully aware of what the Mets can do when they have they have the right personnel.  

The expectations have been raised significantly and no one is going to be content with the half measures they'd grown accustomed to accepting in the past.  

One of the less publicity worthy things the front office has done was to sign up folks to improve the development of all players, both hitters and pitchers, at the minor league level.  A problem the Mets have had in spades was getting to grow for the future in-house with top notch talent.  

The Wilpons were fond of trading away anyone who had not yet made it to the majors and playing the few internal options leftover when they were not willing to fork over what it would take to land more experienced talent.

Consequently, going into the winter meetings the Mets need to continue the reinforcement of their minors at the coaching and workout levels for sure, but also to be the recipient of some of the high level minor league prospects from other teams.  

Yes, the Mets are indeed fortunate enough to have Francisco Alvarez, Brett Baty and Mark Vientos all seeming ready to help them for the next 5 years or so, but there's a big gap after that for the prime talents (and very few who throw the ball).  

So instead of trading away someone like Alex Ramirez from AA to bring in a middle reliever or 4th outfielder, this time the Mets need to be the ones selling the folks who are deemed unworthy of the long term future to help buttress their pipeline for the future at the AAA and AA levels.  

In addition to the green-but-promising roster reinforcements, the club also needs to examine who is worth three-plus years in free agency or by absorbing existing contracts in trade.  It's relatively easy to identify who is currently property of the Mets who could find himself on the trading block.  Obviously James McCann and Eduardo Escobar would head that list.  That part is easy.  

Less obvious are some of the solid contributors whose age or maximum ability suggests they would at best be bench players in the near future.  Mark Canha would be an example here, as would Daniel Vogelbach.  Reserve infielder Luis Guillorme might be a starter for another club.  Darin Ruf is under contract but his value to another club would mirror his value to the Mets in 2022.  

Going forward it takes a mix of veteran stars, solid performers and promising rookies to create the balance needed to contend.  Last year was a mix of almost exclusively veteran players, most of whom are eligible to leave in free agency.  

That same model won't feed into that competitive balance necessary for October baseball year after year.  So while many people are focusing on the Jacob deGrom negotiations, the Brandon Nimmo negotiations and to a lesser extent Chris Bassitt, Taijuan Walker, Adam Ottavino and Seth Lugo, the fact is that there will be a lot of new faces wearing Mets uniforms in Port St. Lucie.  

The challenge to Billy Eppler is finding more unheralded players who flourish when given a chance, identifying minor league prospects and knowing how long to give struggling rookies a chance to establish themselves.  While buying a pennant was the formula used by other front offices for very expensive success, it's not necessarily the best way.