Reese Kaplan -- More to the Roster Than Free Agents & Trades

There's an aphorism in baseball and in business that sometimes it's better to change assets a year too soon rather than a year too late.  Some good Mets examples would be the seemingly early push out the door for Steven Matz who landed a deal with Toronto and then St. Louis, but overall since departing Citifield has gone on to a solid 19-10 record but with a 4.17 ERA and only amounted to 39 games pitched over that two year span rather than the 66 or so that would be expected.  On the year too late front, I don't want to appear to be picking on a Hall of Famer, but Willie Mays was clearly over his best baseball, having finished up with the Giants in 1972 hitting under .200.  With the Mets for the remainder of that season and the following one at age 42 he combined to hit just .238 with 14 HRs and 44 RBIs in an aggregate total of roughly one year of play.  Apparently the owners felt that his name recognition would make up for the latter stage diminished skills.  It didn't.  

Nowadays there is trend on teams not playing in Queens to lock up their young stars before they become prohibitively expensive and flourish elsewhere.  The Braves are very good at taking this approach and other ballclubs have followed suit with this approach.  Sometimes it works.  Other times the player would rather see what the market would bear and isn't interested in taking a hometown discount.  

While the majority of the debate this off season has been about the 13 free agents and the necessity to secure the players people feel are most critical to future success, the fact is that the Mets are also enjoying some outstanding younger players who might be worth considering for those lengthy type of contracts to make sure they're available for the foreseeable future.  There is no magic formula to this approach where you favor one position over another or starters over relievers.  It simply means you want to keep the productive players in-house for as long as possible.  

Take the case of Jeff McNeil, for example.  He was a late bloomer, not arriving to the majors due to some injury issues until he was already 26 years old as a mid year call up in 2018.  His hitting tool has been terrific since his arrival and he can proudly proclaim a lifetime batting average of .307 including his National League batting title this past season.  He's done this job while playing second base, third base, left field, right field and DH.  For all this effort he earned an annual salary in 2022 of a rather modest $3 million.  He's arbitration eligible in both 2023 and 2024, meaning his free agency doesn't happen until after the conclusion of the 2024 World Series.  

By contrast, Pete Alonso broke in at age 24 in 2019 by winning the National League home run title and Rookie of the Year.  He followed that up with solid seasons in 2020  and 2021, then capped his achievements this past year by winning the National League RBI title and finishing second with "only" 40 Home Runs.  Now the Mets did something very alien to them in 2021 and raised his salary well above what was allowed for a young, controlled player who could rightly have plodded along with modest 6-figure salary increases each season.  He jumped from $676K per season to $7.4 million for 2022.  It was obvious they recognized the value his presence had in the Mets lineup and wanted him to see that he was going to be a fairly compensated part of the team's future.  Alonso is on the same path as McNeil with arbitration eligibility for two more years before becoming an unrestricted free agent after 2024 baseball ends.

So here's the rub for the Mets to consider as they ponder the amount of money players like Shohei Ohtani, Juan Soto, Aaron Judge and others will command when they are free to sell themselves to the highest bidder.  Judge already declined a 7-year $213 million offer from the Yankees.  Soto said no to a 15-year $440 million Washington Nationals proposal.  Ohtani got paid by the Angels and is earning every penny, but he spent 2022 at a modest $5.5 million salary before signing up for a $30 million contract for 2023.  

Now think back to these two examples on the Mets.  If you could lock up Jeff McNeil to the tune of say $16 million per season for the next 5 years, that's only $80 million total.  If the price for Alonso is double that number and you have to go longer given that he's three years younger, would an eight-year $256 million deal break the Cohen bank?  I'd think not (though it's entirely possible he'd want to get into that $40 million plus stratosphere as well).  

The point here is that you have an opportunity to reinforce what is working at relatively modest cost as compared to hoping that the next major free agent you overpay to get towards the latter part of his career will perform as well.  As much as I will enthusiastically debate who should stay and who should go in the free agent bidding war, let's not forget there are important players who are not free agents anytime soon who deserve just as much attention right now.