Reese Kaplan -- Preventing Runs From Scoring is Priority #1

With the upcoming winter meetings the fans and media are already in overdrive concerning what the Mets can and should be doing with respect to improving upon their 101 win season in 2022.  With half their players available to become free agents, other than Edwin Diaz there has been no tangible evidence of progress being made on anyone else.  

Granted, if you are a two-time Cy Young Award winning pitcher, a highly sought-after center fielder or any number of other pitching arms and swinging bats you would think there's going to be a bit of a wild auction season starting.  Some would say the Mets are smart to let other teams overpay for their now former team members.  Others would say the smarter play is to lock folks up before they hit the open market to secure them without having to pay in effect a competition tax to match whatever the other prospective employers are willing to pay.  

The most optimistic sorts among us (and there are a few) seem to feel that the Mets are going to allow a certain amount of payroll to walk away in order to create playing time for the up and coming minor leaguers who appear to have accomplished pretty much all they can do without adjusting to the next higher level of pitching and hitting in the major leagues.  

I'm not going to sit here and predict what Francisco Alvarez, Brett Baty, Mark Vientos and others will do when getting 300+ ABs of playing time rather than just a cup of late season coffee.  Whoever is good will flourish, whoever isn't will get used to the Uber rides between Syracuse and Flushing, and others may be marketed heavily as trade prospects to land players from other teams to address specific needs.

What are those needs for the Mets coming into the 2023 season?  In a single word -- pitching!  Right now there's no guarantee Jacob deGrom, Chris Bassitt or Taijuan Walker will be coming back to start games at Citifield any more than there is Mychal Givens, Seth Lugo, Trevor May, Adam Ottavino, Joely Rodriguez or Trevor Williams will be riding a retro version of the bullpen cart into relieve games.  

Yes, there is a need to figure out what to do with the potentially vacated outfield position of Brandon Nimmo, how to get more productivity out of the catching position and how to ensure the DH role delivers more offense than a bad AAA fringe player.  However, without the arms available to start and finish games, it doesn't matter how impactful the offense becomes if the arms are giving up more runs than the bats are scoring.  

Now in the past the Mets route to prospective pitching success was built upon either mid level starters, failed prospects or a myriad of AAAA types who were too good for the minors but never steady enough with their arsenal to stick in the majors.  Then there was the over-the-hill route where you hope someone with a long history of solid performance can somehow rustle together at least one more year of command in order to help the team win.  

Sometimes an older player like Bartolo Colon, Rich Hill or Adam Ottavino arrives in the locker room and exceeds all expectations.  Other times you get lower level veterans like Kenny Rogers, Michael Wacha and Victor Zambrano show you why they never advanced further up to this point in their careers.  

As much as you read about the Mets considering folks like Justin Verlander and aces of that ilk if Jacob deGrom should leave, there's not been much conversation about the second through fifth starter positions (slotting in Carlos Carrasco wherever you feel he deserves to be).  On the bullpen side there's been even less chatter.  

It's not necessarily a bad thing that the current front office is operating under a more confidential manner than the moving lips leakiness of the recent past.  Still, it would be good to know there is a solid plan in place to address these many hurling needs.  The Mets have already dispensed with Givens, they're unlikely to retain Lugo and May, and the only one of the remainder who generates any copy at all is a round two with Ottavino.  

Even if they do spend big for another year or two from him hoping for a repeat of 2022, that still leaves everyone else leaving to be replaced with no clue who those new faces and arms will be.  

While there is no reason the Mets should ignore offense in pursuit of fortifying the guys on the mound, the fact is that hitters are relatively easier to find than are decent pitchers.  You can't forego all offense in the hope you'll reinvent a fantasy team pitching staff, but at the same time you do have to prioritize your needs.  

Right now they have two signed starting pitchers, two relatively unproven younger arms in Tylor Megill and David Peterson, and not much else for starting games.  The pen contains Edwin Diaz, Drew Smith and not a whole lot else.  Pitching is the top priority for sure.