Reese Kaplan: Not Every Transaction Makes Cover Page Headlines

Obviously there is a lot of enthusiasm and hope generated by the off-the-wall spending of the 2022-2023 offseason New York Mets. There's been barely a murmur about Jacob deGrom after the signing of Justin Verlander. 

They brought back Edwin Diaz and Brandon Nimmo without too much of a fight. Now they have Kodai Senga and Jose Quintana on tap to replace the departed Chris Bassitt and Taijuan Walker. 

Returning starting pitchers Max Scherzer and Carlos Carrasco round out a pretty formidable rotation. Oh yeah, then there's David Robertson in the pen backing up Diaz, with lefty Brooks Raley joining Drew Smith, John Curtiss and Zach Greene among the collection of wannabes hoping to land in the bullpen.

Yes, there are still things to be done. The outfield is painfully thin after the starters. No one is sure where and how much you will see Brett Baty, Mark Vientos and Eduardo Escobar. 

 Then there's the catching quandary with James McCann, Tomas Nido and newcomer Francisco Alvarez. Everyone would like to see some additional home run power and perhaps another veteran arm to lend the starters an assist.

What's somewhat lost in all of this roster reconstruction for 2023 is the future after this season takes place. Somewhat under the radar the Mets have also been building up a supply of draft picks through some of their luck (both good and bad).

First there are the traditional slots that come from where the team finishes in the standings. In the opening of the draft they have a pick in each round towards the bottom of the pack due to their high finish in 2022. However, there are three more picks this year due to an inability to come to terms with previous selection Brandon Sproat. That makes for a fifth draft pick. Then they made Qualifying Offers which were declined by pitchers Chris Bassitt who chose to go north of the border to Toronto and Taijuan Walker who in effect replaces the now-departed Noah Syndergaard who just hooked up with the Dodgers. 

So in four rounds of baseball drafting the Mets are actually up to seven picks in total.

Remember that baseball is not just about winning in any given season, but also about setting yourself up to win for the foreseeable future. Despite the three hot prospects who received September cups of coffee with the big club, the rest of the Mets prospects are fairly low on the totem pole (with the exception of Winter League phenom Ronnie Mauricio). 

There is a definite gap in the rest of the position players and the pitchers on the way up for the most part are not near the majors. Consequently all of the big spending nowadays may be offset somewhat by an increase in quality in the minors to produce future ballplayers who are cost controlled for the first several years of their careers.

One of the more frustrating things about the previous regime (and there is a whole passel of items on that list) was their inability to do more than one thing at a time. They waited for the bargain basement players to become available. They offered fresh chances to AAAA types who never before flourished in the majors. 

They traded away any of their future minor league chips to get second rate players to help them advance from fifth place to fourth. It always seemed as if the Wilpon (and yes, Alderson) approach was to focus on very few things instead of giving attention to everything in varying degrees.

While everyone is applauding what it feels like in this neo-Steinbrenner environment that Steve Cohen has created, let's not forget to sing a few praises towards the business folks in the front off and oft-criticized GM Billy Eppler for thinking about the entire organization's needs not just today but in the future as well. 

It's nice to see a plan being implemented after so many years of flying by the seat of the pants which resulted in players, managers, coaches and front office personnel who were not the best of the best.