Reese Kaplan -- The Future Is Not Now in 2023

At some point in the 2023 season the Mets need to decide something very important about their near and long term future as a team.  Right now the club is struggling to play .500 with the largest payroll anyone has ever before seen and no matter how often you keep trotting out the same folks who are not getting it done the odds of turning things around become increasingly a long shot indeed.

That output brings us to today's question...do you concede the 2023 season as a tough learning curve and build for 2024 or do you pull out all stops to try to fabricate a storybook roar from behind to the top by year's end?

The Future Is Not Now!

In today's scenario you have to think about more than the results in the won-loss columns in 2023 and think much further ahead to 2024, 2025 and beyond.  You start to look at the faint glow of the Mets future and try to figure out how best to fan the embers and make it grow into a flame.

Obviously Francisco Alvarez is already showing why he got the prospect ranking he earned and he is one of the very few pieces that can make fans smile during this moribund season.  

Brett Baty is working on both sides of the major league readiness fence.  He's shown many days where his bat speed and pitch judgment are not quite where we hoped they would be, yet there are other days he puts in a multihit performance to remind us how he surpassed Mark Vientos in the minors at the hot corner.  Everyone remains fairly confident he will get better and better.

Now Mark Vientos is one of the toughest ones to evaluate.  He, in a way, reminds me of Wilmer Flores in that he didn't get to play nearly often enough early in his career, yet after he did he was rewarded not with another start but a familiar place on the bench.  It's funny how his major league career has long outlasted the guy who held the lineup pencil.

It's obviously very difficult for a slumping player to hit himself out of his offensive doldrums, but when the team exacerbates the problem by not playing him then that challenge to succeed becomes doubly difficult.  You would think with the Pete Alonso hiatus it would have been the perfect time to give Vientos an extended look at first base or DH, yet his manager still feels the answers are Daniel Vogelbach (one year deal), Tommy Pham (one year deal), Mark Canha (remainder of this year deal), Eduardo Escobar (remainder of this year deal) and Luis Guillorme (one year deal).  No one really knows what kind of hitter Vientos can become if he doesn't play yet the obvious maneuver of playing him seems beyond the grasp of team elders.  

A similar situation exists in AAA with Ronny Mauricio continuing (after his recent injury) to punish the ball by driving in runs, hitting it over the fence and showing defensive versatility (if not ability) at SS, 2B and now LF.  At one point the club is going to have to commit to a future of Mauricio in Queens or they will do the typical Mets maneuver of keeping hot hitting rookies in the minors for no discernible reason.  

Where the Future is Not Now shines is in the area of pitching.  There are no true saviors in AAA knocking hard at the door to get promoted.  Even uber prospect Mike Vasil was shelled in his inaugural AAA start.  For a team headed by a pair of pitchers who combine for an age of almost 80, the club needs to fortify its pitching resources in the upper minors at the earliest convenience.

While many fans are harping over who the Mets must acquire to help them in the ways they had hoped would be markedly better than Darin Ruf, Tyler Naquin and Javier Baez ever did, the people who believe the Future is Not Now have a polar opposite approach.  The way many ballclubs succeed is not by buying the future in a Steinbrenneresque fashion, but instead they work with a balance of key veterans still ready to produce at their prime capabilities alongside younger players who help buttress the foundation for many years to come.  Consequently, instead of buyers, it might be more prudent for the Mets to become major sellers at the deadline.

Now this strategy has failed spectacularly in the past.  There were years when the Mets bundled off every veteran player they could in hopes of salary relief and wound up with a passel of suspects instead of prospects, one of whom is now suspended for another 7+ games and another of whom just opted for free agency after being DFA'd and refusing yet another assignment to Syracuse.  The rest of that bunch is long gone and not doing anything of note in professional baseball.

No, this time around you make it known that the obvious short term contract expiring group including Canha, Vogelbach, Pham, Escobar and others might very well be joined by some surprising names.  Looking at the track record of Starling Marte from 2022 shows you what he is capable of doing while his 2023 numbers only stand out for baserunning.  You are either on the hook for two more years of his deal or you offer up a solid player to another club for top notch minor league prospects to fill the AA and AAA coffers.  

This time you also need to look at the pitching on the club and do a similar analysis of who is meant to stay and who perhaps is more help in leaving.  Obviously the senior citizen multi Cy Young duo are underperforming yet at the same time you have to realize that they would still command very nearly a king's ransom on the open market.  Your immediate replacement options like Joey Lucchesi, Jose Butto and David Peterson are not going to replace their talent, but again this strategy is about the 2024 seasons and beyond.  There's no reason to think that offering up two pitchers considered among the best of the best couldn't bring back another teams' top 5 talents in return for the this caliber of pitcher.  (And remember the over $80 million annually in salary relief it will provide).  

The same applies to the bullpen.  While David Robertson has been mostly sensational, Adam Ottavino and most of the others have not.  There is no magic formula in AAA so reinforcements are needed here as well.  Yes, Edwin Diaz will return someday and take over the closing duties, but substandard starting requires the highest level support in the bullpen.  Right now it's not there and more top tier prospects are needed to provide that future reinforcement.

The end result of this overall approach is a lot of short term losing but it is building solidly for the future while also freeing up payroll to address needed options when necessary.  Or are you one of the few who feel that the 2023 pennant is very much in sight and it will only take flaming hot stretches from multiple hitters, starting pitchers and relievers simultaneously to make it happen?  If so, kiss your future Shohei Ohtani dreams goodbye.