Reese Kaplan -- Mets Need to Fulfill a Dirty Dozen Roster Spots

For those of you either old enough to remember or with a good appreciation for older movies you might want to focus on the 1967 film by prestigious director Robert Aldrich called, "The Dirty Dozen."  It's a terrific story about a secret mission to convert some of the military's worst prisoners into a highly skilled fighting team destined to take down a Nazi location without anyone being aware of their mission nor their objective.  It contained more than 9 headliners assigned to the acting roles and was very well received by audiences and critics alike.

This trip down memory lane came to mind with the November 17th actions taken by the New York Mets to expand their set of roster openings to their own dirty dozen of warm bodies needed to transform the team from under .500 to one fighting for the right to play October baseball.  As this past season demonstrated to everyone, you don't have to be the best of the best to make it to the World Series.  You need good players, effective management and luck occurring at the right time when you need it.  

Gone from the New York Mets are failed DH Daniel Vogelbach, light hitting and oft-injured infielder Luis Guillorme, as well as a collection of rehabilitating or simply ineffective relief pitchers that included Jeff Brigham, Sam Coonrod and Trevor Gott.  Choosing not to tender contracts to five players makes David Stearns' job that much tougher in terms of preparing the right mix of players for the upcoming 2024 season.  It does open up avenues of free agent acquisitions as well as multiple incoming players for fewer exiting in trades.  

Now some folks are sure to point out that the non-tendered players on this list are not necessarily gone for good as it may turn out that there aren't a bundle of GMs on other clubs trying hard to fill their rosters with players who did not succeed in their most recent stints in the majors.  If, for example, Trevor Gott does not find an acceptable new deal elsewhere, the Mets could offer him a minor league contract for less money than he would have gotten and he would be off the 40-man roster to enable the front office to fill it with players who have more potential for positive productivity.  

Accompanying these departures was a reunion with last year's big surprise, DJ Stewart.  He could have been non-tendered as a result of his ice cold end to the blistering hot middle of the season, but given the Mets have only one full time healthy outfielder in Brandon Nimmo, it was prudent to keep Stewart around with an eye towards the 4th outfielder role in the even Starling Marte needs time off or has a recurrence of injury.  As it is, no one knows exactly who is going to be the third outfielder -- Jeff McNeil, a converted Baby Mets infielder or someone brand new from outside the organization.  This move was for less money than projected for Stewart in media analysis, so it seemed to be a smart choice.

Baseball's offseason is very much open for business.  It may mean big name choices being added to the roster or reclamations about the recently taken and dumped Penn Murfree.  We shall see soon enough.