Reese Kaplan -- Go For It in 2024 or Wait For 2025?

It’s time to take a deep breath and think about the remainder of the 2024 season. 

For the folks wearing rose colored glasses, the Mets are indeed just 3 games out of a playoff spot despite showing an eight games below .500 playing record.  These folks will quickly point out how the returns of Kodai Senga, Edwin Diaz and continued improvement at the plate and on the mound by various players will help catapult the team easily into the wildcard mix despite not having shown their best thus far.

The other side of the extreme focuses instead on the roster as it exists now and how it can be improved for 2025 and beyond, writing off 2024 as another lost effort.  This group firmly believes that since 2024 is indeed one of transition for David Stearns, Carlos Mendoza and many personnel, the time is ripe to start thinking like it was the 2023 July sell-off and figure out how to reinforce for round two for both of these newcomers.

We’ve all started putting together the list of who should be on the New York Mets roster come August 1st and who should not.  There are numerous players whose duration as a member of the club seems to have come to near-end. 

The obvious names, of course, include Pete Alonso, J.D. Martinez, Luis Severino, Sean Manaea, Jeff McNeil, Starling Marte, Harrison Bader, Jose Quintana and Adam Ottavino.  There are other players who could be on the block as well, but the return for them would not amount to much. 

Right now I’m not going to speculate on who should be entering the Mets organization nor what positions the club should be seeking to fulfill.  The more challenging wavelength to ponder is who should be on the New York Mets roster after the roster house cleaning takes place.   Assume for a moment that the majority of the obvious names list do get moved, who is left and who needs to be promoted?

Well, at 1st base you could see either Mark Vientos or D.J. Stewart.  At DH you would see either Mark Vientos or...anyone have a reasonable guess?  At 2nd base you will likely see Jose Iglesias.  At shortstop you have Francisco Lindor.  

At 3rd base you have either Mark Vientos or Brett Baty.  Behind the plate is Francisco Alvarez.  Where the lineup gets very thin and challenging is in the outfield.  For now Tyrone Taylor will be one of them.  After that it’s a guessing game.  Do you bring up Trayce Thompson and others from the minors simply as placeholders for the final two months?

For the starting rotation you do have Christian Scott, Jose Butto, David Peterson and Tylor Megill as four available young arms.  If Kodai Senga is healthy then you have five starters. That's not a terrible staff.

In the bullpen assuming there is no trade thoughts surrounding Edwin Diaz, then he is your closer.  After that you still have the prospects of innings being supported by Drew Smith, Reed Garrett, Sean Reid-Foley, Jake Diekman, Adrian Houser, Dedniel Nunez, Danny Young and various folks in the minors.  Someone needs to leave when Diaz returns in the very near future. 

The remaining roster options are not great but not awful either.  They can tread water with this group of players but the likelihood of playing October baseball is slim.  The question becomes who they might receive in return if a real “Open for Business” sign gets posted at Citifield.  Also, how far away from the majors would these traded players the Mets get in various deals?

There are still more questions than answers.