Reese Kaplan -- What to Watch With Games Starting Sunday

As Spring Training progresses, everyone has their own must see moments to help them better prepare their expectations for the upcoming 2025 season.

Obviously, the elephant in the room is the 15 year nearly billionaire, Juan Soto.  Everyone knows what he can do with the bat but it’s all stat sheets and video reruns of his career up until this point.  No one is quite sure what he will do in his first go around with the New York Mets.  He’s clearly expected to be an All Star/Hall of Fame type of player for them, but will the pressure to be the number one guy have a negative impact on his psyche as he’s always been a major guy wherever he’s played but not THE guy. 

The untimely injury of Frankie Montas is surely creating a lot of trepidation among team personnel, media and fans, though secretly some may feel the team is better off without him than with him.  That conclusion is overly simplistic and while Montas is not exactly Cy Young material at his best, his innings eating ability is going to test in-house resources over a fairly long stretch of time.  Right now the obvious fill-in candidates identified are Tylor Megill who finished 2024 strongly, Paul Blackburn who is in that “Why did we trade for him?” category, Max Kranick who hasn’t shown he’s better than a minor league pitcher and “Why did we sign him?” Griffin Canning.  As someone who’s been pretty vocal about the lack of consistency from Megill, he’s currently number one in my book if they’re not going outside or pushing unproven rookies harder than they should.

In Wednesday’s headlines it was revealed that starter-turned-reliever-turned-starter again Clay Holmes will be getting the nod as the Spring Training opening day pitcher on Sunday.  Since no one other than David Stearns and apparently Holmes himself are convinced that starting is a way to make him prosper for the Mets, pretty much all eyes will be on him for everything from his velocity, his movement, his stamina and his ability to miss bats.  If he is a say 3.50 ERA starting pitcher good for 5 innings early in the season and 6+ later on, that’s a huge win for both the player and the front office. 

2024 was a season of under achieving by several players.  Francisco Alvarez forgot how to hit the long ball.  Brandon Nimmo’s ability to make regular contact vanished as he was unable to step properly and maintain good body position in the box.  Jeff McNeil did end the season looking more like his old self but the aggregate numbers for the second year in a row were not good.  Center field is still being viewed primarily as a defensive position which is fine if the rest of the slumping players return to form.  However, no opposing pitchers are going to have agita facing Tyrone Taylor nor Jose Siri.

Then there are the youth battles.  Brett Baty is still around and had a run productive season in AAA.  He’s going to be fighting to make the opening day roster as a supersub assuming McNeil is at second and Vientos is at third.  Luisangel Acuna is probably more suited to that role and his flashes in September and in Winter ball suggest he has the ability to deliver with his bat, his glove and his legs.  Newcomer Nick Madrigal can make contact but not much else.  Ronny Mauricio is likely down in AAA again until he can demonstrate he is healthy enough for a full schedule to consider advancement to the majors. 

The bullpen is also going to be an interesting fight for survival.  Obviously Edwin Diaz, recovering A.J. Minter, Reed Garrett,Ryne Stanek and Jose Butto are there written in ink.  After that come the many contenders — Sean Reid-Foley who may or may not have an injury, Huascar Brazoban who did not dominate last season, Dedniel Nunez still on his way back to health and Danny Young who had flashes of talent last season and flashes of batting practice pitcher.  Others in camp include Tyler Zuber, Austin Warren, Kevin Herget and Justin Hagenman.  Remember that the loser(s) of the Frankie Montas fill-in role may be fighting for the pen, too. 

Then there’s the subject of DH.  Even when they went beyond expectation and signed one of the most professional hitters in the game in J.D. Martinez the Mets have not yet gotten solid production out of this role.  For now it appears to be a platoon between Jesse Winker and Starling Marte.  It appears somewhat better than Daniel Vogelbach and Darin Ruf but not by a significant margin.  They could do better here.  Maybe Brett Baty works his way into the mix?

All I know is I am anxiously awaiting the umpire to yell, “Play ball!”