Reese Kaplan -- Changes Have Now Begun to Reshape the Roster

The recent roster changes by the Mets don’t on the surface seem to be major reasons to sway the outcome of games in the near future, but it does suggest that with the wheels recently having come off during the losing streak that things will be done.

Genesis Cabrera was an interesting find by David Stearns when he was inked to a minor league contract last November.  Still under 30, the southpaw had produced effectively if not at a star level with a career ERA under 4.00.  Given the dearth of left handed options on the regular roster it seemed to make sense.

Unfortunately, when he started off his 2025 as a member of the Syracuse bullpen.  He was not doing well with an ERA of 7.88 which suggested that Stearns may have made an overly optimistic gamble on the Dominican hurler. 

Of course, when major league lefties A.J. Minter and Danny Young both went under the knife, the Mets made a seemingly desperate move to add a lefty to the pen and found a roster spot for Cabrera.  Surprisingly, he actually put up better major league numbers than he did in the minors.  His 3.52 ERA is probably what Stearns had in mind when he signed him. 

Therefore, it seemed a bit unusual for the Mets to DFA Cabrera to make room for the brief 2025 Met, Brandon Waddell.  Granted, Cabrera’s control was not terrific, but there are plenty of teams who would salivate to have a left handed reliever put up that level of ERA.  Given that he had no options left, the meant a change exposed Cabrera to the DFA process and deals with 29 other teams. 

The well traveled Waddell came up during a particularly busy time in the Mets scheduled and delivered a perfect 0.00 ERA over just over 4 innings before returning to Syracuse.  The American hurler was mediocre in the USA but carved out a nice niche as a pitcher in Asia which is what led to his contract offer from David Stearns.  In this case, Stearns seemed to be right on the mark as in over 32 innings of Syracuse pitching this season Waddell’s ERA is just 3.06.  At age 31 he’s worth a longer look now and for the future.

The other roster move seemed equally curious.  Jose Azocar was a capable defender in the outfild and a blazing base runner but offered up not much in the way of batting average nor power.  He was now the fifth outfielder at best, relying on him more as a pinch runner or a desperation substitution rather than getting any real playing time.  The 29 year old right handed hitter was batting a nice .278 in his only 18 ABs for the Mets, but the team apparently wanted to go with a left handed hitting bench option instead.  Azocar just joined former teammate Cabrera on the somewhat surprising DFA list.

In his place the Mets have promoted Jared Young.  Now 29, the lefty infielder/outfielder has hit .259 without much power for Syracuse.  During his Cubs minor league career he did register 21 HRs one season in AAA while hitting .310, but those numbers appeared to be an Iowa abberration as he never matched either elsewhere during his long journey to the Show.  For now it would appear that his presence is more about finding the Jesse Winker left handed at-bats that have gone missing since his IL stint began more than it had anything to do with a string of starting assignments (though he did begin game three against the Dodgers as a DH).

It will be interesting to see how the roster tinkering continues moving forward.  Mark Vientos has got to accept the DH role with Brett Baty continuing to drive in runs.  Luisangel Acuna gets a lot of playing time but lately hasn’t done much with it in the batter’s box.  Behind both of them is the still rehabbing Ronny Mauricio who is more about his bat and legs than he is about his glove. 

On the pitching side, we recently discussed the upcoming roster decisions with Paul Blackburn due to get a AAA start and then look to return to Citifield.  Frankie Montas started his first rehab assignment earlier this week and while the results were not good on the field, there was apparently no pain which is much more important.  The longest IL stint will belong to Sean Manaea who is not yet slated to do mound work.  These changes will present some major roster upheaval in the next 4-6 weeks.