Reese Kaplan -- Is the Current Roster Capable of October Wins?

As the calendar moves forward towards July, it would seem that the Mets most certainly will be buyers this year instead of sellers.  We’ve seen some of the latter behavior and its long term implications (Pete Crow-Armstrong, anyone?) 

At current glance the Mets are in first place without much offense other than from injured Francisco Lindor, free agent to be Pete Alonso and near billionaire Juan Soto.  Unfortunately the rest of the offense has been somewhat lackluster.  

The second base position has been in a rotation most of the season with innings provided by Jeff McNeil, Luisangel Acuna and Brett Baty among the would be regulars.  None have performed at a stellar level and there are more infielders behind them still in the minors.

Third base has been another guessing game.  Now injured Mark Vientos has been a shell of his 2024 self with limited power, poor batting average and questionable defense.  Brett Baty stuck around longer than anyone expected and with a solid month of May it appeared he’d finally made the jump into the majors but lately he’s been tempered a bit as well.  Ronny Mauricio was brought up to substitute for Vientos and he’s not looked like the red-hot hitter he was in AAA. 

The outfield has been pretty much a disaster.  Between some physical ailments and a very slow start Brandon Nimmo is starting to come to life but his batting average still just .232 with 9 HRs and 31 RBIs.  The run production may indeed finish up where you’d expect it but in the past Nimmo was an on-base machine and he owns a career major league batting average of .260 even including 2024’s meager .224. 

Center field has been a whirlwind of good defense but marginal contribution at the plate.  Jeff McNeil, Tyrone Taylor, still injured Jose Siri, Luisangel Acuna, Jose Azocar and others have floated in and out of that key position, but no one has established a stronghold with the bat.  Taylor and Siri showed off tremendous defense, but pennant aspiring teams don’t usually hand the starting assignment to guys hitting below .200 or in Taylor’s case .238. 

People have been upset with the potential not being shown by Juan Soto, but in the past week or two he seems to have found his stroke after a slow two months to begin his Mets career.  Given his paycheck and his track history he’s a given to play RF until his manager eventually decides he would be more valuable as a DH.

Catcher has been another mystery for the team.  We all know the struggles Francisco Alvarez has had on both sides of his game.  His revamped swing isn’t working and his defense is not what it once was.  Luis Torrens is hitting .250 which is actually better than Alvarez, but his career mark is .229, so he’s not likely a starting caliber player there either.

In the starting rotation the club is solid with the five they have now despite some recent bad outings by Trevor Megill and a few OK but not great ones from David Peterson.  Paul Blackburn was remarkable in his first start but people are still unsure how much to bank on him given his lackluster track record.  Behind them are Frankie Montas and Sean Manaea. The point is that the Mets indeed have sufficient quantity and quality in their starting rotation, so much in fact that you might see a pitcher traded away at the July deadline. 

Now the bullpen is odd.  We know how well Edwin Diaz has done and until recently Reed Garrett and Huascar Brazoban were unhittable.  There have been others in and out of the pen with the most recent sacrifice to Syracuse being option-available Max Kranick who was only sporting a 3.51 ERA.  No one is sure how well some of the others will do and lefty reliability remains a question mark.

Between now and the end of July David Stearns needs to decide how to juggle the roster to provide more offense, more bullpen weapons and who he might be willing to sacrifice at the major league and minor league levels to obtain reinforcements.