This has been an interesting and many times frustrating season for the New York Mets and their fans. Despite many disappointments, there have also been successes, and the Mets still hold on to the final playoff spot with only 10 games remaining.
During some of the frustrating times over the last three months when the Mets lost a comfortable lead in the NL East and dropped down to the final playoff spot, there have been many comments suggesting that the Mets get rid of players who are the source of frustration in any given game.
We have all felt the frustration, we have all vented about yesterday’s anti-hero. However, the rational part of our brains also understands that you can’t just toss out everyone that fails, because baseball is a game of failures – there would be no one left!
So what if you were the GM? You can’t change everyone, so let’s assume that there are a core of players that are untouchable for 2026: Soto, Lindor, Alonso, Nimmo, and Diaz. Let’s also assume that your favorite young pitching prospects McLean, Tong, and Sproat are here to stay. Injured players like Griffin Canning or Christian Scott get a pass.
That leaves a host of players that on any given day have been either our hero or our villain. Once again, you can’t let them go, but as GM for a day, you get to clean out half of them. So I have conveniently separated a list of players into two columns, each one totaling just over 10 WAR for the 2025 season. You get to keep one column and trade the rest for cash or prospects to build the future teams. Which one do you choose?
I am sure this will cause some agony as you go through the list – some of the players on each list may be keepers yet others are your favorite venting target. You can’t swap players between lists.
Welcome to the world of MLB GMs. No one gets all the good players – not even the teams endowed with rich owners. Every player on any list was a talented prospect that out-performed the many peers that didn’t make it. They just have not risen to the level of mastery of the greatest players. Maybe they can with the right adjustments. If they do, you are a genius for keeping them. If they don’t, you are an idiot for keeping them. I’m glad I just get to write about the decisions they make.
by the way, I chose to keep column B
20 comments:
Column B. Why? No Siri. I don’t sign guys who fan tremendously and hit poorly,even if they have defense and speed.
Column A Peterson has been downright lousy lately. Any ideas why?
WILD CARD RACE
10 GAMES TO GO - tonight's game represents 10% of the remaining season
The Mets can't just make this easy, can they?
They lost on the same night their closest rival (Arizona) lost.
So...
METS 78-74 ----
AZ 77-76 1.5
CIN 76-76 2
SF 76-76 2
TODAY IS TONG THURSDAY
I will miss Baty but I don't want to lose either Vientos and Alvarez also
I too pick B
One thing... you have Diaz as a locked in player. He's gonna opt out, ya know.
The battle of four .500 teams. May the worst 3 teams lose.
Senga better get back here for 2 starts. He is the anti-Alonso, who believes in earning his paycheck by playing.
San Diego hitters will be a tough task for Tong. That Machado grand slam HR was off of a good, but not perfectly placed, curve. The good teams can make any pitcher (other than Nolan McLean) pay. Look what the Mets did to King and Pivetta. Stearns FAILED by not getting Tong to AAA a month earlier, to face better hitters longer, before his call up. No excuses for that big blunder. On August 14 I wrote this about Tong (and McLean and Sproat):
Baseball these days is just so very friggin’ different.
Starting veteran pitchers are paid by multiple Brinks truck deliveries, whether they pitch much or not, and there IS free agency, so, like a commodity, key prospect pitcher call-ups have to be oh-so-carefully managed so as to not negatively impact a franchise’s value.
Free agency-focused proper call-up timing can reduce a team’s future salaries and luxury taxes by tens of millions these days, you see. High finance.
Feet dragging and rationalizations thus, easily and often, replace promotions.
Let me say this straight up:
If this were still 1967, in my humble opinion, Jonah Tong, Brandon Sproat and Nolan McLean would have been pitching in the majors long ago.
Tong Terrific couldn’t even get promoted to AAA until this week…SMH…
In 2025 parlance, it is called “product management”, you see.
Tong, excluding his first two Siberian starts of 2025 in AA, has had a 1.12 ERA; allowed 4 hits per 9 innings; and struck out roughly 15 per 9 innings. Best Mets minor league pitching performance ever.
- “NOPE, NOT QUITE READY FOR AAA”, they’ve effectively told us.
In 1967, he would already have been in the Mets rotation.
Sproat? Last 39 innings, 5 earned runs in 6 starts in AAA.
- “NOPE, NOT QUITE READY FOR THE MAJORS”, they’ve basically told us.
McLean? 109 innings, 120 hits, 8-5, 2.46.
- “NOPE, NOT QUITE READY FOR THE MAJORS”, they’ve basically told us.
(Desperate times have forced the Mets’ hand, though. With Montas pitching so poorly, McLean was needed, and will make his Mets debut on Saturday.
going forward, you may see a rotation of:
McLean
Tong
Sproat
Holmes/Manea piggy
Senga/Peterson piggy
If the average MLB team hits .250, if you thrust the average AA team into the majors, they would probably hit .120. The average AAA team would hit .160 to .175. Still far from major league hitting caliber, but AAA would have helped Tong adapt.
To wait so long to promote Tong to AAA was a BIG Stearns blunder. Tong may do fine today. If not, it is at least partly due to Stearns mismanagement.
Regarding Tong...
His last outing was all his fault
He lost his command of his fastball
If his command returns, today will be muxh different
Tiring arm? He has pitched more innings than anyone else on the team - carried them through the middle of the year. If not for one unfortunate swing by Manny, he would have had the W yesterday.
Yes, both Diaz and Pete will seek the money, but they are part of the core team for this exercise.
I predict that Tong bounces back with a great outing today.
Tong hardly pitched in AAA, so I would consider his promotion to the majors rapid. The issue was holding him at AA so long. They must have been working on something secondary.
Agree. That’s the logical rotation & also sets up starters for relief if they make the playoffs
I would like to have a poll:
What is the biggest Stearns blunder this year? In a year that he seemed to make many and some of them were final, like his trades name only one.
For me, it was the Rogers trade. Unforgivable.
I don't think anything he did at the deadline was positive
My biggest flop is that guy playing center
I would hate to lose Bret Baty but think Ronny Mauricio could do fine if he were given 400 AB with similar defense.
Yes, that too. I liked the Greg Soto trade as it was a need and not expensive. But the other three were wreckless and the Rogers one… Stearns had to be drunk.
Gus, after 2015, all we ever get in deadline deals is one Darin Ruf after another.
As far as A or B, you are assuming we sign all those on expiring contracts, as there are many? Because of that, the exercise is
made more difficult. To keep Mauricio, Vientos and Alvarez you must resign Marte and Mullins? Montas has a player option which he will most definitely exercise while he recoups. No matter A or B, Montas is there.
Because of Vientos, Mauricio, Alveraz, and Tong, Sprout and McLean I would select B as the more favorable. Although I believe Baty is the solution to third for the next couple of years.
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