Reese Kaplan -- Mets Roster Will Soon Be Quite Empty

With the World Series winding down it’s about time to start looking at the New York Mets 40-man roster and how many holes will need to be filled.  Right now if all free agents and opt-out candidates exercise their clauses the Mets have lots of room that needs to be filled.  Let’s start with the easy group — unrestricted free agents:

• Starling Marte
• Cedric Mullins
• Ryan Helsley
• Jesse Winker
• Gregory Soto
• Tyler Rogers
• Ryne Stanek
• Griffin Canning

After that comes the quartet of players who have their own options to remain with the club or depart:

• Pete Alonso
• Edwin Diaz 
• Frankie Montas 
• A.J. Minter

Then there is a pair of players on whom the Mets own options for renewal:

• Brooks Raley
• Drew Smith

Let’s not forget the injured group, too:

• Christian Scott
• Max Kranick
• Reed Garrett
• Danny Young
• Dedniel Nunez
• Tylor Megill
• Nick Madrigal

What’s going to make this roster construction fairly challenging is more than just the 10 free agents and opt-out candidates creating vacancies.  No, the other difficulty is maintaining roster space for players likely to miss all of most of 2026 due to injury.  

In those situations the 60-day IL players who don’t occupy a roster space during the season very much consume one in the off season.  Consequently there are going to be some tough decisions whether to sacrifice roster spaces to players who won’t give you anything on the field for the upcoming season or do you cut them loose to create the roster vacancies that can be filled with healthy players. 

As you look down the injury list it would not be all that surprising to see the Mets decide to non-tender guys who are not considered core players once they recover from their health maladies.  

Take, for example, someone like Dedniel Nunez who had some  impressive months in 2024 before backsliding and needing Tommy John surgery in 2025.  To keep him on the roster would mean bypassing off season roster additions until after the season began when he could be shifted to the 60-day IL.  Cutting him loose would open up that roster spot to be filled before the season begins. 

On that list there are quite a few interesting players.  One long forgotten contributor is infielder Nick Madrigal who went down for the 2025 season during Spring Training.  He was acquired for his career .274 hitter with limited power and somewhat above average speed.  He is someone who likely would produce more offense than Luisangel Acuna or Ronny Mauricio.  He’s not as clear cut a case to set free when there are other clubs who might be interested in the other pair as trade targets. 

The actual rule says that players who are still injured during the off season can be added back to the 60-day IL when Spring Training starts, but it means you are again waiting until February/March to find replacements for them.  It presumes that you want the player removed from the 40-man roster to be placed back onto it when recovery has completed.  

It still seems as if you are artificially squeezing out your best roster construction opportunities by holding onto fringe players instead of replacing them as soon as possible with someone ready to help the club win on day one.