Yesterday’s introductory press conference with Bo Bichette included an interesting comment from David Stearns. He indicated that he is now “happy” with the position player moves the Mets have made in the offseason. This is likely to indicate that they are done with the moves and the projected lineup can now be considered to be more solid. What that means is that the only moves remaining involve the pitching staff.
Soon after the presser, Stearns got back to work and brought Freddy Peralta to the Mets. It came at a greater cost than the last few moves, as Jett Williams and Brandon Sproat moved to Milwaukee. That is a high cost for a single year of service before Peralta becomes a free agent. It is also a high reward for the Mets, who have a pretty deep but pretty unpredictable rotation right now.
Peralta becomes the headliner, with Nolan McLean expected to continue the terrific pitching he did in the final two months of the season. Clay Holmes was a pleasant surprise as a converted starter, showing the durability to make it through the season, with his 165 innings more than doubling his output in any prior season.
After that is the series of question marks. Will Sean Manaea repeat his breakout performance of 2024, or relive the horrors of an injury filled 2025 season? Will Kodai Senga look like a Cy Young contender like he did in April/May of 2025 or a broken-down starter like he did in the second half? Will Jonah Tong continue his rise after last year’s taste of MLB hitting? Will Christian Scott bounce back from injury to fulfill the promise he showed in 2024?
This is now a pretty talented roster, but it also is one that must find its groove. There are so many changes that this team will need time to find its identity.
Spring Training will commence in about three weeks, and that will become the beginning of the shaping of a Mets team that should reach a competitive level over the course of the season. My guess is that the lineup card on day one will not be the same as day 162. There are many changes that have occurred and some will be successes and others will be failures. Stearns has bought time with enough veteran talent to bridge the gap to the rising prospects, but the timetable for them to step up is not firm.
Here are the most important areas that must evolve favorably for a successful season:
1) Luis Robert has been brought in to anchor center field. His gold-glove defensive capabilities and his power bat could make a huge difference. But he must stay healthy to provide the defense necessary to make this outfield good. His health has been a big question mark as he has only played more than 110 games once in his six years. His power was evident in his 2023 breakout season where he hit 38 home runs, but that power was neutered with his hip, wrist, and hamstring injuries. If his rising stolen base total is any indication, his health is on the upswing. If he fails or is hurt, Tyrone Taylor will have to step in.
2) The new infield of Polanco, Semien, Lindor, and Bichette must gel into a run-stopping unit. They have all shown themselves to be individually capable, but an infield, and particularly a middle-infield needs to have chemistry to rise above average. There is a combination of youth and experience here that could make a great mix, but both Polanco and Bichette come into the season without experience at the positions they are expected to play. Their back-up has dissolved somewhat, as both LuisAngel Acuna and Jett Willams have been dealt. Brett Baty and Ronny Mauricio are now the next level, and both have struggled to sustain performance at the major league level.
3) The outfield pecking order will be determined in spring training. Certainly, Soto and Robert will start, but the left field job has to be won in a competition between Carson Benge and Tyrone Taylor. Dark horses like Nick Morabito and even Ryan Clifford can also challenge for the position. Benge has the tools, but he only has 24 games at the AAA level under his belt, so my guess is that Taylor starts the season in left field.
4) The rotation will be a competition not only for performance but for durability. A healthy Senga slots in the top half of the rotation but he cannot deliver 4-5 innings per start and stay there. I see Peralta, McLean, and Holmes being the horses and the rest, including Senga, Peterson, and Manaea either rotating through the last two slots, or creating a six-man rotation. Once someone goes down, Tong comes up and stays there for the long term. Tobias Myers, part of the Peralta trade, is also a starting pitcher – his contribution will have to be determined.
5) The bullpen will have to prove to be more durable as well. It will be interesting to see how Tylor Megill is used, how Huascar Brazoban recovers from last year, and whether Christian Scott begins the season in long relief here to get back to speed after a long surgical recovery.
There is a lot to process this spring on how the team comes together and how these five areas evolve. Let's go Mets!
24 comments:
I feel like this teams floor might be a little lower than last years but i think it’s ceiling is significantly higher than last year’s team (and i think last years team had like a 25 percent outcome for what the roster was).
My hope is that they keep brett baty and let him find a full season of reps between LF, 1B, DH and backing up 3B (need 3B insurance in case Bo stinks it up, then you flip bo to DH and out baty back to 3rd and you need to have a plan to replace Bo at 3rd next year since he’s likely to opt out).
Wonder if the mets will trade away Senga or peterson. Sterns is not afraid to shake up a roster!
So, my daughter came over and spent her weekly overnight sleepover which had special meaning because it might be the last time she gets to spend with our dementia riddled family dog, Maggy Mae.
I put down the laptop, turned off the phone, and we shot the shite as we watched saves episodes of My 600 LB Life
Then, I wake up this morning and BOOM, they did it to me again. Most of my Friday post was already written before last night's Peralta trade and I now have to go back and re-write the damn thing, including a new 40-man salary graph
My plan now is to talk about the new starting bat lineup and then talking Sunday about the pitching.
Me?
The trade was necessary. You get the top starter out there, you use two of your excess prospects, and you save trading your two top prospects, Carson Benge and Jonah Tong. You also get a year to work on a Peralta extension.
Are they done?
I think so.
Hey Mack. I think they’re done with big 26 man splashes to be sure. Im curious to see how the handle the rotation surplus to start the year and personally i dont see both vientos and murecilo on the roster. Curious to see how some of these spots shake out
Two top prospects for a rental player...what a bad joke. Peralta will earn $8M this season and is probably worth $30M as a FA, and he isn’t going to get that from the NY Mess. He is a FA, Bichette is an opt out and Robert is a buy out, unless he is so terrific that Stearns is willing to pay another $20M for one more season only. Stearns may be a good player evaluator but his MLB business skills suck. He is so short sighted. No locking in talent for any length like good teams do. The Soto deal had Cohen all over it...not Stearns. MLB.com TV analysts said that the Met fan base really loved Alonso, Nimmo, & Diaz, but who of the new acquisitions would they love, and no one had an answer. Fans will not get emotionally invested in rental players. Stearns may have a plan, a “vision,” but it doesn’t include Met fans...Stearns doesn’t give a sh*t about Met fans. Cohens maybe, but not Stearns, and he is running the show. We will still be 3 miles behind the Dodgers this season, and after these rentals are gone, we’ll be right back to 5 miles behind them. Without Jett or Sproat...which is why you sign FAs cause it’s only money.
I like the trade. Probably the first time in baseball history that an organization traded away two 5’6” guys on the same day.
Height aside, I think Peralta will greatly help in 2026, and Tobias will most likely be a useful swing arm. I think Peralta, Holmes, and McLean is a dynamite trio. I think Manaea, Senga, and Peterson could be a very good 4 thru 6. Tong and Tobias are there too.
Jett? He may well be an average major leaguer…maybe less. Sproat felt like a # 5 to me, maybe a # 4, longer term.
We kept what I see to be the key guys - Benge, Tong, Ewing, Santucci (lefty with I believe a higher ceiling than Sproat), and Wenninger and Thornton.
1. Murecilo doesn't stand a chance of making this roster
2. I wonder if the Mets regret agreeing to the Peterson deal
3. I expect Cohen to direct Stearns to eat the Manaea money
you mean two prospects that haven't done squat and have no room on the roster for the top available starter with a sweet salary... right?
Combined, they still are shorter than the college center
Ready to sing Tom?
All we are saaaaaaaaying, is give Stearns a chaaaaaance.
I like the Peralta deal as well. We gave up 2 guys that we have backups for in minors and we got a stud.
Now let him pitch at least a month into the season to see how he handles the NY media and if it goes well sign him up long term
Mack, Manaea could still be a decent or useful starter or reliever for some team. Stearns would sure have to eat a lot right now. Maybe his health and arm talent will revert to 2024 form. Maybe not. I wrote off Adrian Houser in 2024, and he really rebounded in 2025.
No predictions about whether there are additional moves coming :-). Stearns always says that he never stops looking for ways to improve the team, so it's foolish to assume he is done. Right now, though, they a LF/outfield issue. Whose the 5th outfielder? Baty? Is Taylor really the opening day LF, then whose the 4th outfielder; and do you really want a lineup that has both Robert and Taylor in it before you get to see whether Robert is closer to his ceiling than his floor. Both Baty and Benge are lefties. The best outcome, pending Benge's performance in ST, would be Hays/Benge platoon; Robert and Soto withTaylor capable of playing all over the outfield as a 4 and Benge capable of starting against RHP in left and defensively helping at the other positions. That would have most flexibility IMO and promise.
That narrative requires Benge making the OD roster and a Hays or Hays like player being added to the outfield. I prefer Hays to Andujar since the latter has a terrible injury history and is a substandard fielder.
The consequence of this approach is that you can't keep the 3Baby Mets on the roster. I think Mauricio has the highest ceiling, but he also has an option. So he is a candidate to go to the minors. Baty is clearly the new McNeil and very important now that Acuna is gone. Baty can play 3B when Bichette needs a rest and also when Lindor does and Bichette moves to SS. He can 2b when Semien does and can split some time with Polanco at 1st. He is no more than an emergency LF. in this configuration of the team. Vientos would be strictly a DH on this team, and the team will not need (in fact it would hurt to have one) a full time DH. Players need to circle through the DH position as part of any plan to keep the team fresh through the year.
But it all looks very different and with much less versatility if Benge does not make the OD roster and Hays or equivalent is not brought in.
As for rotation, Peralta, McLean and Holmes are certainties, but let's not forget that however good Peralta is, he is NOT an innings eater. His starts rarely go above 6 innings, he gives up too many walks and his excellent record relies on excellent bullpen support. Just saying.
Peterson has an apparent innings ceiling below what Holmes provided. The irony is that Senga can provide length if he provides any pitching at all. He is more like an on/off switch than anything else. Manaea is a complete unknown. 6 starters in the rotation makes sense, but it means 1 fewer in the bullpen. Which is not great if the only starters you can rely on for innings are McLean and Senga: a rookie and a potential injury waiting to happen.
In short I see two issues that remain. LF/outfield construction. SP/RP complementarity.
I don't want to believe that Stearns is done yet either in fashioning the OD roster or in creating insurance policies to be deployed over the season to address the SP/RP complementarity issue that remains.
PS. There is literally no point I can see in eating Manaea's contract at the moment. He is not just a complete unknown, but a wild card.
Tong and Tobias will both see time, as will Scott; he may even be the spot starter long relief man which will improve complementarity. But to my mind this most important meshing issue has not been resolved yet and actually can't be without seeing what we have in our SP. We faced the same meshing problem last year but were unaware of it in advance and could not plan to deal with it and had to respond reactionarily all year, and ultimately tried to resolve it by overloading on RP. From my point of view it is a foreseeable problem NOW and we have time to plan for it. I don't know the plan but I do believe no final plan can be put in place without seeing pitchers in action and trying to project from that.
A few quick thoughts on the roster right now.
This team is set as-is. IF the Detroit Skubal arbitration turns into a shite show & Detroit needs to trade Skubal, the Mets are now in Prime Position to engage & put the cherry on top. Excellent play by Stearns.
Mauricio needs to start in AAA: get daily reps, work on swing & maybe ditch switch hitting, learn to play corner OF positions in addition to the infield posts. If he can become truly multi-positional he increases his overall value & maintains his one option - all good things
Baty might move to get Skubal but otherwise, he will play all over & be the new Jeff McNeil.
Christian Scott could start the year as long man.
Unless Benge absolutely crushes spring training, it’s more likely Jared Young makes OD team as LH bench bat, partial LF platoon with Taylor, backup 1B option until Benge is ready. That’s not a bad thing.
Unless Manaea shows up & crushes it in ST, he is long man to start & then at risk as pitchers mature.
All starters need to perform or get demoted to BP or cut. Holmes needs to reach 6 full innings consistently or he goes to BP when others are ready.
Peterson will be ok although he could move as part of a Skubal deal too.
They are set to compete for division title & WS possibilities. Still not the LAD (skubal changes that) but competitive with reserve capacity on the farm.
Looks like all the heavy lifting is done for the off Season. It does look like Stearns came through after all, even thou it did take some time and stress for the fans. The Mets might have the best up the middle defense in baseball, with gold glove caliber Lindor at short, Semien at second and Roberts in Center and Alvarez catching. Yes, we have questions on the corners, with both players having been prior middle infielders they should be able to handle 3rd and 1st adequately at a minimum. The outfield is also questionable on the corners, Soto is Soto but not as bad as he is made out to be. Left will be interesting, is it Baty or Benge?
Either should be at least as good as Nimmo, as his range had diminished and his arm was a noodle.
The pitching will decide the season as it could be awesome with bounce back seasons from Manaea and Senga, with Peterson always questionable. If there is another move, I would like it to be moving Senga so we can go back to a normal five-man rotation.
Spring training cannot get here fast enough!
We are now the class of the NL East and among the top five teams in MLB.
From your lips to the Baseball Gods' ears. Right now, it's all on paper and with more than a couple of questions that need to be answered. And to be even more banal than usual: that is indeed why they play the games
You were right all the long young man
Given how well Stearns (and his asst. GM who also came from Milwaukee) knows Peralta and his agent, I have a strong feeling that he made the trade expecting to extend him.
With the wave of young pitching on the cusp, it makes sense to have a reliable, TOR veteran in place to set an example and help the kids grow. Extending Peralta out four or even five more years, through his age 34 season, is a reasonable risk, and gives the kids an anchor. And the fact that he’s only making $8 mil this season provides so much excess value, that it would be effectively cheaper for the Mets to lock him up for 5/6 yrs from here than for anyone else. In fact, if they tear up his current deal and begin a reasonable ($28-33m per or thereabouts) extension now, he’d be hard pressed to make up that money in FA even if someone were to offer more years beginning in ‘27.
This also makes a lot more sense than taking the humongous risk of signing Skubal to some mega-deal for 8-12 years next offseason.
Also, don’t sleep on Tobias Myers. Not sure how Stearns got him included in the deal, but he’s already shown himself to be an effective - even above average - pitcher both starting and especially in the ‘pen, with 5 years of team control. Extend Peralta and this could end up being one of the best trades in franchise history.
If you are convinced that someone is no good, then you interpret everything they do through that belief. You clearly have a bias against Stearns, so you have chosen to identify the negative in every move. I try to remove my biases. Whenever I wonder what the heck he is doing, I wait for a while and discover that there was purpose in what was done. Only time will tell whether he got it right.
I am stunned at the comparisons between Baty and McNeil. They are very different players with different skill sets. The only thing they have in common is the utility role, and even then Baty does not have the defensive skills to be a plus wherever he plays. If AJ Ewing progresses as expected, Baty will be obsolete on this club.
Sounds like you’re all healed patients now that you have all these band-aids.
If the Mess were trying to contend THIS year, they should have retained Alonzo and Diaz, the best two players at their position in Mets history. Instead, after blowing up the lineup (when the problem was Stearns and his pitching choices) they will try to replace the 272 RBI Pete, Brandon, and Jeff provided with short tern rentals like Polanco, Robert, Bichette, & LF?...good luck with that. And anybody with half a brain would play Baty at 3B and DH Bichette, who will forfeit the position to Baty anyway when he opts out (he’d be a fool not to). So much for Stearns looking to improve the defense...(see if Polanco, Baty, Vientos or any others being considered at 1B can pick a ball out of the dirt like Pete.) Now they have what? 9-10 starters at least 4 of which faded or disappeared completely in the 2nd half. Guess there are a LOT of changes still needing band-aids in that rotation.
Meanwhile, LAD have like 8 excellent starters. Don’t any of you watch the MLB TV station.
They listed the new Mess players vs players departed and it came up way short.
BTW, I’ve been a die-hard Mets fan since 1962, but this team makes me sick...anyone got a band-aid?
Paul, you said it so much nicer than I was planning on saying it. Some people need a life.
@Paul. McNeil's versatility was underrated and underappreciated. On the other hand, his offense was overrated. I really like him though. The Baty/McNeil comparisons are only about the role he will be expected to play on the team: infield primarily and some outfield. Neither McNeil nor Baty are great at turning the double play unless someone my age is running to first. McNeil is a better instinctive fielder, but neither is a speedster. Both have good arms. Baty can play 3B, but not CF. McNeil could play 3B I venture but not in his wheelhouse. For next year, Baty has been given McNeil's role. We can only hope that he performs it as well as McNeil has. I hope it doesn't interfere with his ability to continue to improve as a hitter.
@Nickel7168 -- I will take the bait and respond, though I admire the discipline of others in being able to resist the impulse to do so. You just aren't framing the evaluations you are making within the stated FO goals, which is to produce sustained (over a long -- by BB standards -- time frame) success, including consistently competing for the opportunity to play in the WS and the probability of securing a reasonable share of WS trophies.
Every decision he makes is connected to that goal and the plans adopted to pursue it. No one can deny that there are different justifiable plans one could adopt and implement to reach that goal. The Dodgers have obviously adopted a different strategy at this point. Virtually all of their top prospects are blocked by FA signings that will expire over a period of time. Some will make their way up perhaps, but many will be traded for prospects whose time horizons differ, thus keeping the Dodgers competitive in the long run. That is one possible strategy for securing the goal the Mets and Dodgers share.
The Mets have finally fixed on a strategy that is quite different. It involves integrating top prospects into the ML when they are ready and keeping the team highly competitive now through short term contracts with very good players. This makes integration smoother and more time efficient. The goal is to over time continually have a system that generates quality players internally that are continuously integrated into the major league team. Gaps will emerge as to position and quality and those will be solved by dipping into the FA markets and trade markets as appropriate.
The thing you are missing is that the goal for this year was not to replace the production of last year's team; it was to shift to the strategy implementation and to sign players to fill the existing gaps and bridge to the time when the strategy can be fully implemented.
Too many teams adopt a very high discount rate when valuing future outcomes and this leads to a very expensive and often not sustainable approach in virtue of irrationally high bias to the present. It's a different mind set that has been adopted.
You are welcome to your views of course, but in fairness to Stearns it would make more sense if you could focus your criticisms of him either on the grounds that the strategy he is adopting is unlikely to be successful (relative to the goals that I believe we all share, including Stearns) or that he is poorly implementing that strategy.
What bothers other commentators in effect is your criticizing his decisions based on a framework of decision making -- an interpretation of what he is trying to do as expressed in who he has cut ties with and who he has brought in -- that he has made clear he is not pursuing.
This, BTW, has nothing to do with big market/small market considerations. It has everything to do with what is in fact very smart business practices and financial skill at risk management. In this model, every organization has a structure -- everything from hierarchical to flat and many in between. Success in the service you provide or the product you create -- depends on creating a structure that is capable of adding value, and with that commitment, then pursuing strategies that the structure so developed can continue to insure success in producing desirable outcomes. At the most foundational level that is where it all begins. I acknowledge as someone who has researched these areas that of course, setting up the structure correctly does not mean that with in it there is only one way to proceed. The Dodger way is probably driven by similar commitment to structure adding value if it is set up right. Indeed, I know that to be true as a former student of mine had some role in the origin story of the Dodgers under the Guggenheim Fund partners majority ownership.
But within the same framework, the Mets have chosen a different strategy. I am sure both have merits and are subject to potential criticisms.
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