Ryan Nodes - The Future

In a perfect world and I had the enviable role of General Manager for the New York Metropolitans, I would focus on this offseason to turn this organization around and give the fans a team they can be proud, in order to get them back to Flushing to fill up Citi Field. We all know what Shea was like when the Mets were successful and it would be nice to see what Citi Field could be like with a playoff caliber team. 

Given the money that is coming off the books, (not including deferments),  Johan Santana ($31M), Jason Bay ($21M), Frank Francisco ($6.5M), Shaun Marcum ($4M), amongst others, there appears to be a lot of spending money to potentially utilize this offseason to reinvest in the on field product and sign some players on the free agent market. 

Below are the players I would target to make the 2014 version of the NY Mets a much more competitive team from top to bottom and put us in a position to fight for a wild card spot. Let me know what you think? 

FREE AGENCY

1.   Sign either Jacoby Ellsbury (CF) or Shin-Soo Choo (CF) - (5 year, $85M)

2. Sign Nelson Cruz (RF) - (3 year, $45M)

3. Sign Ryan Raburn (UT) - (2 year, $5M)

4. Sign either Jason Vargas (SP) or Phil Hughes (SP) - (3 year, $30M)

5. Sign Joaquin Benoit (RP) -  (1 year, $2.5 M)

6. Sign two (RP) from this list of free agents - (1 year, $2M each)

(Jason Frasor, Kevin Gregg, Casey Janssen, Edward Mujica, Juan Carlos Oviedo, Joe Smith, Matt Capps, Joba Chamberlain, Jesse Crain, Kyle Farnsworth, Koji Uehara, Jose Valverde)

For sake of this argument, lets assume Jason Frasor & Joe Smith

7. Re-sign John Buck (C) - (1 year, $3M)

TRADE

Trade any 4-5 of these guys:

(Daniel Murphy (2B-3B), Ike Davis (1B), Jordany Valdespin (2B-OF), Mike Baxter (OF), Kirk Niewenhuis (OF), Matt den Decker (OF), Cory Vaughn (OF), Cesar Puello (OF), Reese Havens (2B), Dillon Gee (SP), Jacob DeGrom (SP), Jenrry Mejia (SP), Luis Mateo (SP),  Logan Verrett (SP), Tyler Pill (SP), Hansel Robles (SP), Darin Gorski (SP), Cory Mazzoni (SP), Robert Carson (RP) or any other low level minor leaguers the Royals may ask for not named Cecchini or Nimmo)

to 

Royals for: 

Alex Gordon - (LF) & Donnie Joseph - (RP)

2014 OPENING DAY ROSTER

PROJECTED PAYROLL= $90M-$93M

* Free Agent

**Trade

LINEUP = ($55.5M)

1.   *Jacoby Ellsbury (L) / Shin-Soo Choo (L) - (CF) - ($17M)

2.  Wilmer Flores (R) - (2B) - ($500K)

3. **Alex Gordon (L) - (LF) - ($10M)

4. David Wright (R) - (3B) - ($20M)

5. *Nelson Cruz (R) - (RF) - ($15M)

6. Lucas Duda (L) - (1B) - ($1M) / Ike Davis (L) - (1B) - ($3.5M)

7. Travis D'Arnaud (R) - (C) - ($500K)

8. Ruben Tejada (R) - (SS) - ($1M)

BENCH = ($7M)

9.   Matt den Decker (L) / Kirk Nieuwenhuis (L) / Mike Baxter (L) - (OF) - ($500K)

10. *Ryan Raburn (R) - (UT) - ($2.5M)

11.  Omar Quintanilla (L) / Josh Rodriquez (R) / Wilfredo Tovar (R) - (SS) - ($500K)

12. Zach Lutz (R) / Josh Satin (R) / Allan Dykstra (R) - (1B) - ($500K)

13. John Buck (R) - (C) - ($3M)

STARTING ROTATION = ($15.5M)

1.   Matt Harvey (RH) - ($500K)

2. Jon Niese (LH) - $5M)

3. Zack Wheeler (RH) - ($500K)

4. *Jason Vargas (LH) / Phil Hughes (RH) - ($10M)

5. Rafael Montero (RH) - ($500K)

BULLPEN = ($11M)

6. Bobby Parnell (RH) - (CL) - ($3M) 

7. *Joaquin Benoit (RH) - (SU) - ($2.5M) 

8. *Jason Frasor (RH) - ($2M)

9. *Joe Smith (RH) - ($2M)

10. Jeurys Familia (RH) - ($500K)

11.  Josh Edgin (LH) / Jack Leathersich (LH) - ($500K)

12. **Donnie Joseph (LH) - ($500K)

This would be a great offseason (IMO), but we all now that this is not how it's going to go. With this payroll, this would be us roughly $90M-$93M in "on field talent", (not including deferments from past players). Even if we had to sign some of these free agents to bigger contracts, we could still do so and keep the payroll below $100M. I would consider this very competitive team, which is what Sandy said he wanted to do when he got here, lower the payroll below $100M and be competitive by 2014. This would also give us the ability to further develop some of our younger prospects since we wouldn't have to rush them to Flushing as quickly with solid major leaguers producing, barring injuries of course. 

The only transaction I'm a little hesitant on is the Alex Gordon trade since he's playing at a very high level, which begs the question, why would KC want to trade him and the answer to that question is $$$. He's due to start making some big money starting next year and we know KC might not have the money to give him. The did just trade Wil Myers away, so this will be a tough negotiation with them since they will definitely be asking for Wheeler, Syndergard, Montero & d'Arnaud, but none of them would be including in that trade. If an Alex Gordon doesn't work out, another player I would target to play LF would be Chase Headley. He's a switch hitter, with power and would fit nicely with this team. 

Otherwise, I think all of those free agent transactions are somewhat reasonable and attainable, but as we've seen, the free agent market is not Sandy's forte. There are a lot of moves that could be made this offseason, I just hope they finally make them instead of sitting back and waiting for everyone else to make their moves and then target the players that are left over to lower level contracts, (See 2010, 2011, 2012 offseasons).