Reese Kaplan -- How to Construct the 2020 Active Roster

Baseball is about to begin again but no one has given much specific thought to the roster conundrum facing the Mets and the other major league ballclubs.  Under Commissioner Manfred’s Machiavellian mandate, the teams must work with active rosters of 30 players as well as designating a total of 60 eligible players for the entire season, 30 of whom are on the list but as standbys working off-site from Citifield and the other MLB ballparks where the big club is playing.  

What’s not exactly clear right now are the requirements for roster specification, service time accrued and eligibility to play.  Consequently, if you have a 40-man roster type like Andres Gimenez who is slated to be promoted to the major league club at some point in the future, you have a bit of a quandary to face.  Do you add him to one of the five additional roster spots now?  If you do, it’s nice having someone who is purported to be a quality eligible player handy if you need him, but at what cost?

In the past the NY Mets have been almost insanely reticent to allow players to advance through the system to join the big club in their early 20s.  Some would say that the snail-like pace for promotion is a testament to the conservative philosophy of making sure players are absolutely ready for the increased level of competition.  

After all, watch how that worked out when the Nationals promoted or the Braves promoted top rookie type players to the big club.  Juan Soto or Victor Robles and Trea Turner were mature mid-to-late 20s prospects.  Oh wait!  Turner was the old man of the group at 22, with Robles taking the field at 20 and Soto at 19.  Down in Atlanta you had old men Ronald Acuna and Dansby Swanson making their only-when-they’re-ready debuts.  Nope!  Acuna was showing 20 on his driver’s license and Swanson was but 22.  

Now contrast that to the Mets who waited until injuries forced them to push 26 year old Jeff McNeil into a starting role.  That’s more typical of how this club does things.  Now, with the team up for sale and revenue nearly impossible to find, I fully expect that behavior to increase rather than decrease.  Why sacrifice service time to someone not destined to play regularly and have fewer years of financial control when you could, instead, fill the MLB roster with has-beens and never-wases whose long term future is not part of the team’s plans?

Towards that end, wouldn’t it make sense to test out the likes of a Matt Blackham who was booted from the 40-man roster last year despite a minor league ERA of just 2.38 for his five years trying to work his way up the ladder rather than opening up space for the likes of David Peterson whose claim to fame was a hot fall league?  The same goes for guys like Gimenez who doesn’t have a place to play and will collect splinters on the bench rather than giving some time to a relatively lost cause like David Thompson?  If you lose Thompson or Blackham after this experimental season, no one is going to shed a tear.  That way you can have the players who might be part of a long term Mets future not giving up a year of service time.

Some of the bench players are already pretty clear.  You will find room for Jake Marisnick, Luis Guillorme and some familiar if ineffective pitchers.  That’s understandable.  The question here is how to enhance those extra spots on the roster.  Who would make up your remaining positions?  Do you tap into the unsigned free agent pool?  Is that even allowed?  Do you manipulate your 60-man total to add available if not studly prospects?  Do you do what the team normally does and look for the Rajai Davis and James Loney types who can be had for a fraction of the price and require no long term commitments?   

 Have at it.