Mets360 - Mets make three moves to add to 40-man roster depth

 

By Brian Joura October 31, 2020

Here’s a comment of mine from February of 2020:

Mets fans know firsthand the value of depth.

I blame BVW for a few high-profile bad moves but he deserves credit for building the team’s 25-man roster depth to better than it’s been for a long, long time.

My opinion is that the Mets are about 2 years away from having good upper minors/40-man roster depth.

The Mets recently announced the players they were not picking up options for, along with those whose contracts were finished and were now free agent. Those moves left their 40-man roster at 31. There have been some surprising non-tenders by other clubs and some hoped that new owner Steve Cohen would flex his financial muscle by picking up guys like Darren O’Day and Brad Hand, players who would certainly be big improvements over what the club carried in 2020.

Perhaps this wouldn’t have been a good look for Cohen – spending money on his first day as owner while other clubs are claiming to be in such bad financial shape. Or maybe the club doesn’t have any interest in spending more on middle relievers than they’ll pay their closer next year. Regardless of the “why,” the Mets, along with every other club, passed on picking those guys up and being responsible for their original contract.

There seems little doubt that supply is going to be much, much higher than in recent years. And just like you don’t walk into a store and buy the first mattress you see, you don’t have to pick the first eight-figure contract that comes your way, either. The Mets did make some moves yesterday, picking up two pitchers for depth purposes, ones who don’t figure to make the Opening Day roster, yet guys who you figure will get a shot at some point during the 2021 season.

The new Mets are Jacob Barnes and Nick Tropeano. Barnes is a reliever, a fastball/slider guy with a heater regularly in the mid-90s. The problem, especially last year, was that the slider wasn’t a good pitch at all. Maybe the Mets feel they can help with the slider or have him focus on another pitch. FanGraphs lists him as not having an option left. Tropeano has been primarily a starter in his MLB career but all seven of his appearances last season came out of the pen. Tropeano has a much deeper repertoire than Barnes but is somewhat similar in that one pitch wasn’t giving him great results. This time, it’s the splitter that batters were punishing. Also, Tropeano has an option remaining.

Adding these two players, the 40-man now sits at 33. And according to mlb.com reporter Anthony DiComo, the Mets don’t have any pressing needs to promote a minor leaguer to the 40-man prior to the Rule 5 Draft. DiComo singles out Shervyen Newton as the biggest candidate and Newton was not very good when we last saw him in Lo-A in 2019.

So, there’s a lot of room to add guys from free agency. And the current 40-man still has guys you wouldn’t lose any sleep if they were cut from the list. Patrick Mazeika, Paul Sewald and Daniel Zamora all currently have slots. Really, the Mets could add 10 new guys to the 40-man at this point in time. And if they did that and still found guys they liked – they could make additional moves. Let’s take a quick look at the guys on the 40-man not likely to start the year on the Opening Day roster.

Barnes – Power reliever who had a 3.54 ERA in 147.1 IP from 2016-18 with the Brewers
Ariel Jurado – Depth starter candidate with very little MLB success
Franklyn Kilome – Potential long man out of the pen if Mets will utilize that role/

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