Good morning.
First... not that many topics here. Gonna let us concentrate on Kyle Tucker this morning.
Currently, the Mets have committed to a 2026 40-man salary of over $320,000,000.00 and:
1. They have no legitimate first baseman.
2. They have a new old second baseman committed to three seasons that simply doesn't hit anymore at a major league caliber level.
3. They still haven't locked down their 2026 starting third baseman.
4. They have no left fielder. This isn't a misprint. I didn't mean they don't have a good one. They have no one.
5. There currently have a sub-in-waiting centerfielder waiting for someone to show up with a bat.
6. They have a starting right fielder who charted the worst defensive stats at that position... in the league.
7. They have a current rotation that is the same one that missed last year's playoffs.
8. And, they have pen that is missing last year's top four pitchers, all of which signed elsewhere.
All this for $320,000,000.00.
You know me. The always optimistic Mack. The defender of the Cohen brain trust. The President of the David Stearns fan club.
But, you might have seen the Mack ship shifting directions and heading away from the sun. What I described above is nowhere near Nivana. It's closer to Coldplay.
Now that Kyle Tucker has taken his bats and moved west, the Mets must once again shrug it off and move on. 60 million dollars a year is just stupid money to pay for someone with this stat result history. Ohtani, yes... Judge and Soto, definitely. But Tucker? A salary figure like this takes the sting off pretty quickly.
I went to bed just before this went down but forgot to turn the sound down on my phone. It began pinging away, so I immediately turned it off, but couldn't help take one more peek at the sources of those pings.
Turned out to be drops from other writers, telling me that Tucker joined the talent-poor Dodgers. I immediately reached out to Steve and told him this was no biggie, that he should take a run at Bellinger. If that fails, move on to The Three Amigos in the chain. Hell, you pitched three starters before their time at the end of last season... why not one outfielder to start on opening day.
I then reminded him that teams that build an all-star like bat lineup are easily defeated with a team that has an all-star like pitching staff... and the 2026 and beyond Mets should concentrate on that and let the prospect bats take over in the next 1 1/2 years.
I then went to sleep.
Thomas Nestico - TJStats
Top 50 Starting Pitchers for
2026
https://tjstats.ca/2026/01/13/top-50-st arting-pitchers-for-2026/
37) Nolan McLean
P, Age: 24, Throws: R, 6'
2"/214 lbs
DOB: 2001-07-24, Willow
Spring, USA
Nolan McLean is by far the safest bet of this
trio of dynamic young arms entering 2026. His arsenal is jam-packed
with polished offerings including a pair of breaking balls that grade out as
some of the best in MLB. He is extremely athletic, and command gains have
propelled him to #1 pitching prospect in baseball status. His cup of coffee
last season went as well as the Mets could have hoped, and he has the talent to
cement himself as one of the best starters in MLB next season.
MACK –
This is about the best someone can say
about a ROY candidate. Impressive synopsis from Mr. Nestico.
Tobey Schulman @tschulmanreport
Jacob Reimer should be a consensus
top-100 prospect by the end of 2026. The 21-year-old generates a solid amount
of pull-air contact, and excelled vs. AA pitching in 61 games.
.282/.379/.491 slash line
between A+/AA in '25, with 17 HR, and a 157 wRC+..
MACK –
I too am a fan of Reimer…
just not a BIG fan yet.
Also, let’s say Brett Baty doesn’t
work out at third, the Mets stop trying to make Mark Vientos into
a decent fielding third baseman, and Ronny Mauricio remains, well, Ronny
Mauricio
Is this guy talented
enough to become the starting third baseman for the Mets, no less any other
team in the league?
2026 is a critical year
for him to prove it, at least, to me.
37 comments:
Well, the morning after has brought a necessitated pivot away from the flavor of the winter. A few days ago I wrote that Tucker was the best fit for the Mets between him, Bellinger and Robert.
As I now tried to figure out who is a better fit, Bellinger or Robert, something hit me. Without knowing what Chris Getz wants for Robert yet, what if you get both Bellinger and Robert? You keep Taylor as a fourth outfielder, you have good defenders at both positions - and the Yankees finally let Dominguez play - but would you rather have Tucker and Taylor or Bellinger and Robert? I’d rather have Bellinger and Robert. I can live with the Mets lineup if you add both those guys and take out Taylor.
I had a feeling with age creeping into the Dodgers lineup they needed Tucker, but I guess that I underestimated their pocketbook.
I think we all underestimated the once nicknames Da Bums.
As for Robert, he's never rang my bell. Bellinger yes, and I would make a healthy run with a 3-4 year offer... past that, the kiddies
One would think that the Dodgers have to be running out of money. That is insane.Sucker for Tucker contract. Baseball is irretrievably broken. Willie May’s top annual salary would not have paid for even one game of Kyle Tucker, who is no Willie Mays. Irretrievably broken. I hate to see players sitting out during a strike, but I hope the next strike is really long, because this is insanity.
Reimer will show us this year if he is the real deal or if he is the next JD Davis or Zach Lutz. If you reduced Kyle) Tucker’s salary by three zeros, which would make it $60,000, he’d still be making more than Reimer. Baseball insanity.
Off topic, but Mack posted Monday about OOPSY projections. OOPSY did a top 30 prospect hitter and top 30 prospect pitcher list for the major league. It was done just before the end of the season last year.
Remarkably, they had Jonah Tong 2nd, and McLean 5th. No Sproat.
Only Ryan Clifford made their hitter list, and he was high, around 10th.
https://fantasy.fangraphs.com/oopsys-top-60-prospects-final-2025-update/
So… I looked at baseball references 2026 projections for Kyle Tucker. Here’s what they projected.:
532 plate appearances, 24 doubles, three triples, 23 HRs, 73 RBIs, and 78 runs scored.
$60 million a year? For that? Insane..
I'm gonna assume Baty is the winner here going forward
Reimer doesn't have the pop to DH
And he doesn't play enough positions to become a major league utility infielder
I don't know... I don't know
.
Oh, and a Tucker slash line of .273/.373/.493? $60 million? Insane.
They must have one hell of a media contract out there
Dodgers signed a $8B tv contract.
As for Robert, there’s upside… better than Taylor. What would y’all give up? Getz probably wants a decent prospect, like Ewing.
I don’t see that stat line for Tucker. The guy has been a legit 5 bWAR player for five years, or on the way to that when healthy. He is good. But, $60MM? Wow.
Tom, the owners aren’t going to put up with this. The players love it. It will be long. Maybe over a year. The players union has put money aside to pay players. The players making boo coo money though are shit out of luck. It will be ugly.
THIS IS BULLSHIT!!! The game is irreparably broken.
At this point I wouldn't even sign anyone else and just go with what you got. Either go with Benge or pick up some other scrub to cover left field and call it a day. Why throw away good money after bad.
For those now clamoring for Belinger. He has sucked 2 out of the last 5 years. I will say this for the 100th time. HE HIT .214 ON THE ROAD.
As for that fat NUTBAR Valdez. He has imploded the last 2 second halves. And did I mention HE'S A FREAKIN CERTIFYABLE HEADCASE.
They have broken the best sport in the world. Can't wait for the strike.
Gus, I would promote and play Ewing before I would trade him for Robert. It would be areal leap, but…
Gus, Robert is just a higher priced Taylor
Remember... I'm playing for 2026. The outfield will be fine by then.
Gus, the only way I would take Robert is as a salary dump. He has not hit in 3 years. If Stearns gives up anything of value, then he should be fired.
What are we going to write about during the strike? The Savannah Bananas?
Tom, I wouldn’t trade him either! I’m just saying what Getz would want… that’s why he still has him.
Mack, he’s better than Taylor
Mack, I have a question for you, or for anyone who knows.
When the Dodgers have to start paying all that differed money, how would it count against the salary cap? Does it just go dollar for dollar against the cap? Does it even get figured in?
Against everything I believe in, baseball needs a hard cap to save the sport from itself. There should be a maximum and a minimum. Those teams that don't spend the minimum should be fined or forced to sell. There should also be no equity sharing for those teams that don't meet the minimum payroll.
Max: 350m
Min: 200m
If you can't afford the minimum, then you don't deserve to own a team.
Joe, relax dude. It ain’t our team, anyway. I like winning. I won’t just quit. I will dig and dig, and find a way. That’s my opinion. What would I offer for Robert, still an elite CFer with offensive upside? Wenninger?
Gus, no he's not. He hit below .200 2 of the last 3 years. He's faster, slightly better with the glove, strikes out 35% of the time.
Joe, the present value is what the present Luxury Tax goes by. For example, even though Ohtani is getting paid $2MM and his deferred is $68MM, he counts towards $46MM now and not when they are paying. They probably will be over $400 next year. Possibly $425.
Joe, if you can’t get real, I’m going to give up. His strikeout rate was 26% last year and his walk rate was 9%. His BABIP was only .274, so for a fast guy, he had no luck. That BABIP is for slow guys like Alonso. MLB average is a little over .300. Also, his range factor in CF was the best in baseball. His stolen base percentage was 80%.
He did hit .224 and .223 thw last two years, but last year was with a very low BABIP. He stole 33 bases and like I said: U P S I D E. If he was rolling, you aren’t getting him for Wenninger.
Thanks Gus. BTW, you know when we don't agree it's not personal. It's just my jaded opinion.
That's what I mean, why would you want another .224 hitter. If he was actually good the Sox wouldn't be looking to dump him. I guess we will have to agree to disagree, I still love you brother.
An excerpt from Eno Sarris this morning in The Athletic:
Tucker was a 25th percentile outfielder by Statcast’s Outs Above Average (OAA) last season. There have been 24 similar outfielders in the Statcast era. As a group, they all got about an OAA worse every year, which sounds fine. But when you start perusing the names on the list, there is worry here. Only one of the 24 — Randy Arozarena — managed to stay in the outfield long enough to play 1,000 innings in three consecutive seasons after he put up the type of season Tucker just did in the outfield. Three (Bryce Harper, Andrew Benintendi and Marcell Ozuna) switched positions because their bats were valuable enough to play at the different spot.
Three years after comparable seasons to the one Tucker just had, only Starling Marte, Mike Trout and Arozarena were above-average players still playing in the outfield. Out of 24 possible players.
If Tucker’s bat ages well, he can still be a valuable player as a first baseman, but it does seem unlikely that he spends the rest of his career in the outfield, at least when looking at comparable players. So, let’s return to the bat and consider how his power will age.
As much as Tucker has elite plate discipline, there’s one underlying tool that is decidedly not elite: his 49th percentile bat speed. He’s been productive with this bat speed for a while now, but his bat-speed starting point doesn’t give him much of a margin for error going forward.
Joe, I don’t want a .224 hitter either. But, based on the analytics and his profile, I’m guessing it’s one year of a .260 or so hitter, that will play great defense, bat sixth, steal around 30 bases and hit 25 homeruns, as his average per 162 games is 29 homeruns per season for his career. I’ll take that. His isn’t chopped liver, and better than Taylor by far. What I’d pay for him is the problem: nothing I would miss.
So, Gus are you saying we dodged a bullet...lol.
Gus, I would sign up for those stats in a minute, unfortunately I just don't see it.
Here's a slightly different take. Crazy money for sure. While the Dodgers were developing a great farm system, they filled their major league team with free agents. Some are aging, like Freeman; many are pitchers who are not. They now have a number of players who are very nearly major league ready who are blocked. And they have lost so many draft picks due to free agent signings. One advantage they have is that they have minor league near ready or ready talent to trade for minor league talent that won't be major league ready. We should be scouring that list of near ready major leaguers to add to our already growing list. They will keep a few to use in trades for Major leaguers to fill gaps as they emerge and some for themselves to replace aging players, but some will have to be used to change timelines. Let's see if we can stock up. The more near major league ready we have now, the more competition among them for time on our roster. In addition we can then trade some those in other organizations farther away from the majors of teams who need more major league ready players. Just a thought.
I’m happy they didn’t get Tucker. I thought $50 a year was ridiculous and he got even more? WTF? So we would have been paying double that with the Cohen Tax?
We offered him a $220 mil for 4 years, I would rather give $210 to Bellinger for 7 years and save the extra $10 mil.
Please say no to Framber. I am starting to think I like what Ron Darling said and go for Zac Gallen and my preferred pickup Chris Bassit.
Also say no to Roberts for CF, I just don’t trust him to revert back to his old stats from 2022?
I still like taking on Manny Machados whole contract if they include RP Miller in the package? I think that would be a better way to spend your $220 million dollars. A righty bat that can protect Soto, and a stud reliever without giving up too many of your prospects because taking on the whole contract. Also, I wonder how San Diego feels this morning. Maybe they might be shifting towards a rebuild? Because of the Da Bums super team?
And I hate to say this because making predictions about what the Dodgers are prepared to spend is a fool's errand. But, it would be officially crazy to trade for Skubal this year as our chances of getting him are greater next year as the Dodger's couldn't possible be real competitors for his services! I know.
No, Eno Sarris said it
I also argued that Bellinger was the better fit defensively and from an insurance perspective due to his versatility. I also argued that people were underestimated the impact Tucker's injuries have had on his defense, base running, power and overall hitting prowess. The best part of the Bellinger/Robert duo is that OF defense goes way up; if Robert is not a longer term solution, he is just one year if any of other players are ready. If two of our outfielders are, Bellinger is your first baseman and infield and outfield defense remains excellent. And we can spend our free agency money in the next two years on absolutely top of the rotation pitchers without depleting any of our farm system.-- other than what has to go in a Robert trade and in a trade for either Peralta or Pivetta. Just a thought.
Jules, to get those near ready players from the Dodgers, you forgot one thing, we would have to give up our prospects to get their prospects.
Zozo, love your idea about Machado. The only thing about him is that he's an even bigger nutjob than Valdez. They would lead the all-star team...IN PRISON. Your idea of getting them to add Miller in a salary dump is very good.
I still say...JUST SAY NO TO BELLINGER. For the reasons I mentioned above.
I'm really happy we did not sign Tucker. I strongly believe in our prospects filling the gaps this year. And a hard no to Valdez. Poison in the clubhouse.
I am sooo happy that the Mets missed out on signing Tucker. He is a very good player but not one worth 60M per year. The same can be said for what Bellinger wants. Add Valdez to that.
The best move for the Mets right now is to not trade the kids for any player with only a year of control unless the players involved are the Mauricio, Acuna types.
When it comes to CF, the Mets should remember their history.
They had and have Taylor who is a great CF but can't hit much.
Then they went out and signed Bader who is a great CF but can't hit much.
Then they traded for the great Jose Siri who is a great CF but can't hit much.
Now they may contemplate trading for Luis Robert Jr. because he is a great CF that you guess it, can't hit either. One has to wonder at what point does the collective brain trust recognizes that they have done this before?.
Regardless of what the Mets do this year, they will not be able to match in any shape of form the mighty Dodgers. The Mets objective should be to play the kids and start putting together the young, fast, healthy, exciting core.
The Mets did not let Alonso and Diaz to walk away and trade Nimmo and McNeil to load up with expensive long term contracts. They have enough high end prospects to take over and that should be the plan.
Very well said Viper.
For those old enough to remember:
Mrs. Wedemeyer, May I echo those words.
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