Paul Articulates – setting up the off-season

You may be watching the MLB  playoffs, or you may be taking a break from it all after a rough season.  Either way, if you are a true Mets fan, you are already thinking about what comes next.

As you can see by the “Important dates” listing in the side column of our site, there are some pretty big things coming up for the front office.  This would include key decisions on who would receive Qualifying Offers, what potential trades can be negotiated, and where to pick up club options that are available.  You are also anxiously awaiting the decisions of those who have player options.

This post aims to arm you with some important data to consider as these pivotal decisions come down.

The Calander:  MLB’s activity timeline is always tied to the end of the World Series.  On the fifth day after the World Series ends, personnel actions open up: Trades can formally be enacted, free agents are allowed to sign with other teams, and Qualifying Offers (QOs) must be finalized.  The series will end some time between October 29th and November 2nd depending upon how many games are required.  This pegs those key personnel dates between November 3rd (early series completion) and November 7th (late series completion).  

In addition to the post-series activities, players that have received QOs are given until November 18th to decide whether to accept or reject.  Another significant date is December 1st, when the collective bargaining agreement expires.  If there is no agreement before then, expect all baseball activity to halt until there is resolution.

The Payroll: The current 28-man active roster for the Mets contains a lot more youth than prior rosters, with many players under team control or arbitration eligible players.  Only eight players remain with long term contracts in place that commit salary and one of them, Bo Bichette, has the ability to opt out of the remaining two years on his deal.  These eight (assuming Bo stays) commit the team to $217.35M which is far below last year’s roughly $350M in salary obligation.  

A caveat here is that Jorge Polanco, who is under contract to receive $23M next year, is on the IL but barring a trade or release will be on the active roster in 2027.

Another caveat is that the 12 players making league minimum (assumed to be $1M next year but subject to the CBA negotiations) will add $12M to the bottom line and the eleven arbitration eligible players will add more. 

Here are the current commitments:

This table can be expanded to include the full 28-man roster by including estimates of $1M salaries for those earning MLB minimum salary and estimates from Sportrac of post-arbitration salaries for the rest.  I started to do that, but realized that it was futile because all of the “fill in the blanks” information is deeply dependent upon what is agreed upon in the new Collective Bargaining Agreement whenever that is finalized.  Instead, here is a table of the arbitration eligible players over the next two seasons from the current team:

All the other players are controllable for the next few years.

Although these names are from the 40-man roster, we are primarily focused on the active roster (26 players for most of the season, 28 players in September).  

If you keep all of the players from these two tables, there are only three slots remaining for free agent acquisitions or minor league call-ups.  Clearly there will have to be some movement, and several articles within the last week have already discussed those potential choices.

Time to put your GM hat on and start envisioning the 2027 roster.  Good luck!