What Mets Need to Do At Winter Meetings

The Mets head into the 2019 Winter Meetings having done very little to add to their roster, while the Braves have been aggressive and the Phillies brought Zack Wheeler to Philadelphia.

They’ve acquired defense-first center fielder Jake Marisnick and re-signed right-handed reliever Brad Brach. Left-handed pitchers Chasen Shreve and Stephen Gonsalves, outfielder Jarrett Parker, and utility man Max Moroff have been brought in as depth as well.

Those acquisitions matched up against the loss of Wheeler, have the Mets roster currently looking like a downgrade from the one that won 86 games and finished in third place last season.

Let’s get the ugliest stuff out of the way first, according to payroll estimates, the Mets have roughly $14 million to spend before they hit the luxury tax threshold of $208 million. As I’ve noted numerous times, this “cap” as some teams are treating it, shouldn’t stop the Mets from going over. But, I fully expect that it will.

First off, the penalty for going over is very minor for a first time defender (20% on the amount over $208) and the Mets will have the Yoenis Cespedes, Jed Lowrie, David Wright, and others coming off the books for 2021. That means that if the Mets went over a little in 2020, they should be able to stay under for 2021 with relative ease.

The Mets need a starting pitcher, at least one more bullpen arm, veteran catcher, and could certainly use more major league caliber depth for the bench.

Since Zack Wheeler signed with the Phillies last week, the only starting pitcher we’ve heard the Mets tied to is Rick Porcello. The Mets won 86 games last year while the Nationals won the World Series and the Braves took the NL East crown. Porcello is not the type of pitcher you acquire to replace Wheeler.

We know the Mets are staying out of the Gerrit Cole, Stephen Strasburg, and Madison Bumgarner market, yet there’s still plenty of meat on the bone after that top tier and before the likes of Porcello (-0.5 WARP in 2019).

As Joe D. noted in a recent article, Hyun-Jin Ryu is an intriguing option coming off season in which he led Major League Baseball with a 2.32 ERA and 1.2 BB/9 over 182 2/3 innings for the Dodgers in 2019. The 33-year-old is predicted to get three years, $54 million by MLB Trade Rumors.

Then there’s a little bit of a dropoff in the market after Ryu to the likes of Dallas Keuchel, Wade Miley, Gio Gonzalez, Homer Bailey, Julio Teheran, and Tanner Roark. All pitchers that were better in 2019 than Porcello. Josh Lindblom – looking to return to the majors after success in Korean – and Korean left-hander Kwang-hyun Kim are other options arguably in at least the Porcello-tier.

The Mets finished the 2019 season with Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Marcus Stroman, Steven Matz, and Wheeler in their rotation, and you can’t expect to be on that level again with a Porcello-type replacement.

One hot topic on Mets Twitter is whether or not to move Seth Lugo into the rotation to fill that spot and then simply sign a reliever to replace him.

There’s a couple issues with that in my opinion; one being that Lugo back to the rotation is a risk given that he’s never been a full season starter (most innings in one season is 137 innings) and the second issue is that the top relievers have already been signed.

The Mets bullpen had a 4.99 ERA in 2019 including brutal seasons from their two biggest offseason acquisitions in Edwin Diaz and Jeurys Familia. Bringing back Brach was a solid move after the way he finished the season with the Mets, but they still need at least two more new bullpen arms.

Right-hander Will Harris is the best reliever available according to MLBTR’s free agent rankings and they project he will get two years, $18 million. Righties Daniel Hudson, Craig Stammen, Steve Cishek, Dellin Betances, Pedro Strop, Collin McHugh, Kevin Gausman, and Brandon Kintzler are some of the top arms still available.

Mets should grab two guys from that group while keeping Lugo in the bullpen.

Wilson Ramos had a solid offensive (105 wRC+) first season with the Mets, though he was also one of the worst defensive catchers as well. Behind him is the defensive-minded Tomas Nido that has struggled severely with the bat (.514 big league OPS) and another defensive specialist in prospect Ali Sanchez.

MMO’s Rob Piersall broke down the free agent catching crop that has already seen Yasmani Grandal, Travis d’Arnaud, Stephen Vogt, and Yan Gomes sign. The Mets have already been tied to Robinson Chirinos while Jason Castro was above average both offensively and defensively in 2019. Other names include Russell Martin, former Met Kevin Plawecki, and Martin Maldonado.

Luis Guillorme is currently projected to finish off the Mets bench according to Roster Resource – and while he had a strong finish to the 2019 season (.300/.391/.475 in the second half) – the Mets could improve their overall depth by adding someone like Eric Sogard, Jose Iglesias, Brock Holt or Charlie Culberson.

If the Mets decided to go with a bat-first veteran bench piece instead, former Met Wilmer Flores is available as are Brad Miller and Travis Shaw. Remember that each team has a 26-man roster starting with the 2020 season.

Conclusion

We know what the Mets really should be doing is going after a top free agent like Cole, Strasburg, and Anthony Rendon, but those are all pipelines dreams until that possible Steve Cohen money comes to the Mets. They should also be in the trade market for Mookie Betts and Starling Marte, both were long shots before and now seem even moreso after the Mets acquired Marisnick.

With that said, the Mets could still go into the 2020 season with a strong roster with additions of Ryu, Betances, Harris, Castro, and Shaw. In addition, they should also talk to Syndergaard and Conforto about extensions now to lock in both long-term.