Mets are eying a reliever, and the new Mets black jersey leaked
The Mets are looking a swing-and-miss reliever on the free agent market
What’s Up with the Mets? 🍎
The Mets have been in contact with the agents for RHP Héctor Neris and have also shown interest in a reunion with Adam Ottavino (SNY)
Ottavino declined his player option for 2024 with the Mets due to uncertainty with the organization (Foul Territory)
In addition to Neris, the Mets had shown interest in signing LHP Aroldis Chapman, but he agreed to a one-year, $10.5 million deal with the Pirates (FanSided)
These are the 2024 Mets alternate black jerseys (UniWatch)
Notes on Héctor Neris and the 2024 black jersey ✍️
A couple of weeks ago, SNY’s Andy Martino said the Mets would prefer to limit their spending to $10 million or so for the rest of the winter, and they would be prioritizing their bullpen with those resources.
Obviously, that’s not a hard number the Mets will necessarily stick to, but it’s also not a lot to work with in what’s usually a robust market for relievers. Even if the Mets had a $20 million window, it’s not a lot considering the amount of work and the kinds of pitchers the club needs to do to properly setup Edwin Díaz.
That’s why its curious the Mets - per Martino once again - would be considering pitchers like Héctor Neris or Aroldis Chapman.
Chapman has since reportedly agreed to a one-year, $10.5 million deal with the Pirates, but the question still remains.
Make no mistake - Neris would make their bullpen considerably better and go a long way towards supporting David Stearns’ decree the Mets can and should be a playoff contender in 2024.
After all, aside from Edwin Díaz in the bullpen, there’s a lot of “pray for rain” on that part of the roster.
But while Neris can probably be had for a similar figure to that which Chapman just got from the Pirates, might he warrant a multi-year deal given the kind of season he just had with the Astros?
That remains to be seen.
The 34-year-old Neris figured it out during his stay in Houston after a very up-and-down tenure with the Phillies. He is durable and has a splitter-centric repertoire which is what truly makes him a swing-and-miss reliever. Having said that, his fastball was his best pitch in 2023 according to Statcast, which sits at about 93 mph. He’s was in the upper percentiles of hard hit rate, chase rate, average exit velocity, and all of those other nice things the Mets need to cut down on runs late in games.
We shall see if the Mets can move this forward, or if this falls out of their comfort zone from a contract-length perspective. But even if the Mets were to land Neris, that would eat up most, if not all of that theoretical $10 million budget they’ve set for a bullpen that needs quite a bit more than someone like Neris.
As for the new black jerseys, you may have noticed in the image above it lacks the white piping on the lettering. This follows the pattern with the new black hats, which is all black with a blue interlocking “NY” with an orange stroke on the front of the cap.
The hat does look good if you ask me. It’s what I wished they had done originally with this style in the late 1990’s, only that hat had a blue brim. They typically wore the black hat/blue brim with the nnow White jerseys - that always looked off to me.
The new alternate black jerseys come as no surprise to me. Once they released this hat, I fully expected them to do something similar with the black jerseys.
Having said that, MLB’s rendering of the new black jerseys is a little hard on my eyes.
The white pipe on the original black jerseys and even the modified black jerseys the Mets re-introduced in this decade always had white piping on the letters, allowing the letters and numbers to stand out on the dark-colored jersey:
Without the white pipe, as you can see in MLB’s rendering, the lettering - which is the traditional blue with orange stroke - looks a little flat on the black jersey.
We will see what it looks like in real life, of course. I’m sure the Mets have taken this into consideration.
No matter what, people will complain anyway whether it looks right or not.
But I am a jersey buff and my feeling is a jersey represents a team and a brand. What they look like matters to kids in Little League, and they matter to fans of professional sports teams too even if many pretend it doesn’t.
For better or for worse, I am very much looking forward to seeing the final product in real life.
Hot Stove 🔥
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