Mets showing interest in Paul Goldschmidt

Plus, a blueprint for the Mets to complete their 2025 roster

What’s up with the Mets? 🍎

• The Mets are among five teams - including the Yankees - engaged in talks with 1B Paul Goldschmidt (USA Today)

• The Mets signed LHP Anthony Gose, RHP Oliver Ortega and catcher Chris Williams to minor league contracts with invites to major league spring training

• The Yankees appear to be looking for less expensive options at first base than Pete Alonso (Athletic)

• The Mets luxury tax bill for 2024 was $97,115,609. They were among nine clubs to pay a total of $311.3 million in penalties this past season, up from $209.8 million from 2023 (AP)

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Rumor Mill 💨

• The Twins are listening to trade offers for RHP Pablo López (ESPN)

• The Blue Jays have gotten calls on INF Bo Bichette, and are talking to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. about a contract extension (Athletic)

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A blueprint for the rest of the off-season ✍️

As we all know at this point, the Mets still have a lot of needs to fill, and we are about to enter the second half of the off-season with January on the horizon.

Yes, they’ve built some depth, especially in their rotation, which is smart considering David Stearns has said they’re likely using a six-man rotation for much of the regular season. So, they’re going to need at least 10 starters to get them through the year if that’s the case.

But they still need to install a surer thing at the top of their rotation in what is turning out to be a very expensive market, thanks in part to overpays by the Angels, A’s and to a certain extent the Yankees for starting pitchers.

We know who is available at this point. We know what the Mets strategy is for the rotation. We’ve talked endlessly about one trade or another, this free agent or that one, and profiled all of them to death. We know everyone’s contract ask or current situation, their strengths, weaknesses, if they’re regressing, diminished, or on the upswing.

With all of that said and things about to quiet down for the holiday, here’s where I think the Mets could (notice how I didn’t say, “should” - I am not in the business of telling people who are smarter than me how to do their jobs) go to complete their roster…

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Trade for Luis Castillo

With the way the market is moving for starting pitching, Castillo’s contract looks like a steal right now. He is set to earn $22.75 million over the next three years. He has a full no-trade clause applicable through the 2025 season, so he has control of where he wants to go if the Mariners really want to move him. Seattle is reportedly looking for major league talent in return, and the Mets have some spare parts to deal in Starling Marte and perhaps Jeff McNeil. Trading one of those players would help offset Castillo’s salary in 2025, which matters more for luxury tax purposes than anything else.

They could conceivably sweeten the pot with a prospect, but they could have some steep competition with teams such as the Red Sox, who have a top-level farm system and can still trade from a surplus of top prospect depth without batting an eye, even after their deal to get Garrett Crochet.

Still, even if the peripherals would suggest Castillo’s best years are behind him, he checks the box for what the Mets need for their rotation right now, fits the profile of what they’re looking for in terms of a short-term commitment, and again, his salary is positioned to be under-market for the rest of the guaranteed years.

There’s also Twins RHP Pablo López who they’re reportedly listening on and is under similar control to Castillo. He will earn $21.5 million in each of the 2025, 2026, and 2027 seasons. He’s a very underrated pitcher in the game and is also just 28, which might make the price a bit high for the Mets liking as far as prospect capital is concerned, which is why I didn’t list him as a primary target.

Of course, trades are easier said than done. There has to be a player match on both sides, there’s a no-trade clause in play in the case of Castillo, and one team might value players differently than the other.

Don’t get me wrong - I do want the Mets to bring back Sean Manaea. I’ve said many times it’s a no-brainer and a good fit. But I fear his price tag - and rightfully so - has escalated to the five-year area and if that’s the case, there’s the same if not better value in the likes of either Castillo or López over a shorter period of time.

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Sign Rōki Sasaki

No matter what else the Mets do in the rotation, Sasaki is an independent case. The Mets reportedly met with Sasaki and his agent, Joel Wolfe, this past week in Los Angeles, so the ball is rolling on what will need to be another strong recruitment effort by Steve Cohen and David Stearns.

He is an obvious fit and meets the criteria for the kind of pitcher they should be committing to long-term. He’s just 23 years old and has had a stunningly good career to this point in Japan.

Aside from the typical injury risk that comes with hard-throwing pitchers, teams are better able now to determine if a pitcher from an international baseball league can be successful or not in the majors thanks to their ability to analyze spin rates and biomechanics. As such, the general consensus on Sasaki is that his stuff would be elite in the major leagues.

However, there are some challenges for the Mets if they want to sign Sasaki.

The Mets would have to trade for more international pool money, as they have already committed $5 million of their $6.2 million allotment in the 2025 signing period to 16-year-old SS Elian Peña (Athletic). It’s not a market where clubs can just freely spend - they are all subject to limitations set by MLB.

The good news for the Mets is, most every club has already committed to one or more international free agents for the 2025 signing period. So, the playing field is generally level there. The bad news is, because Sasaki would only require international bonus money and a minor league deal, his market could be and should be as big as all 30 clubs.

In the end, it seems as though this is going to be less about money for Sasaki and more about how his future MLB club can develop him over the next six seasons. So in the case of the Mets, if he wants to join them, he will and the Mets will figure out how to find the money they need for his bonus.

Sasaki’s camp is reportedly intrigued by Jeremy Hefner and the Mets’ overall ability to develop and reinvent pitching, but his agent, Joel Wolfe, said this week Sasaki might be more interested in a smaller market since he had trouble with the Japanese media last year.

Also - the new signing period doesn’t start until January 15, so Sasaki isn’t going to sign before that date, which is the strategically correct move for him since that’s the day all of the pools reset. He has until January 23 to sign a deal, or he has to be withdrawn and will return to Japan for 2025.

Because of all of this, the Mets have to proceed as though they will be unable to sign Sasaki and stay the course in the American free agent pool. If they can sign Sasaki, awesome.

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Sign Walker Buehler

It may be a big ask for the Mets to acquire two more major league free agent pitchers (conveniently for my point, “major league” doesn’t include Sasaki) after they’ve already netted Frankie Montas, Clay Holmes, and Griffin Canning to a starting pitching stock that already had Kodai Senga, David Peterson, Paul Blackburn, and Tylor Megill. And if they can sign Sasaki, this probably won’t happen, but the Mets have to proceed as though they won’t sign Sasaki.

But as you can see, what they have now isn’t exactly inspiring a lot of confidence.

Holmes is transitioning to a starter, which carries its own questions. Montas is profiling as a back-end starter. Canning is depth at best. Megill took some steps forward late in the year, but he has yet to establish himself as anything other than depth as well. Blackburn is a back-end starter when he’s healthy, but he’s coming off spinal leak surgery. While he’s expected to be ready for opening day, this isn’t a normal off-season for him.

Now, Buehler hasn’t shown to be what he was before he underwent a second Tommy John surgery, which cost him the entire 2023 season. He sported a 5.38 ERA in 75.1 IP for the Dodgers in 2024 with 28 walks and 64 strikeouts. But he did offer glimpses of the Buehler of old against the Mets and Yankees in the postseason, throwing 10 innings while allowing just five hits and four walks with 13 strikeouts.

If the Mets can get him on a two- or three-year deal with an opt-out, even at a higher-than-desired AAV, it feels like a no-brainer for the Mets to sign him and get him into Jeremy Hefner’s kitchen to straighten him out.

But again, signing Buehler and trading Castillo might be a stretch, even though I think the Mets should do it. Maybe they’ll wait for Sasaki’s situation to clarify and/or if they determine his sign ability before moving on Buehler or someone like him?

We shall see.

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Bring Pete Alonso back

So, this free agency hasn’t exactly gone the way Alonso might’ve expected when he hit the open market in early November.

His “down” season didn’t help matters, but the industry doesn’t really value first basemen the way they believe they should be valued in the marketplace. It’s just the way it is - just look at Freddie Freeman, a future Hall of Famer and just an absolute stud of a hitter and an above-average defender even as he gets into his mid-30s. Yet, he still isn’t paid at the top of the market for position players.

Alonso’s market reportedly hasn’t developed the way he and Scott Boras might’ve hoped, and the industry apparently isn’t too fond of his profile as he enters his age-30 season with respect to future seasons. It’s always been true that left-handed first basemen are preferred over right-handed and that might be working against Alonso, and I don’t think the qualifying offer is helping him, either.

Even so, Alonso fits the Mets just as much as the Mets fit Alonso. They need each other for both short- and long-term production reasons and for legacy and historical reasons. Nobody can say Alonso doesn’t make the Mets better even if he’s coming off a down year in which he still hit 34 home runs. The Mets are clearly playing the “wait and see” game with Boras on this, much like they did for Brandon Nimmo two years ago, and it all worked out just fine for both sides.

If the Mets eventually need to make him a designated hitter, fine. That’ll happen long before the Mets might have to transition Juan Soto. The Yankees moved Mickey Mantle from center field to first base, they moved Yogi Berra out from behind the plate and into left field, it all worked out fine and those are two of many successful positional transitions throughout the history of the game (no, I don’t need a refresher on Mike Piazza or Todd Hundley).

Christian Walker reportedly signed a three-year, $60 million deal with the Astros on Friday. He’s going to be 34 on opening day, so he’s four years older than Alonso, isn’t as much of a force offensively but is superior to Alonso defensively. So, you figure Walker’s deal puts Alonso in the 4-5 year area between $23-26 million per year which is around where I ballparked this at the beginning of the off-season.

That’s a marriage that remains fair and good for everyone, and with it not exactly being a player’s market for first basemen right now, it could work out in the Mets’ favor too.

Let’s just get it done. It’s what he has said he wants, it’s what both Cohen and Stearns have said they want, it’s what the overwhelming majority of the fans want.

Figure it out, find a way.

By the way, at this point I am assuming the Mets alleged interest in Paul Goldschmidt is either a fallback option to Alonso, a way to put pressure on Boras to accept a deal on their terms for Alonso, or a combination of the two. Yes, Goldschmidt is a former MVP and borderline hall of famer himself, but he is a diminished player as he enters his 15th big league season in 2025. If Alonso decides to go elsewhere, fine, but at this point Goldschmidt should be an alternative to Alonso, not the other way around.

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The bullpen

This is always tricky. I never really know who the Mets should in fact sign since it’s the most volatile part of the roster and the market is always so flush with quality options. This market doesn’t usually fully develop until after the holidays, so there is plenty of time for the Mets to figure it out.

I can tell you what they need and what they don’t need, and we can take it from there.

They’re not signing a closer. Whether you like it or not, Edwin Díaz is their closer. So that’s going to rule out Tanner Scott who presumably wants to close. You can probably throw Kirby Yates and Carlos Estevez onto the “no” list too. Jeff Hoffman could be a “maybe” for short relief, but it remains to be seen if he views himself as a closer in this market alongside the other top-tier relief arms.

But that shouldn’t rule out someone like AJ Minter. The Mets need a left-handed reliever, and he has been among baseball’s most reliable relievers since he came up in 2017, short of injury-riddled blips in 2019 and 2024. He would be a real quality add from the left side.

There’s Kenley Jansen, Ryne Stanek, David Robertson, and a bunch of other good fits for the right side of the bullpen. Jansen may want to still close, but he’s a great fit if he is willing to be a setup man (that can be said for a lot of clubs too). I am always a fan of getting swing-and-miss arms with closing experience in the event something happens with Díaz. As Stanek showed down the stretch, swing-and-miss ability in the bullpen helps to shorten games big time, and the Mets lacked that in large measure up and down their pitching staff in 2024. It’s an area the Mets must address specifically, and those three can still go a long way towards solving that problem.

Also - there aren’t a lot of closing jobs out there, and certainly not a lot on contenders. So, one of these older relievers might want to take a back seat to the ninth inning for a good situation, and the Mets obviously have a good situation to offer.

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Around the League 🚩

• The Astros signed 1B Christian Walker to a three-year, $60 million deal (USA Today)

• The Red Sox are signing LHP Patrick Sandoval to a two-year, $18.25 million contract (ESPN)

• The Yankees traded C Luis Trevino to the Reds for RHP Fernando Cruz and C Alex Jackson (official release)

• The Blue Jays inked former Met LHP Josh Walker to a one-year contract (MLB.com)