Why aren't the Mets looking for external solutions anymore?
Brett Baty's hot start to spring continues. Plus, taking a look at why the Mets checkbook seems to be getting a bit tighter.
What’s up with the Mets? 🌴
The Mets lost their third spring game in a row and fell to the Astros, 8-5 (box)
INF Brett Baty continued his hot start to Grapefruit League play, going 2-for-3 with a home run (1)
Baty is now hitting .625 with a 1.750 OPS over his first three games
2B/SS Luisangel Acuña went 1-for-3 with an RBI, run scored and a stolen base
CF Jose Siri went 1-for-2 with a home run (1) and a walk in the loss
RHP Reed Garrett pitched a perfect inning with one strikeout in relief
After the injury to INF Nick Madrigal, does 2B Donovan Walton have a shot at making the Opening Day roster? (MLB.com)
SS Francisco Lindor plans on keeping “My Girl” as his walkup song this season (SNY)
Roster Moves 📰
RHP Dakota Hawkson assigned to the Mets
Today’s Game 🗓️
Match-up: Mets (1-3) at Marlins (1-1)
Where: Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium — Jupiter, FL
Starters: RHP Paul Blackburn vs. RHP Max Meyer
When: 1:10 PM EST
Where to Listen: FOX Sports 940AM (WINZ)
Is now really the time to stop spending, Mr. Cohen? ✍️
We’re hardly a week into Spring Training for the Mets – heck, they’ve only played four games, and two of them were on the same day – and yet they are already facing certain challenges to their roster.
In the last week, the Mets have lost Frankie Montas, Nick Madrigal, and now Sean Manaea to injury. For Montas and Madrigal, we may not be seeing either of them for quite a while. When it comes to Manaea, it’s a bit more nuanced as obliques can be tricky, though he is not expected to miss significant time right now.
At this point, I do not think it is the time to freak out over these injuries or attempt to use it as ammunition against any preconceived opinions you have about David Stearns (we call that confirmation bias). It’s fine to be annoyed, of course, but I think we’re far from the acceptable period of time to be commuting over to Panic City.
But I don’t think this means that you shouldn’t also wonder, or at least hope, that the team might look into bolstering this roster with one or two more veteran additions. After each and every one of these injuries, however, we have seen the same identical report coming from Andy Martino and others:
The Mets are not currently looking externally for roster help.
And while I don’t think that it’s something necessary to freak out over, I do keep wondering to myself, “why?”
Looking at the 2025 New York Mets, this is an organization that loudly and clearly announced to the baseball world that they were fully going for it this year. The signing of Juan Soto – and other subsequent additions or re-signings like Pete Alonso, Sean Manaea, Clay Holmes, Frankie Montas, A.J. Minter, and others – told us all that these Mets were going all in.
These same Mets also entered the season with questions surrounding their starting rotation even when it was set to be at full strength. The club’s starting pitching reclamation project largely worked in spades last year, but is that an approach that can work year-after-year when that end of the talent pool (and pitching in general) can be so volatile?
Even with a fully healthy rotation, questions surrounded whether or not Kodai Senga could stay healthy after making just one regular season start last year, whether or not Clay Holmes could transition into a starter at age 31, if Sean Manaea and David Peterson could repeat their 2024 success, and if Frankie Montas could have his first sub-4 ERA in four years and also stay healthy. Not to mention that there’s still a sixth starter that would be in the mix this season between Tylor Megill(inconsistent), Paul Blackburn (ended last season on the injured list), and Griffin Canning (don’t bother looking at the stats).
Now that group has thinned out even more significantly as Montas can’t realistically expect to return until early June, and Manaea will be shut down for 2-3 weeks before having to restart his Spring Training from the beginning. That leaves the Mets in a situation where their five-man rotation for the first few weeks of the season would likely have to include two of Megill, Blackburn, and Canning, or potentially all three of them if/when they have to go into their six-man rotation.
The club also doesn’t have any pitching prospects that are big league ready as Brandon Sproat is still developing, Blade Tidwell is coming off a tough season in Triple-A (5.93 ERA in 19 games), and Christian Scott is recovering from Tommy John surgery.
So why, I ask, are the Mets not remotely interested in José Quintana, a reliable veteran arm who they know, who performed for them in the playoffs last year, who wants to come back, and who wouldn’t cost them very much?
And to a lesser extent, with Madrigal likely to miss significant time (he’s already been placed on the 60-day injured list), why aren’t they looking into José Iglesias, who also really wants to be here?
At the end of the day, is this really coming down to the “Steve Cohen” tax? People I’ve spoken to seem to believe that is the case, and Cohen himself did tell reporters last week that his preference was to avoid the extra tax if possible.
To that, my question for Cohen or any other decision-makers would be… is now really the time to close the checkbook? No one is trying to say that Quintana or Iglesias or some other veteran is going to be a game-changing acquisition for this team, but these are likely two players that can be had on one-year deals that are fairly low-cost.
It may not feel like it, but every game really does matter in baseball. When the Mets were scrapping and clawing to clinch a postseason berth last year, needing an epic doubleheader opener on the day after the regular season ended to punch their October ticket, don’t you think they wished they could’ve gotten some of those early-season losses into the win column?
The Mets’ bad start last year made for a better storybook, but it also was what nearly cost the team everything. It was the sole reason that things came down to that final day, and is something David Stearns himself spoke on recently.
For Manaea, it may only be a couple of weeks, but for the roles that Montas and Madrigal were slated to play, that will be a far greater period of time where players that may not necessarily be good enough will be asked to fill semi-regular roles.
I understand that I’m talking about someone else’s money here, and at this rate, the salaries plus tax make every signing cost over double – i.e. if Quintana signed a one-year, $10 million deal, it would actually cost Cohen $21 million – for players that aren’t going to agree to two-way deals that have minor league options.
But if you’re really going for it this year, if you’re really trying to compete for a championship, this is not the time to get fiscally conservative. These are not long-term deals that have any negative long-term implications, deferred money or options, nor do they have any sort of draft pick cost. Signing one of two of these last veteran pieces only affects the amount of extra dollars that Cohen is spending in his checkbook.
If Steve were reading this now, he’d probably crack, “That’s easy for you to say.” And that’s true, but I also don’t have a $21.3 billion net worth nor the control to directly help my favorite baseball team in the world compete for and win a championship.
At the end of the day, the Mets will have more pressing issues than whether or not Quintana or Iglesias are on the team, but it would also be pertinent to this team to help mitigate their current and potential future issues by better fortifying their roster against such things. As we saw last year, veteran role players can have an unexpected impact over the course of a 162-game season, where one single game can be the difference in going to the Championship Series or your season ending in failure.
If I were the Mets, I wouldn’t soon forget that.
Around the League 🚩
Vladimir Guerrero Jr’s free agency could be a potential disaster for the Blue Jays next offseason (Olney)
RHP Max Scherzer made his spring debut with the Blue Jays, struck out four over two innings, and complained about the new ABS rules in exhibition games
Guardians No. 1 prospect Travis Bazzana clubbed his first home run of Spring Training in Cleveland’s 9-6 loss to the Brewers
White Sox No. 2 prospect Kyle Teel took Dodgers rookie RHP Roki Sasaki deep in a simulation game on Tuesday
"The club’s starting pitching reclamation project largely worked in spades last year, but is that an approach that can work year-after-year when that end of the talent pool (and pitching in general) can be so volatile?" That is quite right and I haven't seen any convincing explanation of why Mets leadership was willing to splurge hugely on Soto but then got real sober when it came to pursuing elite starting pitching. How much of a contributor do they expect Soto to be when he's 36-41? But they signed him anyway. It's not much of an explanation to say, "Stearns doesn't like to give long term contracts to 30 year old pitchers". If he's the astute person we're led to believe, he'd adapt to the reality of the pitching market despite his practices from his Brewers days.
I think there’s 2 things at play. First, if Stearns is going to go external, he’s going to wait until the market price is to his liking. Whether it be a trade or a FA, he’s got them ranked and prioritized and won’t flinch until he feels good about the value. Second, he’s made it very clear he wants to leave roster flexibility for the prospects to come up and flourish. Technically, Madrigal was blocking Acuña or Baty, but that’s what the depth chart is for. They are the next man up…unless Stearns can find someone much better at the value he wants.
That being said, it’s no secret the Mets underspent on SP this winter. Flaherty would’ve been the perfect signing, either instead of Montas or in addition to him. We know Stearns won’t give a long term deal to anyone over 30 so Burnes and Fried were out, but there were other options. And still are.