Mets outfielder Yoenis Cespedes puts a wrinkle in the roster planning

Uncertainty about the health of Yoenis Cespedes will provide the New York Mets with an added challenge in navigating this offseason.

Remember Yoenis Cespedes? He’s the guy known for riding horses, driving European cars, and pulling the New York Mets to the postseason. He’s still on the team despite a year and a half layoff from on-field action. In 2020, if all goes well, he could even return to the lineup.

Mets fans aren’t holding their breath for a return from Yo at any point in the future. His eagerness to get back seems non-existent. Plus, there are younger and more exciting players who could take his spot as the team’s left fielder; namely J.D. Davis or possibly even Dominic Smith.

Uncertainty about his future puts a wrinkle in the offseason plans. If Cespedes is fully capable of returning at the start of 2020, other outfield options are more expendable via trade. With a guy like Cespedes, we don’t know how ready he is until he steps on the field. Because of this, the team should be hesitant to depend on him too greatly.

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In Brodie Van Wagenen’s second offseason as the general manager, there’s a lot less work to do than the first. The Mets may conceivably already have all of the position players they need. Perhaps adding just a single bench piece is all they need for the major league roster.

The starting rotation has some questions. Most notably, Zack Wheeler is uncertain. Then there’s the bullpen where BVW has the most work to do.

With Cespedes’ future unclear, it’s a tougher path to navigate. The Mets can’t trust he’ll be available for 162 games next season. Davis and Jeff McNeil are more than capable of eating up most of the left field innings in 2020. However, if they did and we don’t see much of Cespedes at all, the team would need to find another outfielder for the bench.

A difficulty for the Mets is their lack of outfield talent in the minor leagues. At the higher levels, they lack top prospects. There’s no outfielder knocking on the big league door. They will again, most likely, need to search for guys with lengthy MLB resumes such as Carlos Gomez or Rajai Davis to sit in the chamber down in Triple-A until needed.

Fortunately, the roster size expands by one in 2020. We will say “so long” to the term 25-man roster and welcome in the 26th man. This is great news for the Mets who have faced some tough decisions in recent years. Back in 2018, Brandon Nimmo and Zack Wheeler each spent an early part of the season down in the minor leagues. Last year, Dominic Smith briefly became a casualty of the roster crunch.

The fact that they have Cespedes lingering around is a blessing and a curse. If he is viewed as the nearly $30 million man they will depend on, they’re asking for trouble.

Rather than give him this role, the team would be better off believing he’s a part-timer near the end of his career. He’s as equally this as he is anything else.

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It’s essential the Mets accurately predict who and what Cespedes is at this point in his career. Equally as vital, they need to not let it hold them back from making themselves even better.

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