Don’t be jealous NY Mets fans, late Padres offseason spending is NBD

In the matter of a few days, the San Diego Padres have gotten busy in free agency. They’ve had one of the weirder offseasons. Signs of wanting to shed payroll from start to finish, they never managed to unload one of their big contracts with the New York Mets or anyone else. Instead, they’ve tactfully waited until February to load up on multiple fliers.

Recent additions include Nick Castellanos, Griffin Canning, Walker Buehler, Ty France, and German Marquez. We can even include Miguel Andujar in the conversation as an affordable bat for them. He’s making only $4 million on his one-year deal.

Jealousy isn’t what Mets fans should feel seeing all of these familiar names, including two known targets in Canning and France, all join up with one team. All five of them come with some huge questions. It’s no big deal. They’re making Hollywood Squares moves right now of familiar names who’ve either burnt out or are looking for some sort of a comeback.

The Mets already have their depth pieces and fliers in camp

Any minor league deal can be argued in favor of. That’s all Buehler and France received from San Diego. Why couldn’t the Mets do something there? It all comes down to how the player felt about their chances of making the team. Buehler would have a distant chance to make the Mets out of camp and not an all-that-great one in the regular season. The same with France. He needs someone to get hurt, maybe multiple someones.

The biggest move the Padres made all offseason is re-signing Michael King. They didn’t add anything of great significance to their lineup until these past few days. By significant, we’re talking about players like Andujar and Castellanos. They’re fine hitters but a pair of righties best-suited for DH duties. Can they actually co-exist?

If you have any complaints about the structure of the Mets roster, check out the Padres. They have competition in camp. That’s desirable for some, but just because you win a job in exhibition action doesn’t mean your team actually gained much at all.

The Mets have their own uncertainties, but not at the level of the Padres who NEED two or three of these recent guys to actually be kind of good. The Mets aren’t asking Mike Tauchman to be a 162-game solution in right field. Craig Kimbrel is someone they can accept burning out quickly. Even the major leaguers returning from last year with question marks far exceed what the Padres have added. San Diego has their own returning majors leaguers looking to rebound. A player like Xander Bogaerts needs to be more than a $25+ million player with a .738 OPS over three seasons.

The Mets already had their period of taking chances and loading up on the roster. They went big. They traded for Freddy Peralta and Luis Robert Jr. They signed Bo Bichette. More depth couldn’t hurt, but everything the Padres are doing is NBD.