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3 negligent Mets offseason decisions the team is paying for right now
Some roster negligence has the New York Mets chasing the rest of the division. Since Steve Cohen took over as the owner of this ball club, a down-and-out Mets club this early into the year hasn’t been a thing.
Finger pointing has begun. Scapegoats are getting verbally whipped. A lot of the problems for the Mets are due to underperforming players. Some of this could have been rectified with a better offseason.
It’s these three negligent offseason decisions where the Mets are looking like they came up short. The team is now paying for it in mid-June.
1) The NY Mets neglected to improve the DH spot
Comedy Central could probably do a whole series of Mets fans roasting the different DHs they’ve tried out in just the last two years. Remember when the thought at the start of 2022 was how the Mets were perfectly built for the DH? J.D. Davis, Dominic Smith, and even Robinson Cano could all get frequent at-bats there. They’d be unstoppable.
It’s one of those nearly universally shared opinions that we all wish we never had. Assessing the DH spot in the lineup has been one of the weak points of Billy Eppler’s roster management. They’re paying for the offseason decision to run it back with Daniel Vogelbach.
Worse than Vogelbach was how close we came to seeing Darin Ruf begin the season on the Mets roster. What would’ve happened if he had a hot spring? He probably would have begun the year on the roster and we’d be even more puzzled by what’s going on with this ball club’s assessment of talent.
A DH platoon was never a great plan when the stronger half is someone as limited as Vogelbach. The better plan would have been to not have any specific DH and find a guy at least capable of playing the field. As frustrating as Tommy Pham has been at times this year, he has hit some important home runs, provided the team with good speed, and found himself playing defense regularly. If free agent options were limited, the Mets should have gone hard after a trade target.
2) The NY Mets neglected to build anything close to a competent bullpen
The DH situation is bad but far more fixable because of how anyone is capable of playing it. The Mets could even strike up a trade, make a waiver claim, or sign a fallen free agent like Luke Voit and attempt to solve the problem that way. Nothing they can do now will compare to any of those offseason options.
An area they’ll have much less luck at improving is the bullpen. Every team out there wants the best bullpen arms they can get and the battle to acquire them is the feistiest of all. Barbed wire boxing gloves won’t help the Mets win this fight.
The Mets did a decent job in the offseason at adding depth, however, several preseason injuries hurt them here. Would Bryce Montes de Oca or Sam Coonrod have made much of a difference?
Losing Edwin Diaz definitely hurt as it took away David Robertson from being able to work earlier innings. That’s not where the negligence took place. The Mets were bound to begin the season with at least a few lackluster relievers. Guys like Tommy Hunter and Stephen Nogosek have already been DFA’d while Dominic Leone, a player they picked up after the season began, lingers awaiting his own inevitable demise.
The Mets had a goal of adding optional relievers in the offseason which completely backfired on them when the season began and they only had Drew Smith and John Curtiss fitting this description. One quality reliever like Andrew Chafin or Matt Moore wouldn’t have made an incredible difference in the standings. Still, it’s excruciating to see the Mets routinely calling upon the same mop-up guys on a daily basis to get them through crucial games they still have a chance to win.
3) The NY Mets neglected to try anything different
What’s this mean? The names and faces may have changed in some areas. The pattern stays the same. The small number of additions the Mets did make this offseason were either returning players like Brandon Nimmo or Edwin Diaz or direct replacements for the free agents they did lose.
There wasn’t much wrong with this. They needed Nimmo. Diaz was a must.
Going from Jacob deGrom to Justin Verlander definitely had some red flags. After deGrom missed half of each of the last two seasons, should the Mets really invest as much money and faith into one ace in the rotation to be the answer? It’s definitely a lot of hindsight now. When the Mets signed Verlander, few were complaining.
It’s not Verlander who is the problem as much as the front office’s negligence in changing the overall formula of the team. Poor postseason starts from Max Scherzer and Chris Bassitt plus a one-hit performance in the latter’s appearance should have had them looking for creative ways to upgrade the offense. It goes even beyond just the DH role.
It was obvious from the start the Mets didn’t have nearly enough power. Made up of mostly lighter hitters, this is a team that will get on base, get a lot of hits, but also strand a lot of runners in the process. Predicting clutch is impossible. One way to get a little more is to find truer power bats than hoping an older Starling Marte or Mark Canha can replicate their 2022 seasons.
The only serious attempt the Mets made here was to sign Carlos Correa. The third base market wasn’t robust in free agency, but they could have surely made a trade for someone at that position or somewhere else.
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