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The biggest Mets Opening Day roster decisions to follow this spring

By JOSUE DE JESUS |
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New York Mets v New York Yankees / Jim McIsaac/GettyImages
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Just a few weeks from the start of the Spring Training, the New York Mets roster seems nearly done after a busy and entertaining offseason. From the signing of Verlander to Carlos Correa's Saga, Mets fans should be very pleased about what this front office has done to the roster, consolidating a better overall roster.

Now there remain a few questions the front office should have to answer, in the coming weeks, regarding the opening day roster. In this sense, three aspects stand out in view that turn out important.

1) What should the Mets do with Brett Baty?

As soon as the signing of Correa fell apart, it started the conversation of whatever the Mets should do with the 3B. Primarily after Eduardo Escobar's performance was a disappointment for the team in 2022.

The Mets can take three courses concerning Baty. First, use him and Escobar in a platoon at 3B. Second, give him the position from the opening day while using Escobar as a utility infielder and DH, or leave Baty in the minors for a few weeks.

Using a top prospect in a platoon to play part-time could be a bad call and a setback to his development. That leaves us with two options, give him the position from day one or send him to the minors to continue his development.

As a fan, we always want to see a top prospect like Baty crushing balls in the big leagues, but the Mets don't need to work with a sense of urgency here. The Mets have the depth to cover the position and they should try to see if Escobar can produce more now without the shift. Then, they can call up Baty in a month or so and give him the position if Escobar starts slow.

This type of decision can be good in many ways. The team can take the pressure off Baty, gain more service time from him and ensure he continues developing while testing Escobar Of course, this will depend on how Baty performs in Spring Training.

2) Could Peterson and Megill be reliable in the Mets bullpen?

Here is a tricky one. Peterson worked as a starter and reliever last year putting similar ratios in both roles. In the case of Megill, he was better as a starter but the sample is too small to determine his efficiency in those roles.

Megill was the opening day starter in 2022 and displayed an arsenal of arm power, with a fastball that hit 99 MPH several times throughout the year before going on the disabled list, from which he returned as a reliever.

Peterson, for his part, turned out to be quite efficient in 2022 thanks to the change he made by decreasing the use of his sinker and considerably increasing his slider to which he was hit just for an average of .175.

The case for both being in the Mets bullpen depends more on the rotation. The Mets have a lot of question marks given the age of Verlander and Scherzer, Senga's workload, and Carrasco's injury proneness.

For this reason, the Mets should rely on Peterson and Megill as long relievers with options to start games if one of these pitchers in the rotation needs rest or in the event of an injury. But the team will have to maintain a system where both arms can be fresh and available to start games in those cases since a reliever's warmup is not the same as a starter.

3) Does Darin Ruf have his days numbered with the Mets?

With the signing of Tommy Pham, Ruf seems to be the odd man out of the Mets roster.  After batting for a terrible line of .152/.216/.197/.413 no one appears to be an advocate of Ruf in Queens.

The Mets are running out of options with Ruf. The best scenario would be to trade him to another team for some return that at this point would be practically marginal. Another way would be to remove him from the payroll to open space, but his salary of $3,125,000 (for luxury tax purposes) is insignificant when we talk about a general payroll of more than $350 million.

This leaves the Mets with a clear option, keep Ruf on the opening-day roster in hopes that he will become a bounce-back candidate and put up better numbers off the bench. The team could trade or cut him out later in the season, so doing either of these options at this point wouldn't make sense.

Keep in mind that in the current state of the Mets roster, the team doesn't need Ruf to produce as a starting player, but to be productive as a role player off the bench with occasional turns vs. left-handed pitchers or filling in the DH spot. We cannot forget that this player showed in 2021 having good contact and power, placing a Hard-Hit contact of more than 50% with an SLG of .519 and an OPS of more than .900.

Next. Grades for the 3 biggest Mets bullpen additions. dark

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