2 players moving up the depth chart, 1 player moving down

Is it too early to start passing judgment on the 2022 New York Mets? You bet it is! A big part of being a fan, though, is jumping to conclusions quickly and making rash decisions about the players on the team. And while we’re still at a point of the season where a lot of things can change, we can already begin to assess the depth chart.

Like the other 29 teams, rosters go down from 28 to 26 on May 1. The Mets will have to say farewell to at least two members of the current roster by then although we can expect a few changes before that time comes. How the depth chart looks at that point will play a big factor in who stays and who goes.

Through the first week and a half or so, these two Mets players are clearly moving up the depth chart while this other one is dropping down.

The Mets are asking Tomas Nido to catch a lot of games early on this season

So much for James McCann and his four-year contract ending a catching drought in Flushing. McCann is off to a slow start while backup Tomas Nido appears to be doing his usual Tomas Nido thing.

Is Nido a big league starting catcher? Not in the least bit. He’s an underdog, though. Each hit he gets for the Mets looks like it’s worth about a dozen. Several of them last year were clutch. Overall, he’s simply a good second-string catcher with solid defense and the occasional big base knock.

Nido has already played a couple of games through the early part of the season. Partly because of the scheduled day games but also as a precaution after McCann was hit with a pitch, Nido has notably been the starter in each of Max Scherzer’s appearances on the mound for the team. Is this a coincidence? Possibly.

What we can’t deny is how much closer the Mets have gone to splitting time behind the plate. We saw it last year through McCann’s early struggles at the plate. Nido was catching far more often. A slow start in 2022 could have the team doing the same thing once again.

Nido can’t technically move up the depth chart until he becomes the regular catcher—an unlikely scenario. Maybe he can play his way into more starts or at least see McCann play his way out of them. So far, it’s looking like this will be a season where fans are treated to a lot more Nido.

Mets reliever Drew Smith is positioning himself to get bigger innings

Drew Smith is caught in the middle of the Mets bullpen. He’s not one of the designated veteran setup men or the team’s closer. He isn’t one of the mop-up guys either whose duty is to get them through blowouts. Smith began 2022 in an inexact role that he looks to be climbing over.

Smith is one of only a small number of Mets relievers under contract for next season. One of the younger ones, too, turning him into a high-leverage reliever this season should be a priority. That means allowing him to grow into a bigger role within the relief corps and hand him bigger innings as long as he pitches well through them.

Throughout his big league career, Smith has pitched relatively well. The problem has been staying healthy. He missed all of 2019 and was only able to log 41.1 innings last year. However, they were solid innings. Smith was 3-1 with a 2.40 ERA. The 28-year-old Texan certainly seems to have the necessary stuff to become someone Buck Showalter can trust in the seventh or eighth inning. Dare I say, maybe he even ends falling into a ninth inning role if Edwin Diaz walks after this year?

Smith will be a valuable piece of this Mets team. By the end of the year, he could turn into the most trusted arm they have from the bullpen.