Soon, the Mets will close out their 2019 season. But today, baseball is a twelve-month endeavor for front office personnel. Brodie, get to work…
The Mets 2020 season will largely be determined by baseball’s never-ending 2019 season. Gone are the days when players and management pack up their bags and clean out their lockers and offices, never to be seen or heard from again until February.
Today, baseball is a twelve-month enterprise with little or no room for error any step of the way.
As the Mets season draws to a close, the work of Brodie Van Wagenen, as General Manager of the New York Mets has just begun. And if 2020 is a normal year, the roster of the Mets will continue to be unsettled until the team moves North after Spring Training in April.
First and foremost, Van Wagenen will need to adopt a plan, within the budget allotted to him, to meet the needs of players eligible for arbitration. When the MLB contract with the Player’s Association expires, both owners and players want something different than the arbitration system we have – but that will not help Brodie for the moment.
Try working your way through this for starters. Brandon Nimmo, Steven Matz, Michael Conforto, Marcus Stroman, Joe Panik, Noah Syndergaard, and Seth Lugo are all vital players for the Mets eligible for arbitration.
Can you name more than one who has not earned a raise for 2020?
Mets: Decisions And Then More Decisions
Next up is the yearly sweepstakes from the pool of the free-agent Class of 2020. I’ll let you peruse the list that for yourself, but tell me if there are not several enticing possibilities for the Mets to engage in discussion with.
Hold on, there’s more. The elephant in the room, Mickey Callaway, and what if anything to do with him.
Add to those decision ones on whether or not players like Todd Frazier, Luis Avilan, and Juan Lagares are picked up and signed as free-agents for another year.
It doesn’t end.
Looking ahead is like looking into a crystal ball without having a starting or ending point. Throughout the offseason, we’ll play this game along with Brodie Van Wagenen – but in the end – he is the decider.
Last year when he thrust himself into the limelight with decisions that would both haunt and propel the Mets forward in 2019. I’m trusting I don’t need to refresh your memory.
The difference this year is that Van Wagenen has the core of position players in place for the next decade. Conforto, Pete Alonso, J.D. Davis, and Jeff McNeil all form the thrust of the Mets lineup.
It’s only pieced, and not the whole puzzle Van Wagenen needs to solve.
Mets Fans: The Baseball Season For 2020 Is Underway
You take the Mets for what they are as a team on the outside looking in. They’re close but are they ready for Prime Time against the Atlanta Braves and the elite teams in the National and American Leagues?
The Mets made it interesting in 2019, but this is not horseshoes where close is good enough. The lineup is good but is it as good as it can be.
Would Anthony Rendon (right) make the difference as a free-agent signee? Or Gerrit Cole as an addition to the rotation while saying goodbye to Zack Wheeler, who is also a free agent?
Would the Boston Red Sox, who are dying for effective but inexpensive starting pitchers, be willing to listen to a straight-up trade of Noah Syndergaard for Mookie Wilson?
Mets fans are hungry, but only because they can smell it. It’s all good, but if fans don’t see an improved team on the field for Opening Day 2020, there will be hell to pay. And rightly so.
The Hot Stove will prevail over the winter and there will be many points of discussion to explore. To be certain, we’ll do that. But of utmost importance, before we get there, is for Brodie Wagenen and his team to do their homework before pulling the trigger on any moves he makes during the offseason.
Unknowingly at the time perhaps, he killed us even before the season began. It can’t happen again…
Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona. Not all holes, or games, are created equal.
