A Confusing Start to the Mets' Offseason

Luis Severino headlines an odd beginning to the offseason

There’s no sugar-coating it— the 2023 New York Mets were a massive disappointment. Baseball’s largest payroll was expected to yield 100 wins for a second straight season. Instead, what followed was a barrage of injuries and underperformances, culminating in a fourth-place NL East finish— 29 games back in the division and a mere four games ahead of the tanking Nationals.

Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander were promptly shipped off to contenders at the deadline, bringing in plenty of minor league talent in return. But regardless of what then-GM Billy Eppler said publicly, pieces are still in place for this team to make a run in 2024. Though the roster needs plenty of help.

This offseason has already seen a changing of the guard, with owner Steve Cohen calling upon former Brewers President of Baseball Operations David Stearns to steer the ship. In turn, Stearns brought in Yankees bench coach Carlos Mendoza as manager.

Cohen’s pockets run deep, and he’s proven that he’s willing to do whatever it takes to attempt to build a winner. Case in point— he apparently flew to Japan earlier this month to meet with 25-year-old KBO southpaw Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the consensus top pitcher on the market (taking Shohei Ohtani’s injury into account) who is expected to garner close to $300 million in his first Major League contract. Yamamoto would be an incredible boost to New York’s rotation, sliding in alongside Kodai Senga at the top.

But as the Mets’ offseason has gone so far — Yamamoto is certainly not wearing orange and blue just yet — there have been plenty of head scratchers.

Right-hander Luis Severino is entering his age-30 season, five years removed from his last full campaign. He missed essentially three full seasons to injuries before making 19 starts in 2022 and 18 more in 2023. Among pitchers with 15 starts last year, Severino posted the fifth-worst ERA, the fifth-worst ERA+ and the second-worst FIP. And yeah, the metrics look BAD.

Infielder Joey Wendle also appeared on the wrong side of leaderboards in 2023. His 50 OPS+ ranked dead last among players with 300 plate appearances. Lower the minimum to 200 PA, and you add in Kolten Wong and three backup catchers. He chased out of the zone and made weak contact, and his defensive value has decreased over the last couple of years.

Infielder Zack Short, claimed off waivers from the Tigers in November, has struggled to make a positive impact in any aspect of the game throughout his career. His patience at the plate does not make up for his inability to make quality contact, and he’s been below-average defensively at second base, third base and shortstop. He’ll be 29 next year with negative career WAR.

Austin Adams is entering his age-33 season with just 114.1 career innings under his belt. He made 24 relief appearances this past season, amassing just 17.1 innings, the THIRD-MOST in his seven-year career. The metrics actually look promising — he was particularly successful suppressing hard contact — but underlying metrics tend to be unreliable in small sample sizes, and that’s all we’ve ever gotten from Adams.

Michael Tonkin suited up for the Nippon-Ham Fighters, Long Island Ducks and Toros de Tijuana between Major League stints. He returned to the big leagues in 2023 — having added a sweeper, which he threw a meager 20 times — and tossed 80 innings in relief, managing an incredibly mediocre 4.28 ERA and 4.43 FIP. That came with underwhelming velocity and spin numbers, as well.

Jorge López is 31 years old with one (seemingly fluky) season in which he posted an ERA+ better than 85. Truthfully, he really just had a strong first three months in 2022. More recently, he was a detriment to three different teams in 2023 to the tune of a 5.95 ERA and 5.76 FIP. He’s now been a failed starter and a failed reliever.

All five players have big league contracts and cannot be sent to the minors without first passing through waivers.

So why in the world are the Mets in such a rush to plug fairly large holes with toothpicks?

It’s fair to give them the benefit of the doubt with Severino, who does have some bounce-back potential as a back-end starter.

But the rest of these additions? Yikes.

Was there really a mad dash of teams trying to sign Michael Tonkin? Apologies to Tonkin, but in all likelihood, he — or someone similar, or perhaps better — would be available at the end of the offseason, should the Mets find themselves in need of bullpen depth come February. Same goes for Adams. And López. And Wendle. And Short.

Of course I expect the Mets to add at least one or two high-impact players throughout the next couple of months. But handcuffing yourself by constructing a bullpen and bench filled with below-average, non-option-able players is just a bizarre strategy.

Plenty of teams have already added similar players, except to minor leagues deals with invites to big league camp. The normal way.

If the Mets plan to go into the season with Joey Wendle, Zack Short and the current iteration of the bullpen, then it could be a rough road ahead. But if they want to assemble anything close to a playoff contender, it would require several of these players hitting waivers in the coming months.