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The Mets are playing with the game on the rise.
They did it to some extent with Trevor May, to a larger extent with James McCann and took it a few more notches by making a deal with Taijuan Walker on a multi-year contract.
The Mets have secured this trio of important roles – and $ 78 million – hoping that a shortened 2020 would be a true indicator of who they are now and at least for the near term future. It also means that they haven’t guaranteed anything more proven / talented options like Liam Hendriks, JT Realmuto, and Trevor Bauer.
And wasn’t one of Steve Cohen’s perks supposed to be that the Mets could stop accepting the second, third and fourth best alternatives?
Imagine November 10 – the day of Cohen’s introductory press conference that stirred the optimism of Mets fans so much – you were told that the Mets will not be signing any (ZERO) of the top six free agents this offseason. It would have seemed impossible, right?
Now the Mets have traded for Francisco Lindor and Carlos Carrasco and, who knows, before this spring training is over, maybe they will announce long-term extra time for Lindor, maybe even Michael Conforto.
But this is the offseason when most teams were generally out of free agency. The Yankees had their eyes only on retention of DJ LeMahieu, the Dodgers only on a game on the rise for Bauer and retention of Justin Turner. When will the next winter be when the Mets have this little competition at the top of the market?
However, these Mets have invested as much as anything in volume. Walker will be the Mets’ eighth major league free agent contract. Only the Cubs and Giants, with nine, have more. The total cost is $ 94.15 million, less than the Yankees ($ 104.15 million), which we consider to have an inactive offseason. Still, it’s the fifth most spent in free agency to date.
What the Mets are hoping for is that they’ve surrounded a strong core led by Conforto, Jacob deGrom, Edwin Diaz, Jeff McNeil, Brandon Nimmo and Dom Smith with a superstar in Lindor via trade, as well as type of depth global impact that has been burned to them in recent years. In this depth, they saw the potential for more than just complementary players.
Since May returned from Tommy John’s surgery in 2018, he’s been very good, but that includes two seasons (2018 and 20) of 24 appearances each and a total of 113 innings in three years. He posted a 3.10 ERA at that time with 12.2 strikeouts per nine innings. With Seth Lugo (elbow) out for at least a month of the regular season, May could be Mr. April.
McCann had two good seasons with the White Sox, most notably last year when his OPS jumped to .896 and all the height-framing data started to take notice. But questions persist if he’ll do well with the right-handed throw, plus he’s passed out in each of the past two years as his workload increased – and he’s clearly the No.1 catcher with the Mets, which he was not last year with Chicago. .
Walker pitched 53 1/3 innings last season, which isn’t much, but it’s more than he had produced from an injury haze since 2017. His 11-start ERA for Seattle and Toronto in 2020 was 2.70. But his independent field ERA was 4.56 because the opposition only had a .243 batting average on in-play balls. Such a low average usually indicates at least one element of luck, especially for a pitcher who walks one drop too many and hits too few drops like Walker. And the Mets, even with the Lindor upgrade, don’t plan to be a strong defensive team in 2021.
Still, the Mets saw enough to guarantee Walker two years at $ 20 million (or three at $ 23 million if Walker triggers a third-year option; the contract was agreed pending a physical). The Mets see a 28-year-old starter ready to perhaps offer years of health and at least some mid-rotation toughness.
In their idealized scenario, the Mets wanted to have a rotation that places a legitimate starting candidate at Triple-A, which they can now do with Joey Lucchesi or more likely David Peterson behind deGrom, Carrasco, Marcus Stroman and Walker; with Noah Syndergaard scheduled for June after Tommy John’s operation.
A Walker who can give the Mets, say, 140 innings and a 4.00 ERA serves the goals of a team that believes their forces are deGrom leading a strong rotation forward three (maybe four when Syndergaard returns), a top attack and a capable enclosure that has a chance to be a lot better than that. And if 2020 was real for Walker and not an outlier, then the Mets are receiving a solid starter – not to mention a quality man in May and a frontline receiver at McCann.
It’s the game backwards. The Mets are betting on overall depth and that 2020 was just the start for the three most expensive outside free agents they’ve bought this offseason.
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