November 01, 2023

Welcome back to the Mets Beat newsletter! Anthony DiComo has covered the Mets for MLB.com since 2007, including the past 14 seasons full-time on the beat.

The Mets are about to enter one of the most frenetic parts of their calendar with plenty to do over the next three months. Here’s a look at the most pressing questions they’ll face between now and mid-February:

Which players are free agents?
Because the Mets traded nearly all their impending free agents in July and August, this list is considerably shorter than it once might have been. Right-hander Carlos Carrasco is the only player remaining on the 40-man roster who will automatically become a free agent once the World Series ends. However, additional names could join that list through the non-tender process.

Which players have contract options?
Right-hander Adam Ottavino ($6.75 million) and catcher Omar Narváez ($7 million) have player options for 2024. Both are near-locks to exercise those options and return to the team.

Are any Mets likely to receive qualifying offers?

Nope, not this year. The team doesn’t have any free agents prominent enough for a $20.5 million qualifying offer, which is the average of the top 125 salaries in MLB.

Might any of the Mets’ free agents return to New York?

It’s hard to see Carrasco returning after a poor final season of his deal, so the answer to this is also no.

Do the Mets have any non-tender candidates?

Now we’re getting into what, for the Mets, will be the meat of their early offseason. They have all sorts of non-tender candidates, including:

• RHP Phil Bickford

• RHP Jeff Brigham

• RHP Sam Coonrod

• RHP John Curtiss

• RHP Trevor Gott

• RHP Elieser Hernández

• RHP Drew Smith

• OF Tim Locastro

• INF Luis Guillorme

• DH Daniel Vogelbach

Of the club's arbitration-eligible players, only David Peterson and Joey Lucchesi escaped the list of potential non-tenders, given their importance to the team’s rotation depth. Hernández is a surefire non-tender after missing the entire 2023 season due to injury. Everyone else exists in a bit of a limbo state.

In a vacuum, Vogelbach might make some sense to tender a contract after a relatively productive second half. But it’s probably easier for the Mets to move on from a player who became a scapegoat for the fan base and a symbol of their shortcomings. The team can find cheap power elsewhere. Meanwhile, the six relief pitchers other than Hernández offer upside in different forms. The Mets aren’t likely to keep all of them, but most stand a decent shot of sticking around. Then there’s Guillorme, who is coming off his worst season in five years. The club has enough infield depth at this point to make cutting ties a possibility.

For those unaware, clubs non-tender players -- effectively making them free agents -- when they do not wish to retain them for the upcoming season. It happens most often to arbitration-eligible players who are due raises through that process, but teams can non-tender anyone. (The Mets, for example, could also non-tender pre-arbitration players such as Peyton Battenfield or Reed Garrett if they no longer want to carry them on their 40-man roster.)

What are the key offseason dates?

First day after the World Series ends: Clubs can begin trading Major Leaguers again, while eligible players such as Carrasco become free agents. This begins a “quiet period” in which free agents may only negotiate with their own teams. (You may recall that last year, Edwin Díaz re-signed with the Mets during this quiet period.)

Fifth day after the World Series ends: This is the deadline for teams and players to decide on contract options. Also, the “quiet period” ends, and Major League free agents become free to sign with any club at 5 p.m. ET. Minor League players become free agents at 5 p.m. ET, if applicable. It’s also the deadline for clubs to tender qualifying offers.

Nov. 7-9: The General Managers’ Meetings will take place in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Nov. 14: The deadline for players to accept a qualifying offer is 4 p.m. ET. The deadline to add players to the 40-man roster to protect them from the Rule 5 Draft is 6 p.m. ET.

Nov. 17: Often referred to as the non-tender deadline, 8 p.m. ET is the last chance for teams to formally tender 2023 contracts to unsigned players, including their arbitration-eligible players. If a player is non-tendered, he becomes a free agent. You’ll often see some minor multi-year contracts signed on this day.

Dec. 4-6: The Winter Meetings will take place in Nashville, Tenn., encompassing the MLB Draft lottery on Dec. 5 and the Rule 5 Draft on Dec. 6.

Jan. 12, 2024: Eligible players and their teams exchange arbitration figures.

Jan. 15, 2024: Start of the new international signing period.

How active will the Mets be in free agency?

Pretty darn active. The team must build out the entire back half of its rotation and bullpen, and it figures to do so mostly through free agency. The organization’s plan to take what ex-GM Billy Eppler called a half-step backward in competitiveness won’t prevent new president of baseball operations David Stearns from spending liberally this winter.

What does that mean for the payroll situation?
It probably won’t be as high as it was last year -- when the Mets topped out around $375 million before selling assets prior to the Trade Deadline -- but it will still be high. Before doing anything this offseason, the club is on the hook for around $275 million in payroll, the largest figure in the Majors and above MLB’s highest Competitive Balance Tax threshold. Ultimately, the Mets would like to dip below that level, but they won’t do it this offseason.

What about extensions?
You’re going to hear talk all winter about the idea of signing Pete Alonso to an extension, much as the Mets did with Jeff McNeil last offseason. But that doesn’t make it inevitable. For both sides, the path of least resistance has Alonso playing out his final year of team control without an extension and then trying to negotiate a long-term deal as a free agent next winter. The Mets could sign him before then, but at this point, that doesn’t seem overly likely.

Who needs to be added to the 40-man roster this winter?
The Mets won’t protect many non-roster players from the Rule 5 Draft. Recent trade acquisition (and 15th-ranked prospect per MLB Pipeline) Justin Jarvis is one candidate, but he struggled mightily in the Triple-A rotation and isn’t a surefire addition. On the position-player side, unranked prospect Luke Ritter is of some intrigue, but it’s always difficult for Rule 5 hitters to stick. As such, don’t expect the Mets to do much before the deadline.

So what’s first on the agenda?
New York’s top priority is finding a manager, with Craig Counsell leading a long list of candidates. That should happen at some point in November or early December. After that, expect Stearns to dip into free agency as he begins the task of rebuilding the pitching staff.

THIS WEEK IN METS HISTORY

Nov. 1, 2015: Terry Collins made one of the most infamous pitching decisions in franchise history, allowing Matt Harvey to pitch the ninth inning of World Series Game 5 with the Mets leading the Royals, 2-0. As fans at Citi Field chanted his name in hopes of having him return to the mound, Harvey allowed a leadoff walk and an RBI double before Jeurys Familia permitted the game-tying run to score. The Mets eventually lost the game and the Series in the 12th inning.

REQUIRED READING

• Counsell will interview for the Mets managerial job. But will he take it?

• Larger-than-life slugger Frank Howard, who briefly managed the Mets, died this week at age 87.

• Max Scherzer departed Game 3 of the World Series due to back tightness. Sound familiar? Kennedi Landry has the full story.

• I urge you to read this story about D-backs GM Mike Hazen and his late wife, Nicole, from my colleague Anthony Castrovince. It’s well worth your time.

FORWARDED FROM A FRIEND? SUBSCRIBE NOW

To subscribe to Mets Beat, visit this page and mark "Mets Beat" from our newsletter list. Make sure you're following the Mets or that they're checked as your favorite team.

View Online

© 2023 MLB Advanced Media, L.P. MLB trademarks and copyrights are used with permission of Major League Baseball. Visit MLB.com. Any other marks used herein are trademarks of their respective owners.

Please review our Privacy Policy.

You (zmw920@gmail.com) received this message because you registered to receive commercial email messages or purchased a ticket from MLB.

Please add info@mail.mlblists.com to your address book to ensure our messages reach your inbox. If you no longer wish to receive commercial email messages from MLB, please unsubscribe or log in and manage your email subscriptions.

Postal Address: MLB, c/o MLB Advanced Media, L.P., 1271 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.