McNeil for Stearns

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Not John, David. And Jackie Bradley...



One possibility brought up by the Sherminator in this morning's column.



He thinks through a lot of possibilities amid all the uncertainty ahead, and the need to have a Baseball Boss right away could trigger that kind of compensation. I'd just as soon trade Squirrel for Beane but whatever.



Main point: the Mets had about the same record they'll have this year in 2019 when Brodie, Jeff & Fred said, once again, screw our futures let's pay full retail for a closer, and bite me, Chaim Bloom.



Then Steve said, FU Brody Fred & Jeff, our D sucks ass so here's Lindor and McCann. And we're exactly where we started, only with a worse farm system, more free agents, no GM, labor strife ahead.



Sherman says: Preserve the farm and do the Stearns Milwaukee Plan: short deals, no prospect trading, goodbye to Scooter and Baez, get a bunch of veteran starters on make-good deals. See what happens.



I'm halfway on board

[Ceetar]

no.



win. None of this nonsense "well, if we build a good system in a few years maybe we'll be able to be regularly competitive"



They have some ground to makeup since they failed last offseason, but you gotta keep Conforto, sign Castellanos. Keep Thor and Stroman, and then STILL sign a few "veteran starters on make-good deals" like Hill perhaps?



The Mets have major league 'parts' that perhaps they could use in a trade too, in Davis and McNeil, and lesser so Smith if you could convince someone to pay pre 2021 value for him. There's some maneuverability there, if someone's willing to try.

[smg58]

You don't win by trading guys with a 124 career OPS+ under control for three more seasons for a front-office guy. But you learn from what teams like the Brewers did right, to be sure.

[Edgy MD]

The problem is that the team has a lot of guys to retain and there's a good individual argument for retaining perhaps each of them.



But unless something changes philosophically to turn some of their games around that just gets them back to 2021 and our sub-.500 record, with all the roster spots taken. Add to that the oddity that they played some of their best ball with second- and third-stringers out there.



So yeah, I guess something has to change, but damned if I know what. I guess there's a strong reason to hope that healthier pitching gives you better pitching, but benefiting from healthier hitting is a tougher sell.