Gwreck

Britton and Sammon are asking, and so am I: [bLOCKQUOTE] What are the New York Mets doing? After Edwin Díaz agreed to a three-year contract to become the closer for the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday, that’s the refrain echoing through the hotels that host MLB’s Winter Meetings. According to league sources, the Mets had offered the 31-year-old Díaz a three-year, $66 million deal with modest deferrals. New York expressed a willingness to go higher before Díaz decided to sign with Los Angeles. One year after signing Juan Soto to a record contract and falling on their faces down the stretch of the season, the Mets have been curiously cautious in free agency. They have signaled at every turn an unwillingness to extend long-term offers — to the top of the starting pitching market, to the top of the outfield market, to their long-tenured All-Stars in Díaz and Pete Alonso. Losing Díaz to the Dodgers is a bad result; losing him to such reasonable terms — three years and $69 million — invites skepticism of president of baseball operations David Stearns’ short-term plans and long-term vision. Yes, it is early in the offseason, and a splashy acquisition (or two) between now and the start of spring training wouldn’t surprise anyone.[/bLOCKQUOTE] https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6876026/2025/12/09/new-york-mets-edwin-diaz-plan/ Starting Pitching Does we really just want to roll with Senga, Manaea, Peterson, and Holmes again, with McLean being the only major change? Does anyone really think that Sproat or Tong are actually ready and able to make 25-30 regular season starts plus a couple more in the playoffs — and be good while doing so? Offense Schwarber got 5/$150 to be a fulltime DH. That sure seems like a pretty good indicator of where the market would be for Pete. If the Mets aren’t going to pay up, then the plan is…Vientos? And even if they do pay Pete, there’s still two outfield spots and a DH slot that are vacant. Again, Vientos is not the answer. Assuming that Benge and Williams can both immediately be impactful players at the major league level seems like folly. Bullpen Needs several quality arms and is now counting on a bounceback season in a huge way from (1) Williams AND (2) Minter, plus hoping that (3) Raley will be good over an entire season. It feels like the Mets are 3 impact free agents away from being an 85 win team.

The CBA requires that the season take between 182 and 187 days. The current expanded postseason requires a minimum of 32 days. Assuming there’s little interest in pushing the World Series into November (Game 7 in 2026 would be October 31), the season has to start in March.

The Mets quietly announced game times for 2026: All weeknight games remain 7:10 PM (you may recall they had been surveying fans about potentially changing that time). Saturday games are all at 4:10 PM with two exceptions: May 16 vs Yankees and July 25 vs Dodgers, which are 7:15 games. All Sunday games 1:40 PM (as usual, a few will be moved to the evening for national broadcast, but none are currently scheduled as such). Thursday, March 26 is opening day, 3:10 PM. Mets are home on Memorial Day, Monday, May 25, with a 4:10 PM start.

I guess it’s early but this is another signal of the Mets positioning themselves as an 85-wins-if-most-things-go-right team. If Stearns winds up signing Kyle Tucker and Pete Alonso and Framber Valdez and Robert Suarez, I’m happy to re-evaluate my position on this offseason. Right now I am extremely disappointed.

Devin Williams: 3/$51 Diaz: 3/$69 Will be very interesting to look back and see what the numbers are 3 years from now. I am in fierce disagreement with the Mets’ approach here.

Rosenthal reporting that it’s 3 years. This feels like a massive screwup by the Mets.

My recollection is that Kent’s injury was revealed to have come from a motorcycle accident, and not from “falling while washing his truck” as alleged. Which of course is problematic because motorcycle riding was an activity prohibited by his contract, but not nearly as problematic as what you wrote above. I didn’t recall a domestic abuse incident. Do you have a link?

And yet the stunning hypocrisy of electing Bud Selig doesn’t seem to have caused such breach. Who is supposed to get through the Bud Selig breach? George Steinbrenner and George W. Bush? Or maybe Marvin Miller? I figure that the standard is already established with commissioners. If you last for twenty years or more, by hook or by crook, you are likely to get in. It's too embarrassing for baseball, keeping around somebody for that long while acknowledging that he wasn't such a special figure after all, so they pretend he is. The point is that Selig failed to sufficiently address the PED and allowed the problem to grow as large as it did. And thus it is deeply hypocritical to induct him but not players who are suspected (without positive PED tests) in to the Hall.

You sort of answer your own question here. Kent’s WAR and OPS+ in New York: 1992: 0.4, 91 (37 games after being traded from Toronto) 1993: 0.3, 106 (140 games) 1994: 2.7, 111 (107 games, strike year) 1995: 3.2, 110 (125 games) 1996: 1.7, 105 (89 games before being traded) Those are…not Hall of Fame numbers. And as you note, Baerga dropping off a cliff at 27 is not exactly the standard age curve for previously productive major leaguers. This is much more of a bad luck trade than, say, acquiring a guy with a massive contract who was recently suspended for PEDs and is on the wrong side of 35.

And yet the stunning hypocrisy of electing Bud Selig doesn’t seem to have caused such breach.

Missed a couple months with shoulder inflammation, came back, made one start, then missed another month with a knee issue. Returned to make a handful of starts down the stretch in September. Didn’t start in the wild card series but was on the roster and pitched out of the bullpen.

Wisdom has this one. Those projections assume that Tong makes 8 starts and throws 44 MLB innings. Ryan’s projection is for 31 starts and 182 MLB innings.

Passan was reporting earlier this week that Buxton is open to waiving the no-trade clause. Interestingly, 2026 is his last year of full no-trade rights. He can only block trades to 5 clubs in 2027 and 2028. He also, as FK noted, has some interesting escalators in his contract. He can make up to $2.5 M more each season based on plate appearance targets (pretty standard) but he also has the highest MVP award bonuses I’ve ever seen: “$8M for MVP ($7M for second place in vote, $6M for third place, $5M for fourth place, $4M for fifth place, $3M for sixth-10th place).” Buxton finished 11th in AL MVP voting this past year.

I’d propose (a) Tong or Sproat; ( Baty or Vientos; and © Williams or Benge for Ryan and Byron Buxton.

Rubin published his ballot: Beltran, Jones, Ramirez, A. Rodriguez, Rollins, Utley, Wright. DiComo didn’t have a vote as of 2025. He might have one this year (I believe it’s been 10 years since BBWAA membership was opened to MLB.com writers).

It’s nothing against Cedric but it was a bad trade from the outset. Sure, he even underperformed the justifiably low expectations, but it wasn’t as if we had reason to expect he’d be good at all. A big misstep for Stearns.

The 16 voters have been announced: HOF Players Ferguson Jenkins Jim Kaat Juan Marichal Tony Perez Ozzie Smith Alan Trammell Robin Yount Owners Mark Attanasio Arte Moreno Executives Doug Melvin Kim Ng Tony Reagans Terry Ryan Others Tyler Kepner Jayson Stark Steve Hirdt (former EVP, Elias Sports Bureau) Of note, Stark is on record having voted for Bonds and Clemens when they were on the writers’ ballot. Kepner has taken the position that the period before PED testing/suspension is different that the 2004 and later process, and thus did not vote for Ramirez or Rodriguez in recent years because of their PED suspensions.

The Asdrubal Cabrera game from September 2016 was my immediate best guess for a contender of highest WPA swing -- 3 run homer to win in the bottom of the 11th, Mets were down 2 runs at the time -- but that was only an 81% swing (although in a substantially more important game vis a vis playoff chances). I did some poking around the UMDB and Baseball Reference and I believe a 92% wWPA is the record for a single Mets play. It is held by Henderson, tied with two others.

I don't always buy the "some guys can't really handle playing in New York" storyline that comes up from time to time...but I'm also not entirely sure it's wrong. If this is a move to supplement Diaz in the bullpen, no problem. If this is the move to replace Diaz, I am in fierce disagreement.

It’s not as if driving/parking at Citi is already a pleasant experience. Anyway, I highly doubt they’re going to remove all the parking. From what I saw, the plan includes garages to increase parking capacity on the smaller footprint.

I thought that was Tylor Megill? (Or is it Rogers too?)

Helsley signed with Baltimore, 2 years/$28 million, to be a closer. (Helsley had reportedly been interested in/explored the possibility of converting to a starter). If anyone wants to start a "Memories of" thread, go right ahead. I don't really have any good ones to share...

Exactly. Led MLB in appearances in 2020, 2021, 2024, and 2025, and was just outside the top 10 in 2022 and 2023 (68 appearances each of those 2 seasons).

Thanks for the reminder. Our last two answers were Dick Schofield and Alvaro Espinoza. [th]Position Player[/th][th]AL Games Before Mets Debut[/th][td]Yogi Berra[/td][td]2,116[/td][td]Robinson Cano[/td][td]2,078[/td][td]Tony Phillips[/td][td]2,003[/td][td]Marcus Semien[/td][td]1,629[/td][td]Jim Piersall[/td][td]1,529[/td][td]Jim Fregosi[/td][td]1,429[/td][td]Mike Bordick[/td][td]1,387[/td][td]Mo Vaughn[/td][td]1,346[/td][td]Robin Ventura[/td][td]1,254[/td][td]Curtis Granderson[/td][td]1,187[/td][td]Trot Nixon[/td][td]1,081[/td][td]Dick Schofield[/td][td]1,061[/td][td]John Valentin[/td][td]991[/td][td]John Olerud[/td][td]920[/td][td]Carlos Baerga[/td][td]919[/td][td]Tony Clark[/td][td]862[/td][td]Alvaro Espinoza[/td][td]861[/td][td]Tom Veryzer[/td][td]853[/td] [th]Pitcher[/th][th]AL Games Before Mets Debut[/th][td]Frank Tanana[/td][td]606[/td][td]Mickey Lolich[/td][td]508[/td][td]Kenny Rogers[/td][td]490[/td][td]Justin Verlander[/td][td]482[/td][td]Francisco Rodriguez[/td][td]408[/td][td]Dean Chance[/td][td]372[/td] Short of the leaderboards Cedric Mullins - 784 Francisco Lindor - 777 Claudell Washington - 745 Ed Charles - 726 Bob Johnson - 692 Joe Foy - 576 Yoenis Cespedes - 518 Daryl Boston - 500 Marv Throneberry - 350 Tommie Agee - 359 Tim Teufel - 316 Frank Lary - 304 Bret Saberhagen - 252 Had other NL time before Mets Gene Woodling Mike Cameron Carlos Delgado Asdrubal Cabrera Sandy Alomar, Jr. Jose Bautista

In June. And the Post is printing it now, based solely on anonymous sources. Exceptionally weak, even for that paper.