smg58

At this point I'd be very surprised if he's all that expensive of a lottery ticket. I'm guessing the White Sox wouldn't be in on him if there was a bidding war. The White Sox could also afford to deal with an adjustment period, which looks likely to me. I still think Okamoto is a safer bet -- he posted similar numbers to Seiya Suzuki in Japan, and Seiya has been at least solid since he got here. Murakami has a higher ceiling and a lower floor.

Or Joe Ryan.

Me too. I'd hate to think they would bring him in for this party and then deal him shortly thereafter.

Which means it's value, for the Padres at least. The first year is $22M (i.e., the amount of the qualifying offer King rejected), and comes with a player option. So it gives King some added security without making the Padres pay more for him this season than they were already willing to pay him.

Weaver is OK, although I'm concerned that the BABIP in the .220s he had for the Yankees is completely unsustainable. I would also put him behind guys like Phil Maton or Drew Pomeranz who signed for less, and well behind Brad Keller who just got basically the same deal from the Phillies.

The Padres paid a massive price for Miller at the deadline -- far more than I would pay for any reliever -- and won't deal him unless they turn a profit. While Miller is really good, I don't think he is a good bet to stay healthy for long enough to be worth it. Plus, "really good" for a relief pitcher is 2.0 WAR. If the Mets had gotten Laureano from the Orioles instead of Mullins, they would have made the playoffs. The package the Padres sent to Baltimore included none of their top 30 prospects. Plus Laureano had a no-brainer club option for $6M in 2026. That deal was highway robbery on the Padres' part. But it's water under the bridge. With Rob Refsnysder and Miguel Andujar still available as right-handed outfielders who could hold the job until Benge is ready and still play a platoon role afterwards, I'm not giving up value for him. In fact, allowing the Padres to turn a profit on him would make last year's deadline failures look much worse. If everybody wants Jonah Tong, the Mets should want Jonah Tong. As the current #6 option for the rotation and an optionable arm, I don't see how he's even expendable right now. One injury or series of poor starts from somebody, and Tong gives the Mets the same 2.0 WAR they are likely to get from Miller this year.

He evidently likes a challenge. I'm afraid to speculate on what's going on internally. But I don't get the sense that Stearns is impressed if you've been here a while.

His glove at first has not been bad. But I still think there are better bats available that will not cost players.

I'm not sure I'd have been that generous with Rogers either, but relievers are being scooped up and it's not clear who Stearns is really looking at.

Polanco was off my radar because I wasn't looking at middle infielders, but he really isn't one anymore and he's shown he can hit in a pitcher's park when healthy. The Mariners protected him by DHing him because health had become an issue, so I'm inclined to see him at DH more than at first. He's an upgrade over Marte, at the very least.

On the mid-tier lefty reliever front, Steven Matz got two years and $15M from the Rays and Hoby Milner got one year and $3.75M from the Cubs. The Mets never seem to go after these types of relievers, and I'm really not sure why.

It might be worth a year's investment to know how much of Marcell Ozuna's performance last year had to do with his hip. A 100-point drop for Okamoto would still put his OPS above .900. I'm not saying that's realistic, but I do think he's a better bet than Murakami (worse fielder and horrific K rate) while likely being cheaper.

If the 2026 team is better than the 2025 team, nobody will still be mad.

I can't get mad about not getting Alonso. That is two years and $75M more than I'd have willingly given him. But that being said, Stearns had better have a plan.

Stearns may well be backing away from the excessive generosity of his predecessors in the Cohen era. We all liked Nimmo and were happy to hold on to him, but eight years AND a full no-trade clause was nutty. Trading him while he could might have been a statement of sorts that he did not wish to bog the team down on long-term commitments, while working under the assumption that plenty of players will be happy to take Cohen's money if the core of a team that severely underplayed relative to its payroll feels stiffed. That doesn't mean I agree with it, but I can see the reasoning. As for Diaz, the possibility exists that with all other things being more or less equal, he wanted to go to the team that is more likely to give him the chance to close out a World Series. Now that's still a metaphorical middle finger, but the Dodgers have a hell of a lot more to show for their spending than the Mets do. And Stearns has to figure out what to do about it.

That's higher than I would go for a DH not named Shohei, but I'm not really surprised the Phillies valued him more than anybody else.

It's the first time in the Cohen era that the team has hesitated over money, which is surprising. It's not that I necessarily expect Diaz to be worth $18M more than Williams over the next three years -- that's actually a pretty tall order -- it's that I wouldn't have thought Cohen cared.

I'm bumping this in case there's interest. If any of you want the open team, please let me know.

I guess my primary point was that Joe Ryan is not Tom Seaver. Or Johan Santana, since we're talking deals between the Mets and Twins. He is a pretty good pitcher, no more, no less. That means I wouldn't mind having him, but he's not the kind of guy I'd go all in for. And there are defensible reasons for thinking Tong by himself would be too high of a price.

Fangraphs projects Ryan to have a 3.81 ERA this year, and Jonah Tong to have a 3.67 ERA. I'd be careful overinterpreting that, but it does suggest that there is a realistic possibility that Tong will be the better pitcher as early as by the end of next season. That tells me don't overpay for pretty good.

It's difficult to read what the price is. I'd love to know what the price would have been in July, given that he beat the Mets twice down the stretch and we only needed to revere one of those.

The Jays seemed to have the second highest bid on literally everybody last offseason, wound up not doing a whole lot beyond extending Vlad, and would have won the World Series if any one of a number a different things in game 7 that could have easily gone the other way actually did. Now they're clearly being very proactive. We'll see how much it helps. As for Tucker, he's not Soto or Ohtani. But he is the best free agent this year and the Mets now have an opening in the outfield corners. I'd have to assume we're in on him. He's young enough that 10 years isn't off the table, but his salary should be closer to $30M than $40M.

He took playing time away from our younger players while being demonstrably worse. And there was never a good reason to think he was an upgrade. I'd argue that the flyball he turned into an inside-the-park homerun in extra innings against the Nats was the defining moment of the season.

Not sure what to make of Ponce, but that's not a terrible commitment on the Jays' part to find out.

Seconding both parts of this.