Rosenthal: Mets won’t be silent in free agency, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto might be best fit

[kobeunderbite]

I know what Max Scherzer said, that New York Mets general manager Billy Eppler told him the team would not reload for 2024, pointing instead to 2025 at the earliest and more like 2026 to contend.

People in Mets uniforms aren’t buying it. People in the industry aren’t buying it. None of us should buy it, considering Steve Cohen’s willingness to spend like no owner in major-league history.

Just for the sake of discussion, let’s say Cohen signs Shohei Ohtani to a 13-year, $650 million contract this offseason. Is anyone going to say, “Steve, you said you wouldn’t do this?” Likewise, if Cohen breaks the bank for Japanese right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto, is anyone going to protest, “No, Steve, you promised!”

The Mets are going to sign free agents. They never said they wouldn’t.

Scherzer said the Mets told him they would trade not only 2023 free agents at the deadline, but also players under club control only through 2024. The Mets shied away from the latter, except in the case of Justin Verlander, who also has a conditional player option for 2025. Three potential 2024 free agents — first baseman Pete Alonso, left-handed starter José Quintana and left-handed reliever Brooks Raley — remained with the club.

As Eppler said, this was not a rebuild, not a liquidation, not a fire sale. Nor is it a withdrawal from spending. No, the Mets’ plan, according to sources briefed on the club’s thinking, is to sign free agents whose trajectories line up with the young players they are developing for 2025 and beyond.

Cohen will be disciplined, if you want to call it that. He will just be exercising a different kind of discipline than in his previous three seasons as owner.

Ohtani will hit the market at 29. Eppler was the general manager who signed him for the Angels. Cohen was on the field at the Tokyo Dome in March before Ohtani’s start against Italy in the World Baseball Classic. If anyone thinks Cohen is going to pass on an opportunity to pursue the greatest player of our generation and maybe greatest of all time, they haven’t been paying attention. Ohtani’s value exceeds what he does on the field, which is pretty damn valuable. But no one knows what he truly wants, so he easily could sign with another club.

Who else would fit? The market for position players is quite thin, and the Mets’ lineup is fairly set. Most of the best free-agent starting pitchers — Aaron Nola, Blake Snell, Eduardo Rodriguez (if he opts out) — already are 30, and likely to seek long contracts. Julio Urías is an exception, pitching at 27 next season. But that only means his agent, Scott Boras, probably will want a deal stretching until oh, 2050 or so.

The free-agent pitcher who probably makes the most sense for the Mets’ new world order is one who has yet to pitch in the majors, Yamamoto.

The Orix Buffaloes are expected to post Yamamoto this offseason. Eppler watched him in person during the WBC, and according to the Mets’ network, SNY also traveled to Japan to see him pitch this year.

In each of the past two seasons, Yamamoto was the Pacific League MVP and winner of the Eiji Sawamura Award, the Japanese version of the Cy Young. This season could be no different. Yamamoto’s ERA through 16 starts is 1.57. The previous two seasons, it was 1.39 and 1.68. And here’s the best part, from the Mets’ perspective and every other major-league club’s as well:

Thursday is Yamamoto’s birthday. And he will be only 25 years old.

The frenzy for Yamamoto will not be at the level it will be for Ohtani, but it will be intense. There is no guarantee the Mets get him, just as there is no guarantee they will get Ohtani. But Yamamoto will still be in prime as the Mets’ top prospects start to reach the majors.

By 2025, the Mets should know whether Brett Baty is their long-term third baseman, Mark Vientos is capable of handling a defensive position and just how Ronny Mauricio fits, knowing he will not be at shortstop with Francisco Lindor under contract through 2031.

The three youngsters the team acquired for Scherzer and Verlander — infielder Luisangel Acuña, Drew Gilbert and Ryan Clifford — are estimated to arrive in 2024, ’25 and ’26, respectively, according to MLB Pipeline. Catcher Kevin Parada, the team’s first-round pick a year ago eventually could form a formidable 1-2 punch behind the plate with Francisco Álvarez. Right-hander Mike Vasil looks like a future rotation piece, and the Mets need to hit on some of their other pitching prospects as well.

As for 2024, the outlook isn’t necessarily bleak. The rotation will need work, yes. But Edwin Díaz will be back closing. The lineup will include Alonso, Lindor, Álvarez, center fielder Brandon Nimmo and second baseman/outfielder Jeff McNeil, who over the last three weeks finally has started to resemble the hitter who entered the season with a career .827 OPS. Sure, the Mets might require a stopgap on at least one outfield corner — they cannot count on Starling Marte, who has two years left on his contract. Yet it’s not as if the group is hopeless.

Alonso will be a fascinating decision. Some of the more analytical members of the Mets’ front office might recoil at the notion of going long-term with a first baseman who will turn 30 when he hits the free-agent market. But Alonso, like the Yankees’ Aaron Judge, has proven he can thrive in New York. He is the first Met to produce four seasons of at least 35 home runs. And, last anyone checked, age 30 is not age 40.

Cohen will not want to go nine years with Alonso the way the Yankees did with Judge as he turned 31. But what about a five- or six-year contract with an average annual value in the $30 million range? Such a deal would beat the $26 million AAV the Cardinals awarded Paul Goldschmidt at 31 in a five-year extension, and the $24.7 million AAV the Dodgers gave Freddie Freeman at 32 in a six-year, free-agent deal.

We know Cohen has the money. We know he’s going to spend it. At this point, it’s just a question of which players he deems worthy of investment. With Alonso a possible exception, perhaps it’s best to rank the potentially available players by their birthdays. The plan is to go young.

[rileymartin]

We’re gonna get those Braves this time fellas!

[kobeunderbite]

How Mets can improve their pitching staff behind Kodai Senga in 2024

The Mets’ sell-off at the trade deadline has created an air of mystery about just how committed they’ll be to winning in 2024, but if Steve Cohen is looking for a reason to up the ante, so to speak, Kodai Senga may just be providing it.

“He might be more of a No. 1 than most people thought he could be, myself included,” one scout told me Saturday, one day after Senga’s seven-inning gem on Friday night against the Seattle Mariners. “I think it took him some time to gain confidence that his stuff would play against major league hitters, and now you’re seeing him attack hitters aggressively and throw more strikes, which sets up his splitter as a true wipeout pitch.

“His dominance could help convince the Mets they could contend next year if they add to their rotation.”

With that in mind, in looking ahead at the ways they could improve that starting rotation during the offseason, it’s worth noting that three baseball people I spoke to this week are of the opinion that the Mets should be considered favorites to land another Japanese star, Yoshinobu Yamamoto this winter.

“I’d say they have to be the favorite,” said one rival team executive. “Their GM (Billy Eppler) has a strong history with Japanese pitchers, and signing Senga has worked out well for them. Also, Yamamoto is young enough (age 25) that he fits what they seem to be doing, replenishing their farm system.”

Another exec made essentially the same points and added: “I think it’s all about Yamamoto being young. The guy will be expensive but I don’t think Steve Cohen is going to stop spending just because it didn’t work with (Max) Scherzer and (Justin) Verlander. He might not be giving someone like (Blake) Snell a seven-year deal but signing Yamamoto fits as far as the pivot they made.”

Yamamoto is expected to draw heavy bidding from several teams, perhaps more so now that Shohei Ohtani’s immediate pitching future is in question due to his elbow ligament injury. Yet the execs make sense in laying out reasons the Mets could have an edge.

Eppler indeed has notable ties to Japanese pitching. In addition to signing Senga for the Mets, he scouted Masahiro Tanaka for years for the Yankees as their assistant GM, then successfully recruited Ohtani while GM of the Los Angeles Angels.

Ah, yes, Ohtani. It should be noted that the same scouts and execs see him as being in a separate category as a free agent who would supersede any financial restrictions the Mets may be thinking about this winter.

The feeling around baseball is that the Angels’ superstar wants to remain on the West Coast, but if he shows a willingness to come east, the expectation is that Cohen would still make a big play for him, even now that Ohtani’s elbow injury creates uncertainty.

As one scout put it, “Just as a hitter Ohtani would be hugely valuable to the Mets. They underachieved this year but they have enough talent that with Ohtani they could have a much more productive offense.”

If Ohtani isn’t willing to come east, however, the feeling is the Mets will limit their spending beyond someone like Yamamoto.

As the exec mentioned, Snell, the lefty for the San Diego Padres who could win the NL Cy Young Award, may be the top MLB free-agent pitcher this winter. He turns 31 in December, which isn’t old but it’s not 25 like Yamamoto, and Snell also has a history of injuries that have limited his innings over the years, as well as inconsistency that might give teams pause regarding a long-term deal.

The other attractive young free agent on the market will be lefty Julio Urias of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who just turned 27. He’s found his form the last several weeks after a hamstring injury cost him time this season, but execs note that Urias’ agent Scott Boras will be looking for a huge deal.

Perhaps Jordan Montgomery, the ex-Yankee lefty who has had a solid season for the St. Louis Cardinals and now the Texas Rangers, could fit for the Mets on a relatively short-term deal. He’s a free agent who turns 31 in December.

Then there are the trade possibilities.

After their trade-deadline moves, the Mets now have enough of a surplus in position-player prospects to deal from strength. So perhaps they could lure a proven starter from a small-market team who is a year or two away from free agency and thus available for financial reasons.

Such possibilities could include Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff from the Milwaukee Brewers, Tyler Glasnow from the Tampa Bay Rays, Shane Bieber from the Cleveland Guardians, Mitch Keller from the Pittsburgh Pirates, and Pablo Lopez from the Minnesota Twins.

In a recent story I did about the updated state of the Mets’ farm system, Keith Law, the analyst who ranks prospects for The Athletic, mentioned that some baseball people believe the Pirates might make Keller available this winter, two seasons away from free agency, and suggested the Mets try to make such a trade because “they don’t have high-end pitching” among their prospects.

Keller is relatively young, turning 28 next April, and has shown the ability to dominate at times with power stuff, just not consistently.

“He’s fallen off after a good first half,” said one scout. “I think it’s possible he’s been worn down a bit in that (losing) environment. I believe his best years are ahead of him.”

Otherwise, the idea of trading with the Brewers could be very intriguing if the Mets hire David Stearns to be their president of baseball operations this winter, as has been speculated. Stearns was the GM in Milwaukee for seven years before stepping down in 2023 with one season to go on his contract, increasing the speculation he was freeing himself to be available to the Mets.

In any case, trading for either Burnes, the 2021 NL Cy Young Award winner, or Woodruff, would add a difference-maker at the front of the rotation.

And with Senga’s ascension, in addition to Jose Quintana’s impressive pitching since his return from injury, adding such a difference-maker, or even two, could make the Mets a strong contender next season, depending what they do to tweak their underperforming offense.

If they only add, say, Yamamoto to the front of the rotation, they would also need to sign a few lower-cost starters to fill out the back end of the rotation and provide depth, while hoping David Peterson or Tylor Megill bounce back as depth pieces as well.

In addition, at some point next year the Mets should begin to get help from their farm system, as a few of their top pitching prospects are said to be close to being ready for the big leagues, most notably Mike Vasil.

But they can’t lean on internal options if they want to contend.

The question, though, is how hard they’ll try to do that. Will the Mets follow through on what Eppler apparently told both Scherzer and Verlander before each veteran pitcher agreed to waive their no-trade clause, that the team will take a step back in 2024? Or did Cohen simply want to start over with the old guys gone, no matter how much of their contracts he’s eating?

Whatever the Mets’ original intentions, it’s possible that Senga’s dominance in recent weeks has given them more incentive to be aggressive as traders and buyers come the offseason.

In that case, perhaps the scouts and execs are right about the Mets being the favorites to sign Yamamoto. After all, in one sense it’s very possible that nothing has changed, sell-off or no sell-off.

As one exec put it, “If Steve Cohen wants someone he’s still a good bet to get him.”

[kobeunderbite]

I don't remember wanting a FA this badly since maybe Beltran

[lettherebehouse]

That’s what I’m talkin bout LFG!

[Da Stars.]

Lets just add another 20 million to the payroll. That will get the braves by the balls.

[kobeunderbite]

Lets just add another 20 million to the payroll. That will get the braves by the balls.

Ok Grandpa, we'll call you when it's time for your canned corn

[kobeunderbite]

We’re gonna get those Braves this time fellas!

Lets just add another 20 million to the payroll. That will get the braves by the balls.