Max Scherzer
The Brooklyn Nets season has been altered because then Mayor Bill DeBlasio instituted a COVID19 vaccine mandate for private employers. As a result, Kyrie Irving was only permitted to play in road games. What made the rule obtuse was road players who had not been vaccinated could play in Brooklyn.
However, the rules are the rules. The same goes for when the indoor vaccine mandates were lifted with the private employer ones in place. As a result, Irving could attend Nets games, but he could not play in them.
Of course, the easy answer would be for Irving to get the vaccine. That goes without saying, but we also know he isn’t. More than that, we do know there are going to be baseball players who do not have the vaccine. With the vaccine mandates still in place, yes even for outdoor games played for a private employer, there are potentially going to be New York Mets and New York Yankees players who have not been vaccinated.
As we have seen by and through the reports of Mike Puma of the New York Post, Francisco Lindor, Max Scherzer, Jeff McNeil, and Robinson Cano have been vaccinated. When presented with the question, Jacob deGrom, Brandon Nimmo, Pete Alonso, and J.D. Davis declined to answer. Then, there is Jordan Yamamoto, who took a completely different approach to answering the question en route to being the first player optioned to minor league Spring Training:
“It’s a very divisive topic that people use to portray someone as a bad guy or a good person,” Mets Jordan Yamamoto said about vaccines. “That’s why I don’t believe that any of these things should be talked about. It’s one of those topics like abortion…" https://t.co/58dVrkabpu
— Dennis Young (@dpyoung13) March 17, 2022
Now, it is important to note declining to answer is not exactly the same thing as not being vaccinated. Also, as we saw with Aaron Rodgers saying you are vaccinated or “innoculated” doesn’t definitively mean you received the COVID19 vaccine. Moreover, as we saw with Antonio Brown, actually having a vaccine card doesn’t mean you’re vaccinated.
Whatever the case, sooner or later, we will discover which Mets have been vaccinated. If they are, they will be eligible to play games at Citi Field. If they’re not, they can’t, and the Mets are going to have to figure out how exactly to fill their roster spots. Like Irving, the simplest solution is for those players to get vaccinated, and it’s possible those players still might as that mandate does not appear to be getting lifted anytime soon.
After Dominic Smith was passed by Pete Alonso on the depth chart, we weren’t quite sure what the future held for him. After all, he was a National League first baseman who was a backup. Well, starting with the 2019 season things got very interesting with Smith.
In 2019, Smith emerged as a clutch pinch hitter. When there was a number of injuries, he forced his way into the outfield. Unfortunately, he proved to be not great out there, and an injury cost him his chance to stay out there for the remainder of that season. Still, he was around for that ride on his scooter.
In the pandemic 2020 shortened season, Smith appeared to be a star in the making. With the implementation of the universal DH, he forced his way to play first base, and he was great. He posted a 166 wRC+, and really, he cemented himself as a fixture in the Mets lineup.
Unfortunately, that didn’t last a full season. For some reason, Dom just didn’t have it in 2022. There were plenty of reasons and excuses. The juiced ball was gone. Playing left field took its wear and tear. He succeeded in 60 as opposed to 162 games. We also recently discovered Smith played last year with a torn labrum. In all likelihood, it’s a mixture of all of these things and more.
That said, while we should not overreact to anything in Spring Training, we saw and heard Smith might be back on track. That was the case with Smith hitting two homers off of Max Scherzer.
Dom Smith with two bombs off Max Scherzer.
— Metsmerized Online (@Metsmerized) March 16, 2022
It wasn’t just the homers. Certainly, that’s impressive. What was more impressive, and really, more to the point is that Scherzer said Smith hit pitches he had not seen Smith able to hit prior to that particular game. That speaks volumes to Smith not only being healthy, but also to his being ready to start the season ready to get back to the player we thought he was going to be after the 2020 season.
There’s not a universal DH and more opportunities for Smith to play. He’s back to where he was in 2019 where he just has to go out and prove he’s an everyday player. We’ve seen that he is and can be. The Mets would be wise to keep hold of him and have more of these moments for the Mets this season.
If in 2019, Jacob deGrom spoke with reporters and said he wasn’t signing an extension but was instead testing the free agent market, New York Mets fan would’ve been in a panic.
The Wilpons never could’ve afforded a bidding war for deGrom. For that matter, they probably had zero interest in one. In all likelihood, it would’ve been the Jose Reyes to the Miami Marlins all over again.
Put another way, deGrom would’ve been gone without an offer, and the Mets would be playing media games. No Mets fan could’ve handled that.
However, now, deGrom announces he’s opting out, and fans are wondering just how much more the Mets will give him. There’s just an implicit trust Steve Cohen and the organization will not let deGrom leave. Certainly, not over money.
After all, we saw the Mets give Max Scherzer $43 million per year to join the rotation despite his being 37. We saw Cohen shrug off the Cohen Tax and announce he’s going over it.
Now, this isn’t to say deGrom returning is a lock. Weird things happen. For that matter, the opt out isn’t an absolute certainty. There’s a lot that can happen during the 2022 season.
What we know is Cohen has the money. We also know deGrom has repeatedly said he wants the chance to spend his entire career with the Mets. Both have the will to make deGrom a lifetime Met.
Because this isn’t the Wilpons, we can have faith it will happen. Because we’ve seen the lengths Cohen is willing to go this offseason, we can trust it will happen.
In many ways, this is the best part of Cohen buying the Mets from the Wilpons. We can believe and trust it will happen.
The New York Mets were the first Major League team to swoop in and take advantage of the Oakland Athletics tear down by obtaining Chris Bassitt for J.T. Ginn and Adam Oller. It was a very strong move for the Mets with Bassitt being a terrific fit for the Mets rotation.
What is interesting with Bassitt is just how overlooked he is. Since 2018, he has a 3.23 ERA, 1.141 WHIP, and a 129 ERA+. His ERA is 17th best in the majors over that time frame. His 4.37 FIP ranks 43rd. His 3.22 K/BB ranks 56th. His 32.78% hard hit rate is good for 30th in the majors.
Going to Baseball Savant, Bassitt is among the best in the majors in limiting hard contact despite not having elite velocity or spin. As noted by Owen McGrattan of Fangraphs, Bassitt does this by how he mixes up his pitches as well as his release points. The overall result is his taking average stuff and having it play as a top of the rotation type of pitcher.
While that may sound a bit incredulous by the aforementioned numbers, keep in mind there are 30 teams in the majors. If you are in the top 60 in any category, you’re pitching at the level of a 1-2 starter. That’s where Bassitt has been. He’s pitching like a number two starter in terms of results. We can dicker about his stuff and natural ability, but the end result is Bassitt pitches like a two starter.
Of course, with the Mets, he’s nowhere near that. He’s a very large step behind Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer because the vast majority of starting pitchers are. There’s not shame in that whatsoever. When healthy, you can argue Carlos Carrasco is one of the best pitchers in baseball. After all, Carrasco was coming off a 153 ERA+ before he was traded to the Mets.
That’s just the thing., Carrasco had an injury riddled season. In each of the last two seasons, deGrom has been nicked up. Taijuan Walker has a lengthy injury history. Scherzer has had good health in his career, but he is also 37. Looking at the Mets rotation, it is both deep and questionable in terms of the ability to get 30 starts from everyone.
It is one thing to have Tylor Megill and David Peterson ready to step into the rotation. That is admirable depth, and it’s all the more admirable with Trevor Williams and Jordan Yamamoto in the mix. However, those are back end of the rotation type of guys. They are not pitchers who can reasonably replicate a top of the rotation starter.
That’s what makes Bassitt so important. By performance, he’s a two starter. However, in this rotation, he’s a number three, and you could argue he’s the fourth starter. When and if an injury occurs, the need to replace a top of the rotation isn’t that much of a concern because the middle to back end of the rotation pitchers on this team are really top to middle pitchers.
The Bassitt acquisition makes this rotation even deeper than it was, and arguably, it makes the Mets rotation the deepest in baseball. When all five of these starters are pitching on the top of their game, something that Jeremy Hefner has helped them do, there is no rotation better in baseball. That’s just how much Bassitt means to this team.
Did you ever see the movie Clue? The ongoing bit in the movie was “Communism is just a red herring.” Hilarious, and sadly, it is exactly what we are seeing with the baseball collective bargaining negotiations..
There is a very lengthy and needed discussion on international free agency and how to best curb the abuses. While many believe the draft is the best idea, there are players like David Ortiz and Fernando Tatis, Jr. who have real concern what it will not only do to the game, but also what impact it will have on their native country.
It is a concern voiced by many Puerto Ricans. Francisco Lindor and other prominent Puerto Ricans have spoken out about the negative impact Puerto Ricans being included in the Rule 4 draft has had on baseball and the economy of Puerto Rico.
There are also many who want to discuss the fairness in the system where players from different countries are treated differently. Why is it a player from the United States has to go to a team who drafts them while a player from Venezuela can pick their team? Why is it a player from Puerto Rico can be the top overall pick in the draft and receive a bonus in excess of $8 million while the entire bonus pool to sign a player from the Dominican Republic is capped at roughly $6 million?
Get informed before jumping to conclusions. pic.twitter.com/VA34RbC3K0
— Francisco Lindor (@Lindor12BC) March 10, 2022
There is inherent problems and fairness to be discussed, but that is not what is happening at the moment. No, MLB is using international free agency as a union busting mechanism to ensure the lockout carries on, and they ultimately receive complete player capitulation. If you don’t see it, you’re ignoring all the evidence.
Max Scherzer and Lindor talked about how MLB did not offer the players anything in exchange for the draft, so the players passed. It is also important to note it is well known this would be a deal breaker for many Caribbean players, and by making it an issue now, it really accomplishes to try to split the union to weaken their position and strengthen MLB’s ability to further win these negotiations.
More than that, it’s just another example of MLB negotiating completely in bad faith. For example, just look at what Jon Heyman tweeted about the MLBPA actually accepting the parameters of a deal only for the owners to reject it because the approval came after MLB’s self imposed 6 PM deadline:
Players made an offer late today: They’d spend the season working on a world draft and if it didn’t work out, qualifying offers/free agent comp would be re-installed at year’s end. This was Manfred’s idea Tuesday night but was rejected because it came after MLB’s 6 pm deadline.
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) March 10, 2022
That is what is most telling of all. The MLBPA accepted it, and the owners rejected their own proposal . Again, this has nothing to do with an international draft or how to best curb the abuses in international free agency. Rather, it is the latest in the series of underhanded tactics from MLB designed to break the players. It is something New York Mets owner Steve Cohen hinted at:
Oh. pic.twitter.com/XzBWhowAq7
— David Lesky (@DBLesky) March 9, 2022
If you’re blaming the MLBPA or both sidsing your disdain for the CBA negotiations dragging on this long and threatening to shorten or even cancel the season, you’re completely wrong. It is more than evident this is completely on the owners, who are using every PR tactic they have to fool you. This time, it’s the international draft. Next, who knows, but just don’t fall for it again.
As the lockout continues, it is becoming increasingly clear this isn’t just about trying to get the best possible deal for the owners. It is also about limiting just how much Steve Cohen can use his pocketbook to try to improve the New York Mets.
As noted by Evan Drellich and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, not only is the laughably called Competitive Balance Tax going to remain, but there is going to be another threshold added. That third threshold is supposedly going to be directed at owners who seek to “spend well above the pack.” According to Jon Heyman of MLB Network, there may be a fourth tier to address this.
Make no mistake here, this is directly aimed at Cohen. This also comes on the heels of his signing Max Scherzer and Starling Marte. We also know the Mets have inquired on a number of players including Kris Bryant and Freddie Freeman. We know they are looking to add another bat and another starter. When all is said and done, the Mets payroll may very well be a Major League record.
This is something Mets fans have been waiting to see forever. The Mets play in the largest media market in the world. Now that we have the owner to do it, the other MLB teams are actively trying to get them to stop. As Heyman noted, this is directly aimed at the Mets and the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Suddenly, after a decade, MLB is concerned about the Mets payroll. This was a team which was leveraged to keep the Wilpons financially solvent, and the product on the field suffered. If the team spent like a large market team, that 2015 run could have been sustained instead of fizzling out after the 2016 season.
We also could have seen the Mets add what they really needed in 2019, and we should have seen the franchise re-sign Zack Wheeler. In many ways, what the Wilpons did led directly to Cohen spending wild this offseason. In fact, MLB being alright with a large market club artificially suppressing wages led to Cohen looking to break payroll records.
For a decade, Mets fans were absolutely cheated. They didn’t get nearly the product or team on the field they deserve, and MLB owners were laughing all the way to the bank as they got to sign the Mets free agents with little to no competition from the franchise. Now, that the Mets can return to their glory days of the 1980s is MLB stepping in to try to fix the Mets financial picture.
This is an outright insult to Mets fans, and it cannot reasonably be taken any other way, especially when Apple TV announces a lucrative deal the day after the New York Yankees were bemoaning just how much MLB is limited in trying to generate new revenue streams.
Our only hope is Cohen treats MLB the same way it treated Mets fans when they allowed the Wilpons to do to the team and the fanbase what they did. Hopefully, Cohen will be laughing all the way to the bank as we revel in multiple World Series titles. That would be the only way to make things right.
Sometimes, rule changes initially made by baseball are met with immediate disdain, and the concerns about these rule changes are largely proven false. The best example of this has been the divisional and wild card eras. These changes actually proved beneficial for the game.
Then, there are changes where it seemed like a great idea, but it hurt the game. A classic example there is the automatic walk. Sure, we don’t notice it anymore, but with the loss of the automatic walk we lost the anything can happen at anytime moment in the game. The random wild pitch or batter swinging at a ball just out of the zone has forever been eliminated
Remember, what makes baseball truly great is that every pitch means so much and that in any moment anything can happen you have never before seen. With the automatic walk, that was gone forever. That’s just what Rob Manfred has sought to do as the commissioner. He is looking to take away what makes baseball great.
Manfred keeps pushing his agenda to try to change the game while failing to do what actually needs to be done to grow the game. In the end, we are getting some many rule changes, perhaps more than at any other point in Major League history, forever changing the game and making it almost a new sport:
- Automatic Walks
- Elimination of LOOGYs
- Universal DH
- Pitch Clock
- Bigger Bases
- Expanded Postseason
Beyond that, Manfred wants the ability to implement more rule changes in 2023 and beyond with a 45 day notice to the players. You can only imagine what flat out dumb ideas Manfred will come up with to further ruin the game.
The sad part is this does nothing to actually accomplish the stated goal of increasing offense. It’s not like eliminating the shift or adding a universal DH is going to make Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer suddenly forget how to pitch. It doesn’t work that way, and in the end, all MLB is accomplishing is maybe adding an extra 1-2 runs per week . . . if that.
That’s the problem. As we see with the universal DH, it accomplishes nothing to actually increase the offense. Rather, what it does is eliminate the strategical aspect of the game. That is the part of the game which keeps fans engaged during the time between pitches. That’s the part that makes baseball interesting. That is what makes baseball great.
The sad part is MLB is undergoing all of these radical changes which have no impact while ignoring baseball’s real and very fixable problems. All MLB needed to do was to lift lockout restrictions, and they needed to be better at promoting the game through social media to help catch the attention of the younger fans they covet. They really, really suck at social media.
That should come as no surprise because the people in charge think the best way to grow the game is to fundamentally change it, piss off their core diehard fans, and to institute a lockout leading to the cancellation of games. At some point, we just have to ask ourselves what are we even doing anymore?
With the addition of Max Scherzer, it would appear the New York Mets rotation is set. After all, they already have Jacob deGrom, Carlos Carrasco, and Taijuan Walker returning. They also have two interesting young pitchers in Tylor Megill and David Peterson, who should be given every opportunity to battle for the fifth spot in the rotation.
Looking at Megill first, he was a revelation when he was called up to the majors. Through his first seven starts, he was 2-1 with a 2.04 ERA while walking 11 and striking out 39 over 35.1 innings. For some, he was reminiscent of deGrom, and you could argue it was more like John Maine in 2006. Whatever the case, he pitched well in what was then a pennant race.
After those seven starts, Megill tapered off as he reached innings he never reached in his career. Over his final 11 starts, Megill was 3-6 with a 6.13 ERA while averaging just under 5.0 innings per start. On the bright side, his control remained strong with 16 walks and 60 strikeouts over 54.1 innings. When you see him, there is something very promising there, and it’s incumbent on the Mets to best figure out how to allocate his innings to have him ready for September and October.
Peterson was a different story. He followed a promising albeit statistically troubling rookie season during the pandemic with a poor and injury shortened second year. It’s difficult to know when the oblique began to start bothering him and impacting his performance, but Peterson followed a season with a 4.52 FIP with a 4.78. We would see his 125 ERA+ fall more in line with the FIP dropping to a very poor 73 in 2021. While the strikeouts went up, the walks remained high.
With these two, Peterson has the better pedigree as he’s a former first round pick. However, Megill has better recent success. All told, they are both still a bit raw for the Major League level. You can certainly justify giving one or both of them a spot in the rotation. The better option would be to keep them both in Triple-A to allow them to further battle it out and get ready for when the Mets staff has an inevitable injury.
Keep in mind, the Mets needed 19 starting pitchers last season. Of course, part of that was using pitchers like Aaron Loup and Miguel Castro as openers, but the point remains they needed that many starters. Marcus Stroman was their only starter to make at least 30 starts, and he signed with the Chicago Cubs last season. What the Mets need more than anything right now is pitching depth, and with their having a lack of near Major League ready starters in the upper levels of the minors, they need to manufacture that depth.
With that in mind, the Mets need to sign another starter whenever this lockout ends. Keep in mind, future Hall of Famers Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw are still available. There are other interesting stopgap options as well, and of course, there is also Trevor Williams, who the Mets added at the trade deadline last year.
Whatever the case, the Mets have four very solid starting pitching options if they’re healthy. In fact, when they’re healthy, they’re the top four in the majors. That’s the key. They have to be healthy, and the Mets have to plan for the event they won’t be. That is exactly why Megill and Peterson should be positioned to start the year in Triple-A whenever they permit this 2022 season to begin.