Everyone is eager for big offseason moves from the Mets but before those are done the club needs to address the 40-man roster issue. It’s not just the Mets – every club has to do roster juggling at this time of the season. It starts at the conclusion of the World Series and goes on all winter, although it reaches its height before the start of the Rule 5 Draft.
Each club maintains a 40-man roster all year long. However, during the season those players who are seriously injured are placed on the 60-day DL and do not count against the 40-man. But once the World Series is over, those guys need to be added back to the roster within five days. The Mets currently have eight players on the 60-day DL.
Seven of the eight are pitchers – Josh Edgin, Matt Harvey, Jeremy Hefner, Jenrry Mejia, Bobby Parnell, Scott Rice and Johan Santana. The first six are likely to be added back to the roster while Santana likely will not, as he will be a free agent once the Mets buy out the remainder of his contract. The lone position player is Ike Davis. While there has been acknowledgement that the Mets could non-tender Davis, that seems a long shot to me. So, it’s likely the Mets need to create seven spots for injured guys.
The following players are free agents at the end of the year:
David Aardsma, Tim Byrdak, Pedro Feliciano, Frank Francisco, Aaron Harang, LaTroy Hawkins, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Santana. It works out rather nicely that the number of free agents leaving equals the number of players returning from the 60-day DL.
Because of the organization’s fetish with lefty relievers, all eight of these players are under at least some consideration for a return to the Mets. A normal organization would tell Byrdak and Feliciano thanks for their past service but there’s no interest in ever seeing you in our uniform again. I would have put Francisco in this same category – minus the thank you part – but after the Mets allowed him to pitch in the majors this year, one cannot rule out a 2014 return, as crazy as that sounds. However, hopefully none of these players is signed early enough to require a roster spot prior to the Rule 5 Draft.
The Mets also have 11 players who are arbitration-eligible. They are:
Scott Atchison, Mike Baxter, Davis, Lucas Duda, Dillon Gee, Daniel Murphy, Bobby Parnell, Omar Quintanilla, Ruben Tejada, Justin Turner and Eric Young. The no-brainers are Gee, Murphy and Parnell. All 11 of these could be back but it’s likely that Atchison and Quintanilla are the ones most likely to be non-tendered.
The biggest issue are minor leaguers who needed to be added to the 40-man or exposed to other teams in the Rule 5 Draft. Chris Walendin has done the heavy lifting at his site and has 68 players in the organization not currently on the 40-man who will be eligible for Rule 5. You should check his site out to see all of the players but the ones that seem most in jeopardy of being selected to me are:
Jacob deGrom, Allan Dykstra, Blake Forsythe, Darin Gorski, Steven Matz, Aderlin Rodriguez, Cory Vaughn and Jeff Walters.
Again, you should check out the list yourself. It’s very possible that one of the relievers that seems fungible to me may in fact throw 100 mph and be interesting to other clubs.
Finally, there’s always players on the 40-man who are valuable during the season but once the year is over their spots are more valuable than the production they give you. Greg Burke and Sean Henn are two prime examples of this type of player, although there are several others who also fit this bill. Who would you rather have – Burke or Matz?
So, if I was making out the 40-man, here’s who would be on it:
Pitchers (18) – Vic Black, deGrom, Edgin, Jeurys Familia, Gee, Gonzalez Germen, Gorski, Harvey, Hefner, Matz, Mejia, Jonathon Niese, Parnell, Rice, Hansel Robles, Carlos Torres, Walters and Zack Wheeler.
Catchers (2) – Juan Centeno, Travis d’Arnaud
Infielders (12) – Davis, Duda, Wilmer Flores, Zach Lutz, Murphy, Quintanilla, Rodriguez, Satin, Tejada, Turner, Wilfredo Tovar and David Wright
Outfielders (7) – Baxter, Andrew Brown, Matt den Dekker, Juan Lagares, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Cesar Puello, Young.
That’s 39 players, allowing one Rule 5 addition if someone intriguing is left exposed. There’s also some people here who could easily be left off – Nieuwenhuis being the prime example.
Of course, Sandy Alderson will have other ideas and with more knowledge of the players those will likely be better ideas. As long as he protects Gorski, that is.
Get rid of Baxter, take off Quintanilla, and replace Rice (LOOGYs are available always) with Vaughn, Goeddel, and Dykstra. Tovar at AAA can be Quintanilla, Vaughn is already better than Baxter, Goeddel is younger with more upside than Rice, Dykstra has the tools needed at AAA to fill in for Duda, who is not getting anywhere and Davis, who is a risk to not get anywhere.
Aderlin Rodriguez won’t be claimed as he is too far away and not highly thought of enough to warrant a 25 man roster spot for an entire season. He won’t be protected.
Obviously, all three of Omar Q, Turner and Tejada are not going to be brought back. Unless they trade Tejada, Omar Q is the odd man out.
One of Davis/Duda will be gone. They are not keeping both, and very well might keep neither. Duda’s SABR friendly stats mean he has good value to teams that value wOBA and wRC+ where he ranks has one of the better 1B in the NL. Can you say 1B/DH for Tampa. Ike also has value given his past performances.
Baxter also wont be back given his dreadful season. They can find a better LH 4th/5th OF elsewhere.
One thing which I didn’t state in the article which needs to be said: This is the 40-man for the Rule 5 Draft. If you think a guy has trade value, you keep him even if you don’t expect he’ll be on your team come Opening Day.
I think you have included two very replacable talents here in Edgin and Quintanilla. I would drop one of them and replace him with Anthony Recker. Recker was doing something right last year; the Mets had, by my counting, a record of 19-13 in games he started. Plus he is a good interview.
Nieuwenhuis….I don’t know. Somehow I still believe he could be a good platoon player, who does enough of the other things on the field to be a valuable role player. At this point my feeling isn’t exactly based on anything we have seen.
Where is Anthony Recker? 2013 NL AVG:17 HR, 307/379/686 for a catcher and Recker posted 6 HR , 280/400/680 in 135 AB’s. Project him to 400 AB’s and he is an average offensive NL catcher. Good enough to be on the roster at least. Vaughn should be added to make 40 also.
Chris always has done a great job with the heavy lifting. Thanks Chris.
Yah, agreed here. Granted Centeno threw out Billy Hamilton, but I’m going with Recker over him all day long.
I think I’ve been pretty solid in my support of Recker, calling for more playing time for him throughout the entire year.
However, at the end of the day, Centeno is seven years younger, seems to be a solid defensive backstop and as a lefty-hitting catcher, I thought he was the type of guy who would get picked if left unprotected.
Harvey can be 60-day DL’d, no?
nvm I just read/understood the intro
When’s the last time someone got a gem in the Rule 5?Seems like teams got solid players more often in the old days.I guess that was pre expansion though.
Both Josh Hamilton and Joakim Soria were picked in 2006
Hamilton because of the substance abuse issues though,right?
Nice work Brian… I was thinking about this yesterday, and here you’ve done all the work!
I believe Eric Campbell will be taken if not protected… I’ve always liked Campbell—he’s really stuck here. Cessa and Cohoon may be taken as well. Decent pitchers with some experience…and Cohoon is a shot in the dark lefty. I would protect Ciciliani and let Baxter Float. That’s probably as much a favor to Baxter as an evaluation of his contribution.
Does Harvey drop from this list with the surgery scheduled?
No way – someone would scoop him up in a heartbeat.
Also, I like the “as much a favor to Baxter as an evaluation of his contribution” line.
Re Harvey…wasnt sure whetger injured players needed ro be counted
“However, during the season those players who are seriously injured are placed on the 60-day DL and do not count against the 40-man. But once the World Series is over, those guys need to be added back to the roster within five days”
When are the players eligible to be put back on the 60-day DL? Because the Mets still need room to sign some Free Agents of course.
Chance to boot Hansel Robles off the roster this year after a so-so year in St. Lucie?
I found this at the website CBA Rules
The disabled list is active from the first day of spring training through the last day of the postseason.
http://www.cbabaseball.com/rules/index.php?title=Disabled_List
As for Robles, that’s
exactly what I didwhat I should have done.I don’t think that site’s quite accurate regarding the DL. This past year, for instance, teams made all of their DL assignments relating to preseason (or existing) injuries on March 31st, and all were made retroactive to no earlier than March 22nd.
Isn’t there a limit on how far you can make a DL appearance retroactive?
As for when you can make a 60-day DL move, could it be that there’s no benefit to doing it any earlier than the last week of camp? The big crush is for the Rule 5 Draft and after that there generally isn’t a roster crush. Wouldn’t most teams want to delay the decision as late as possible, to let the NRIs fight it out to see who makes the team?
If the Mets sign just 2 quality free agents then the adjustments shouldn’t be that difficult s decision to make. They can always make a package deal for either a starting outfielder or shirt stop to make room.
[…] Outfielders (7) – Baxter, Andrew Brown, Matt den Dekker, Juan Lagares, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Cesar Puello, Young. – https://mets360.com/?p=19242 […]
I would also keep Anthony Recker on the roster as we have a need of catching help on the major league roster over backup outfielders. I know Centeno or Recker would go to AAA, but do we know which one of Centeno or Recker at this point? If we keep Brown and Young, Baxter would be in AAA anyway or we loose him,we have other candidates for a backup outfielder.
Hefner is on DL for 2014. Leave him off the Roster.
Does that mean we add Harvey as well?
As you know, Brian, I like this type of thinking. It makes sense to attempt to establish an internal starting point before you start thinking about FA pickups and trades. I haven’t really dug into it yet, but I think I’d keep 9 of the 11 arb guys (nontendering Atchison & Quintanilla) for starters, freeing up 2 spots. Carson, Henn, Robles, Burke & Valdespin free up 5 more. I protect Matz, deGrom, and Walters for sure. I might protect one or two more, but (at a glance, anyway) I don’t see anyone else on that Rule 5 list as a must-have.
This interesting, even more so once Free agency shuffles things to. Baxter and Quintanilla I would think will be ousted. They really don’t have much value anymore.
This is a really comprehensive analysis and the first of it’s kind this year – thank you. The Met’s are in a bit of a bind because of their depth (finally), but that’s a great problem to have.
I think that the Met’s will look at the potential upside of each player, so players who will not be part of the future solution (Quintanilla, Baxter, Lutz, Nieuwenhuis, and maybe Roebels) will likely not make the Rule 5 cut. They will be replaced by any four/five of Dykstra, Huchingson, Vaughn, Goeddel, Campbell, Carson, or maybe Recker. It’s time to move on up.
And Valdespin is not on any list? Are we just cutting him loose, or is there still some upside to be had?
Let me see? A malcontent egocentric jack-ass who got busted using P.E.D.’s. Nope not on my list.