The Mets began the year with an awkward roster. Because they signed J.D. Martinez late in the year, he wasn’t ready to start the season. Instead of using Mark Vientos as the DH until Martinez was ready to face MLB pitching, the Mets opted to keep two backup middle infielders in Zack Short and Joey Wendle. Two months later, neither of those backups are on the roster. But they are far from the only ones missing from the opening day roster.
With winning the last two games, the Mets are 24-33 and 15.5 games out of first place. They really should have made a bunch of roster moves to try to improve. From the roster that started the season on March 29th there are now 11 different guys, which is a 42.3% turnover rate. Somehow it doesn’t feel like enough. But here are the changes, ignoring guys who were swapped out in the interim.
Francisco Alvarez (IL) – Tomas Nido
Omar Narvaez (DFA) – – Luis Torrens
Brett Baty (optioned) – Mark Vientos
Zack Short (DFA) – J.D. Martinez
Joey Wendle (DFA) – Jose Iglesias
Edwin Diaz (IL) – Reed Garrett
Brooks Raley (IL) – Sean Reid-Foley
Jorge Lopez (DFA) – David Peterson
Drew Smith (IL) – Josh Walker
Michael Tonkin (DFA) – Dedniel Nunez
Yohan Ramirez (DFA) – Danny Young
Is it fair to count guys who aren’t on the roster because they’re out injured? Even if it isn’t, that still leaves seven guys who were removed for their poor play. And it seems pretty obvious that Diaz is on the IL because of his poor pitching, rather than a real injury. But no one tell the league office or else David Stearns might get in trouble like Billy Eppler did.
The Mets signed Narvaez hoping he would bounce back after a poor 2022 season. At least that’s the official version. But he was lousy yet again in 2023 and was even worse in 2024. That rotten play was both at the plate and on defense. You hear people say that because of his contract that the Mets had to carry Narvaez this year. This should have been a case of Steve Cohen’s big checkbook taking over. They could have made the team better by trading or cutting Narvaez after last year.
Despite being lousy last year, Baty was given the starting job again this year. You can say that giving a top prospect a chance to redeem himself was the right thing to do. Or you can say that Stearns blew it by picking Baty over Vientos, who was also a top prospect. Stearns didn’t have any loyalty to either player, as both were acquired before he took over. This should have been a job won on merit or evaluation. If the latter, it’s definitely a loss for Stearns.
Short and Wendle were both here for their defense. Neither one of them wowed us in the field and to make matters worse, they were worse than expected at the plate. Maybe the thinking was that both had until Martinez returned to make their case to deserve a place on the team. But having watched both of them play, it’s hard to describe this in any other way than poor acquisitions by Stearns.
Nobody could see the Lopez disaster coming and he had been mostly useful before that. Did the Mets overreact to what Lopez did and said? They cut him because they could. They certainly wouldn’t have done that if Diaz did the exact same thing. Would they have done it if it was Adam Ottavino? The real issue was giving Lopez, who had a lifetime 81 ERA+, a contract big enough that he was guaranteed a spot in the pen.
Maybe Ramirez and Tonkin were signed with the idea that they would be let go once others got healthy or pitched well in the minors. Maybe that’s just the way GMs view the bullpen and we shouldn’t be too surprised that these guys were kicked out the door. I’m not feeling that charitable. These are two more guys to add to the pile of poor evaluations by Stearns. He signed them and he put them on the roster. Combined, they gave the Mets 15.1 IP and 17 runs, 11 ER.
Everyone is giving Stearns a free pass because the big moves have all paid off so far. If Baty, Tonkin and Wendle were all exceeding expectations but Harrison Bader, Sean Manaea and Luis Severino were all lousy, Stearns would be receiving more heat from the fans. Maybe that’s the way it should be. Maybe if you consistently get the big moves right, eventually the small ones turn out that way, too.
But Bader has a .347 BABIP, Manaea is doing his best Adrian Houser impression by failing to go more than five innings in the vast majority of his starts and Severino had a 4.97 ERA in May. Are these really winning with the big moves?
In the long run, Stearns is going to be a positive for the Mets. But if we’re grading him on the moves and evaluations he’s made so far, he’s flirting with a failing grade. There are tons of people blaming the Mets’ stars for their poor start and those players certainly deserve blame. It’s just that Stearns does, too.
Lots of moves coming as this team really is not competitive. And even if we manage to score 5-6 runs a game, the pitching does not seem like it will hold up. The 10 runs yesterday almost was not enough. That’s unacceptable.
Diaz’s injury is mental so let’s not discount the need for him to be on the IL in this era of diversity and inclusion. Would still like to see sterns make some bold moves ahead of the trade deadline that would likely result in a lot of the kids coming up and proving their worth. Since we are not going anywhere this year that seems like a great way to go to see what we’ve got, if we’re going to lose 100 games then we might as well have real time analysis of our top players.
Severino, Manaea ,Bader and Martinez were integral moves in the off season because they were going to play important roles for the team. Wendle, Short, Ramirez and Tonkin weren’t relied upon for important roles.
Stearns receives a B with the blemish of not picking Vientos instead the of Wendle or Short especially when Martinez wasn’t ready.
It is going to be interesting how he’s going to handle the pending free agency of Severino, Manaea and Quintana when the trade deadline approaches. He has two major league starters in Scott and Butto and a healthy Senga that could fit in the rotation.
As a Manaea backer – that line really cuts. Some of it’s not his fault, as the manager has a quick hook more often than not. And he’s improved with his walks. In April, Manaea had a 14.1 BB% and in May he cut that to a 4.5 BB%.
Here’s hoping he goes 7 IP later today.