Mets at MLB's winter meetings: It's not just about Juan Soto
The Mets need to figure out what’s up with first baseman Pete Alonso. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Juan Soto is the biggest and most expensive question hanging over the Mets and the rest of the baseball world, a status he will retain until he provides an answer.
As of Saturday evening, clarity feasibly could come at any hour, with bids from the likes of the Mets, Yankees, Red Sox and Blue Jays reportedly about $700 million, maybe higher.
But as hundreds of team executives and other staffers, player agents, media members and maybe even Soto himself prepared to descend upon the Hilton Anatole in Dallas for MLB’s annual winter meetings beginning Monday, consider this a reminder: The Mets’ offseason is not and never was about one guy. They had and have a lot of work to do regardless of the outcome of the Soto Sweepstakes.
“I have never structured an offseason with linear plans — Plan A, Plan B, Plan C,” president of baseball operations David Stearns said last month. “It’s much more fluid than that and it’s very difficult to know exactly how any plan is going to take shape until you begin those conversations and frankly make a transaction. Once you make one transaction, it changes the shape of your entire offseason.”
Soto would be that offseason-shaping transaction. Once he selects a team, everybody involved — the successful club, the runners-up, teams and players touched by ripple effects — will know which direction to go next.
In the meantime, though, Stearns & Co. have managed to be productive in other sections of the offseason market. They solved centerfield by acquiring Jose Siri in a trade with the Rays. They added a pair of righthanders, Frankie Montas and former Yankees closer Clay Holmes, to the rotation. And they signed a handful of fringy reliever types, some of whom inevitably will figure into the wide-open bullpen picture.
“That’s a team that is hungry to win, you know?” Montas said Friday during an introductory video news conference. “They’re coming for everything. The way that they contacted me, to [add] me to this team, it just let me know they’re serious about what they’re doing. Why not join that? Why not be with that team?”
That was a tad overstated, if expected of an enthusiastic, newly extra-rich newcomer. The Mets’ roster, at this early December juncture, is not as good as, say, that of the Yankees, who are bringing more players back and therefore are more comfortable sitting and waiting on Soto.
With 14 free agents, including a bunch of key members of the 2024 team, the Mets have a lot of work to do, even with their productive start. Here is a look at the non-Soto items on their agenda for the winter meetings and beyond.
The Mets need to figure out what’s up with Pete Alonso. They almost certainly will add a corner infielder, whether that is bringing Alonso back — the sexiest move — finding a replacement first baseman or adding a third baseman and moving Mark Vientos across the diamond.
The buzz around Alonso, who turned 30 on Saturday, has been minimal while his agent, Scott Boras, sorts through the Soto situation. But his market should pick up post-Soto.
Don’t rule out Alonso’s return even if the Mets spend big on Soto. Sean Manaea likely will be too rich for the Mets’ pitching philosophy. Credit: Newsday/J. Conrad Williams Jr.
The Mets should get another starting pitcher. Yes, even after adding Montas and Holmes, whose conversion to the rotation is an interesting and risky experiment. Those two join Kodai Senga and David Peterson as penciled-in members of the 2025 starting five.
Who will be next is unknown. The guess here is it won’t be Sean Manaea, who surely will top Luis Severino’s three-year, $67 million guarantee (with the A’s), which likely will be too rich for the Mets’ pitching philosophy. For that reason, don’t bet on Stearns laying out a nine-figure deal for Corbin Burnes or Max Fried. Maybe the trade market will yield a gem.
The Mets would benefit from adding surer relievers. Stearns’ bullpen approach of bringing in a gaggle of unknown maybes and banking on the staff turning a couple of them into contributors works well enough. But those should be supplemental pieces alongside a more defined late-inning core.
Interestingly, the Mets last offseason negotiated with relievers looking for three- and four-year contracts “and it just didn’t pan out” and those players signed elsewhere, Stearns said in November.
“So it wouldn’t shock me if we were involved in those discussions this year,” Stearns said. “That has to be a pretty unique case for us to go to those lengths.”
Lefthander Tanner Scott, perhaps the top free-agent reliever, would be an upgrade on what Brooks Raley was supposed to be in 2024 (before he got hurt in April). David Robertson is worth a one-year deal until he proves he isn’t. The similarly ageless Chris Martin would help the Mets fix their walks issue from last season.
“We know we need to add arms to the bullpen. We will,” Stearns said. “I don’t necessarily look at this as we have to add the guy with the end-of-the-game experience or the guy with the eighth-inning experience. If that happens and we think that’s the right fit and the right deal, that’s great. Otherwise, we’ll piece together a bullpen that we think can be quite effective.”
Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.
