- Luis Severino has joined the Mets in free agency after a mixed history with the Yankees. His career with the Yankees was marked by both success and extensive injuries. Severino signed a one-year, $13 million deal with the Mets.
Mets' Catching Depth:
- The Mets' catching depth is a concern, regarding Omar Narváez's performance and health. Cooper Hmel is considered a potential replacement for Narváez. They also picked up Tyler Heineman.
- Joey Wendle was picked up to replace LG as the utility man.
- Kyle Crick, a new Mets relief pitcher, has joined on a minor league deal with hopes of strengthening the bullpen.
The Mets have signed Austin Adams, Joseph Yabbour, Andre Scrubb and Cole Sulser to aid bullpen depth.
Mets Winter Meetings Focus:
- The Mets are expected to be active at the Winter Meetings, with a focus on acquiring an outfielder, starting pitching, and relief pitching. They are also interested in improving run prevention and outfield defense.
- The team may engage in trade talks, expect to hear the usual prospect names such as Kevin Parada, Brett Baty, Mark Vientos, and Ronny Mauricio.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Player Meetings:
- The New York Mets are planning to meet with Japanese pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto in the next week and he is expected to continue to draw significant interest from MLB teams.
- Shohei Ohtani is also expected to make a decision on his next team soon, with bids for his services surpassing $500 million.
- The Mets are also considering Korean outfielder Jung Hoo Lee.
Summary from pre Winter Meeting thread:
Hall of Fame Ballot Newbies: Inclusion of players like Big Sexy, Wright, and Reyes in the Hall of Fame ballot.
- Several iconic Yankees and Mets greats were in contention for Hall of Fame induction, but they fell short of the required votes.
Management and Coaching Updates: Significant changes in the Mets' management and coaching staff, including a new contract for manager Mendoza. Bench coach vacancy and role shifts for Eric Chavez and Jeremy Barnes as hitting coaches. Introduction of Kris Gross and Andy Green in player development and amateur scouting.
Pitching Strategy and Market Moves: Focus on fortifying the rotation, implications of the Cardinals' signings, and the pursuit of high-caliber pitchers.
Bullpen and Player Performance: Signing of BP arms to minor league deals and review of the players.
Previous Mets thread: - (
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Similar stuff was/is coming out on the Mets side as well. Imanaga/Giolito in particular, and even LAD (Hader). Wouldn't read anything into it.
@jonmorosi
shares the latest on Yoshinobu Yamamoto's market.
Quote:
should they lose out on Yamamoto. It’s probably nothing, but maybe easing their fans into not getting him?
Similar stuff was/is coming out on the Mets side as well. Imanaga/Giolito in particular, and even LAD (Hader). Wouldn't read anything into it.
C’mon Dan, it’s Christmas! Can’t you wait until the 26th to tell me there’s no Santa Clause?
lol, so to answer my questions from yesterday. The prior reporting were in accurate. 😉
Part of the problem could be Verlander’s price tag, according to Heyman.
“He’s gonna be a lot of money,” Heyman said. “He’s gonna want the Scherzer deal. So that limits him to maybe San Francisco, LA, Houston, and the New York teams.”
https://www.nj.com/yankees/2022/11/astros-justin-verlander-to-the-yankees-not-so-fast-mlb-insider-says.html
we know how the scherzer h2h with LAD went after losing the bauer h2h in 2021.
3 negotiations isn't a big sample size but all 3 offseasons since cohen took over the mets have negotiated with the top FA SP by AAV and twice gotten that player. nobody predicted scherzer to the mets in 2021 and very few predicted jv last year. with scherzer there were rumors he was opposed to ny to the point he would have vetoed trades in-season. there was more buzz connecting the mets and yamamoto pre-FA than any of the other 3.
the past doesnt predict the future and money isnt everything for everyone but i think we can be confident the mets will be aggressive with the $ and that usually gives teams a shot. if he chooses the pinstripes for less so be it. the only frustrating outcome for me would be hearing the mets didnt offer more $ because if they dont do that then what was the point?
yamamoto's process has been reasonable and coming from a foreign league it's understandable.
ohtani's process was ridiculous. actually i dont care about the process just the time it took him to decide. he had 2.5 months from the season ending, he apparently knew what he wanted in the contract and offered the same deal to all of his contenders, he has played in the MLB for 6 years so he has seen all the cities (especially socal), couldnt he have decided 1 week earlier ahead of the WM?
@YamadaSANSPO
#松井裕樹 投手(楽天から海外FA)は #パドレス と合意。身体検査をクリアすれば正式契約へ。
Yuki #Matsui, a left-handed reliever from the Rakuten Golden Eagles in the NPB, is close to signing with the #Padres, pending physical. Sources confirmed to Sankei Sports.
@jonmorosi
Source: The Angels have had recent dialogue with Blake Snell, the reigning NL Cy Young Award winner.
Of note: Since the Angels aren't viewed as a strong candidate to sign Yamamoto, they don't need to wait on Yamamoto's choice to act in the pitching market.
@extrabaggs
Fresh info: The Giants' meeting with Yoshinobu Yamamoto last week was in SF, not at his agency in LA. Tons of speculation it's between NY teams (plus LAD), but Giants have been assured they will be given every consideration. That and more in Mailbagg Pt.2:
@BobKlap
Growing sense among teams bidding on Yoshinobu Yamamato is that a decision won't be made until after Christmas. Could stretch into the January 1-4 window.
“ Do know the difference between disinterested and uninterested?Disinterested has two meanings. The first and most widely accepted one is “impartial; unbiased by personal interest or advantage” as in “A disinterested observer is the best judge of behavior.” The second meaning is “not interested,” as in “Having not followed Justin Bieber’s career, she was disinterested in the artist’s new release.”
Link - ( New Window )
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Yamamoto still in LA w agent deciding where he wants to go
Yankees and dodgers have always been “in a great position”
Mets have always been in “more of a hopeful category” but Steve cohen is in the process of making a “very serious offer”
Says those are all facts, everything else is “speculation and a lot of misinformation”
https://twitter.com/snytv/status/1737266563521155472?s=46&t=9suZv9yHb2gQ-IFO_3u4Vw - ( New Window )
Yamamoto still in LA w agent deciding where he wants to go
Yankees and dodgers have always been “in a great position”
Mets have always been in “more of a hopeful category” but Steve cohen is in the process of making a “very serious offer”
Says those are all facts, everything else is “speculation and a lot of misinformation” https://twitter.com/snytv/status/1737266563521155472?s=46&t=9suZv9yHb2gQ-IFO_3u4Vw - ( New Window )
Funny considering it was he who said “one source tells me the dinner went well, another said it went poorly” lol
Quote:
Teams involved all still waiting for news
Yamamoto still in LA w agent deciding where he wants to go
Yankees and dodgers have always been “in a great position”
Mets have always been in “more of a hopeful category” but Steve cohen is in the process of making a “very serious offer”
Says those are all facts, everything else is “speculation and a lot of misinformation” https://twitter.com/snytv/status/1737266563521155472?s=46&t=9suZv9yHb2gQ-IFO_3u4Vw - ( New Window )
Funny considering it was he who said “one source tells me the dinner went well, another said it went poorly” lol
He mentioned in the clip that there’s been a bigger fog of war with yamamoto than any free agency anyone has been involved and from the outside that seems hyperbolic because his process has seemed pretty typical. Met with teams/owners, went to a few cities, timeline seems reasonable, some rumors but nothing too crazy. Even if he ends up close to double his projected deal, he won’t be the first from a foreign league this year or last year to do so.
nobody worth it is ever going to be easy to get. a dodger beat from LA times reported the team expected him to sign with toronto the day before he announced on instagram that he chose lad. the scherzer signing didnt seem real even after it was announced.
as prioritized as yamamoto appears to be the hype is very likely going to exceed the actual difference between spending $350m+ on him and whatever combination of other players you can buy for the same $. most expensive pitcher ever is a pretty high bar.
Ohtani, obviously, is in a separate category, and not simply because he is a two-way player. He was 23 when he signed, and his age restricted his bonus under international amateur signing rules to $2.3 million. The better comparisons for Yamamoto are Matsuzaka, Darvish and Tanaka, who faced no salary limits.
Like Yamamoto, Darvish and Tanaka were entering their age 25 seasons. Matsuzaka was a bit older, entering his age 26 campaign. Looking back, as the bidding for Yamamoto intensifies, their major-league experiences could be viewed as at least somewhat instructive.
Matsuzaka, who joined the Red Sox on a six-year, $52 million contract after the team won his rights with a $51.11 million posting fee, made a combined 61 starts in his first two seasons with Boston, 55 in his final four. His injuries included a torn elbow ligament that required Tommy John surgery. His adjusted ERA with the Red Sox was barely above league average, and after his contract expired he spent two unremarkable seasons with the Mets.
Darvish, who joined the Rangers on a six-year, $56 million deal in addition to a $51.7 million posting fee, is perhaps the most successful of all Japanese pitchers, a two-time Cy Young runner-up and five-time All-Star entering his 12th major-league season. He also has had elbow issues, requiring Tommy John surgery in 2015, arthroscopic elbow surgery in 2018 and a shutdown stemming from a stress reaction at the end of 2023. But his career adjusted ERA is 17 percent above league average. Zack Greinke, a strong Hall of Fame candidate, is 21 percent above.
Tanaka, who joined the Yankees on a seven-year, $155 million free-agent deal, also enjoyed a successful major-league run, even after getting diagnosed with a partially torn elbow ligament in his first season. Avoiding surgery, he averaged 27 starts in his six full seasons before the shortened 2020 campaign. According to Fangraphs’ dollars metric, which is WAR converted to a dollar scale based on what a player would earn in free agency, Tanaka slightly outperformed his contract with his regular-season performance. He also was a stalwart in the postseason, producing a 3.33 ERA in 10 starts.
At his best, even Matsuzaka showed why he was so hyped – in his second season, he went 18-3 with a 2.90 ERA and led the majors in opponents’ batting average. Yet even Darvish’s full body of work demonstrates the risk of awarding a deal of 10 or more years to Yamamoto, who has never pitched in the majors, and while extremely athletic, is only 5-foot-10 and 176 pounds. Major-league executives, though, do not seem deterred by his smallish stature.
Darvish is clearly the hope. Through 11 years he has earned almost $200m in his career, plus the $51.7m posting fee. 11 years later, some arm troubles included, and it's not so hard to see why a comparable pitcher would be priced beyond that for the next decade.
Rosenthal: How Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s free agency compares to past Japanese pitchers - ( New Window )
Whether this is a brief spree in the wake of the Ohtani signing, or a true recalibration of how the team plans to spend, remains to be seen.
If the Dodgers miss out on Yamamoto, it’s more likely they’ll turn back to the trade market — and not another highly-coveted free agent, such as two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell — in their search for additional pitching. Corbin Burnes of the Milwaukee Brewers and Dylan Cease of the Chicago White Sox remain potential targets.
https://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/story/2023-12-19/dodgers-shohei-ohtani-billion-dollar-revenue - ( New Window )
it would suck to miss on yamamoto, but it would suck more if Quintana/Severino are penciled in as anything higher than the #4/5 starters.
depth is a weapon worth spending on, and i agree with heyman that snell (and Woodruff) are both worth seriously pursuing if they miss on yamamoto. Snell - Senga - Woodruff is a very credible top 3 for 2025 if Woodruff can make it back healthy.
This should be Mets’ Plan B to Yoshinobu Yamamoto chase - ( New Window )
that's the question. id have no problem with signing any expensive reliever (including hader, though that seems beyond highly unlikely for the same reason).
if they are going to add an expensive reliever i think it will be someone who also has a chance at being a 6th starter like yariel rodriguez. it seems like that's the role fedde likely would have been in if he'd signed here.
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And now the Giants, after whiffing in free agency on some big names in the past 12 months, have spent their big bullet on Jung Hoo Lee. And traded for Hopkins.
So when I said “a ton of outfielders,” I wasn’t being hyperbolic. In fact, I was underselling the size of the glut. Despite not really having a huge dude to speak of (Meckler is about the size I was in seventh grade), the players I’ve mentioned — all on the 40-man roster, all either outfielders or outfield-experienced — total 2,737 pounds. That’s not a ton; that’s 1.37 tons. That’s a metric ton, with quite a bit of room to spare."
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Better cover the bullpens
This is making this hurt even more. Man this signing of a player who has never pitched an MLB inning has me unreasonably looking at this team as at a crossroads. I don't know why but losing Yamamoto feels like a huge setback. But I admitting I am not sure why I feel like this. I love this team.
Outcome #1: We get Yamamoto. This is the most desirable to me. I am a believer, but I tend to be more on the optimistic side usually, but the potential build of the rotation with Yamamoto and Senga at the top seems like it would be very strong.
Outcome #2: We miss on Yamamoto, and are able to pivot and somehow get under the luxury tax threshold, resetting for the 2025 season. I still think this is a positive outcome. Whether or not Yamamoto is a Met, this is many ways is a development year for many prospects with the Mets both at the big club and in the high minors. The foundation, at least offensively, seems promising. I'm with (I think Eric on LI) who would really entertain moving Alonso in this scenario, hopefully Marte as well, and get us under the threshold.
This would allow Cohen to really be able to be uber aggressive next year and see what we have with the foundation moving forward.
Option #3: We miss on Yamamoto, but stay above the luxury tax. The worst option for me, but still, everything above holds true except the additional year of luxury tax implications. But with another losing season, I have to think the team has to consider re-setting that luxury tax.
Outcome #1: We get Yamamoto. This is the most desirable to me. I am a believer, but I tend to be more on the optimistic side usually, but the potential build of the rotation with Yamamoto and Senga at the top seems like it would be very strong.
Outcome #2: We miss on Yamamoto, and are able to pivot and somehow get under the luxury tax threshold, resetting for the 2025 season. I still think this is a positive outcome. Whether or not Yamamoto is a Met, this is many ways is a development year for many prospects with the Mets both at the big club and in the high minors. The foundation, at least offensively, seems promising. I'm with (I think Eric on LI) who would really entertain moving Alonso in this scenario, hopefully Marte as well, and get us under the threshold.
This would allow Cohen to really be able to be uber aggressive next year and see what we have with the foundation moving forward.
Option #3: We miss on Yamamoto, but stay above the luxury tax. The worst option for me, but still, everything above holds true except the additional year of luxury tax implications. But with another losing season, I have to think the team has to consider re-setting that luxury tax.
I think it's the ridicule that is triggering me. I even have pjcas (who I like) going out of character.
$50m retained
+$34m lindor
+40m marte/nimmo
+30m diaz/senga
+25m spent on 1 year options/fas already (severino, wendle, raley, rp etc)
so you are at about $200m before you even get to Alonso, Quintana, McNeil, or signing anyone else.
even with a crazy firesale getting under the luxury tax in 2024 is not realistic.
in 2025 $75m of the above comes off the books along with Alonso. So they are starting next offseason $100m lower than they are now before dumping anyone else.
if they arent over .500 at deadline i would imagine they consider selling players off just like scherzer/jv if they can get value (diaz, nimmo, mcneil, alonso). i dont think that is plan A though.
player nicknames per @baseball_ref
1/2
Adams- A²
Alonso-Polar Bear
McNeil-Squirrel, Flying Squirrel, Jeff McHits (?)
Lindor-Mr. Smile
Nimmo- Nimms (?) or Tater (?)
Marte- Tato
Mauricio- El Chimi
Nido-Needz (?)
Quintana-Q or Lelo (?)
SRF-SR-F
Megill- Big Drip
Lucchesi-Fuego or Joey Fuego
Smith- Smitty
Lopez-El Pichu
Narváez- Narvy
Severino- Sevy or Pena
Diaz- Sugar
Wendle- Mendle or Big Bopper