Many reader queries speculated about 2025, which could reveal a lot about the next season. Could Pete Alonso and Juan Soto be acquired by the New York Mets on a budget? Who will make up their rotation, considering the number of spots they plan to have available? Tim Britton and Will Sammon talked about a number of subjects pertaining to spring training and the 2024 season on Thursday before getting into the matters that will affect the Mets going forward.
With pitchers like Zack Wheeler and Tyler Glasnow getting extended, does it make you wonder if Stearns misread the 2025 free-agent pitching market? — Ian N.
Tim: Although I do not believe the Mets will pursue him with the same focus as they did Yoshinobu Yamamoto this winter, Corbin Burnes is, in my opinion, the main long-term aim in this situation. Sorry to use too many geological analogies, but the Mets realize they are not going to find a true ace among their incoming crop of pitching prospects and that they will probably have to shell out a lot of cash for one in free agency. Burnes still makes a lot of sense, but there is a chance he will not reach free agency now that he is been traded to Baltimore and the ownership has changed.
It appears much different when Burnes is positioned at the top of the rotation among young internal prospects, Kodai Senga, and Sean Manaea or someone similar.
The Mets’ strategy this winter has the drawback that they have kind of committed to adding a significant starter the following offseason, and it is never fun to have to make a free agency move. In general, agents are quite adept at obtaining top compensation from such clubs.
(P.S. Another person brought up the possibility of Roki Sasaki being posted. Since Sasaki will not turn 25 until the 2026–2027 offseason, his posting would resemble Shohei Ohtani’s original Angels signing rather than Yamamoto’s with the Dodgers. Sasaki’s Japanese team would forfeit almost $50 million in posting fees, and he would have to sign for a far smaller sum as an international amateur and follow the standard six-year path to free agency.)
Will: There is a lot that will happen in November. Front offices need to be aware of the fact that certain players sign contracts before their walk years each year in order to plan ahead for each offseason. If Burnes did not get into free agency, I would be overjoyed. And there is Max Fried. As Tim pointed out, I have no idea how discriminating the Mets will be when it comes to signing free agents, but I do know they will be picky about who they choose. Maybe by the offseason, their farm system will be developed to the point where the team feels more at ease trading for a top pitcher.
I am interested in what our 2025 cap situation would be like if we got Soto and extended Alonso. Would we have to go into the luxury tax (or how far into the tax would we go)? What would our total payroll look like? — Kevin D.
Tim: The short answer is that you will need to go into the tax to accomplish it, but first, let us investigate.
The Mets’ luxury-tax payroll will be approximately $172 million when the World Series concludes and players become free agents, which is roughly $69 million less than the $241 million threshold for 2025. The $17.5 million the Mets will provide the Astros if Justin Verlander’s vesting option triggers (with 140 innings pitched this season), and Sean Manaea’s $14 million for next season (assuming he does not opt out) are included in that figure. Let us call that scenario A. In what we will refer to as Scenario B, it might be as low as $140 million against the tax if Manaea chooses to opt out and Verlander does not pitch sufficiently.
My most current contract estimates for those two are as follows: Alonso will get six years and $168 million ($28 million AAV) and Soto will get a 14-year, $540 million contract ($38.5 million AAV). If it suited both teams, the Mets might try to keep Alonso on the field for a little while longer in order to reduce the AAV. Thus, all of the room under the tax in Scenario A is consumed by those two agreements along with relatively meager arbitration rises for players like Tyrone Taylor and David Peterson. The Mets would have a strong lineup with some young guys still to come if they stopped there. In addition to Manaea and Kodai Senga, their rotation would require at least three homegrown starters. Their bullpen could be decent and inexpensive if their out-of-options pitchers stay in the organization and are good. Adding a big-time starter like Burnes here would push the Mets right up against the third threshold of the tax ($281 million), where their draft pick would drop 10 spots again.
They would have an additional $30 million to spend in Scenario B, but they would also require a starter to take Manaea’s place.
All in all, the Mets can try to balance resetting the luxury tax and being aggressive in free agency next year, but building the best club possible will almost definitely require them to surpass it (by a significant margin) once more.
Other than the Mets, what other teams look like a fit for Pete Alonso to sign a multiyear contract starting in 2025? — Darren S.
Will The following teams have openings or needs that have been met in the past—Yankees, Cardinals, Rangers, Giants, and Phillies—but this is all pure supposition. All season long, I will be wondering if any team will place the same value on Alonso as the Mets should? Stated differently, Alonso ought to be more valuable to the Mets than any of the other clubs given his tenure with the team. I would suggest reading what I wrote last month for more information on the subject and my estimation of how much Scott Boras will seek for Alonso.
Next year’s FA arms will want to sign with a postseason-bound team. One reason to avoid the Mets. Is it Billy Eppler or Steve Cohen, or are both responsible for the sorry, stagnant state we are in now? — David G.
Will I believe that the team with more wins has a tendency to appear far more appealing when money is equal. Of course, this is not always the case, but it can be when talking about elite free agents. On the day the Mets lost out on Yoshinobu Yamamoto, I published a piece about this subject.
Generally speaking, a club’s overall orientation is determined by the ownership’s finances. For example, Cohen publicly discussed his decision to sell following the trading deadline. That was Eppler’s responsibility, thus I highly doubt he was selecting the rookie-level players from the Miami Marlins’ organization. It also takes teamwork to sign a player of Verlander’s caliber. To put it plainly: A competent owner typically establishes the direction and gives their primary baseball player the freedom to choose the best course of action to carry it out. Some are more hands-on than others; we will have a better read on where Cohen is on this spectrum now that he has a president of baseball operations (and the one he preferred, at that). It’s pretty evident, however, that he at least cares.
How successful Cohen is as an owner is still up in the air; like anything else in sports, his destiny will eventually be determined by his wins and losses. However, in contrast to some of the more recent inquiries we have received, he has not been inexpensive. He broke payroll records. Even without his tax payment, some clubs’ payrolls still approximate his. Over the past few years, they took a large risk, overspent, and failed. They are readjusting now. He has however invested far more in staffing and player development than the previous ownership did in the meantime.
Best comparison of this roster to previous Mets teams? Feels like ’96 or ’97 to me, where the offense was pretty good, but the pitching was led by the likes of Bobby Jones and Mark Clark. — Mark R.
Tim:Disrespect for Bobby (J.) Jones in this topic will not be allowed! He made the All-Star team that year, became the first starter to record something like seven wins in 1997, and of course turned in the best postseason performance of any starting pitcher in Mets history. Go ahead, Mark Clark. (His numbers were higher than what I had remembered for a nine-year-old.)
However, in the grand scheme of things, I believe you have chosen the appropriate years, illustrating the variety of possible outcomes. Despite having excellent offensive seasons from Todd Hundley, Lance Johnson, and Bernard Gilkey in 1996, the Mets nevertheless dropped more than 90 games. With Rick Reed joining the team to bolster the rotation, the 1997 Mets won 88 games and would have advanced farther in the postseason. (Of course, the Mets would have made the playoffs, Dave Mlicki would have struck out fifteen in the NLCS against Atlanta, and Rey Ordoñez would have singled up the middle to win Game 7 of the World Series in extra innings if Gilkey and Johnson had pushed their success back one season.) Therefore, 1996 appears to be a worst-case scenario for this team, and 1997 as
Did the Mets ever replace Jeff Lebow? If not, do they plan to or does David Stearns plan to de-emphasize pro scouting? — Joshua G.
Will: Nate Horowitz, a holdover from the previous regime, runs pro scouting, David Stearns said during the winter meetings. It will be interesting to see the changes made across all scouting departments — international, amateur and pro — over Stearns’ first full year or so.
I’m still really missing The Metrospective. Any chances to listen to Tim on other podcasts? Or suggestions for a replacement? Wouldn’t mind a book recommendation either. — Brendan B.
Tim: Even though there are currently no plans to bring back The Metrospective, you can at least hear me discuss Pete Alonso, Zack Wheeler, and why the Mets’ pitching progress over the past ten years was probably better than you might believe on this week’s episode of The Roundtable.
Apart from the novels I always suggest, which include Celia Wedgwood’s “The Thirty Years War,” Walter Kempowski’s “Swansong 1945,” and any work by Dostoevsky, I have also appreciated Maylis de Kerangal’s “Birth of a Bridge,” John Williams’ “Butcher’s Crossing,” and George Stewart’s “Storm.” (I should really look for something more inspirational to suggest.)
(Top photo of Pete Alonso: Jim Rassol / USA Today
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