9 new MLB managers for 2026 & Mets off-season Ep. 638 - 12.1.25

We have nine new managers now in 2026, now that Warren Schaeffer has decided he would be the one to take on the Rockies job. We're gonna talk about all nine of those. We're gonna talk about some of the deals that happened this week. We actually had some deals, which is good, ahead of the winter meetings. And we're gonna talk about our favorite team and how things are looking right now at this point in the off season, the New York Mets. It's This Week in Baseball.

We finished the podcast last week and we kind of got into a subject about the best player, I I brought this up, the best player in the Hall of Fame who never won an MVP. And I'm a little embarrassed that I forgot that I wrote an article a year and a half ago. It wasn't that though, the article was on the players, the MVPs not in the Hall of Fame. So it was you wrote it to the mirror side of this. So this is the other side and so I hadn't written an article on that and when I went in.

Well, and we took a look at you know, like some of the stuff that's there and I don't even know how you rate the guys has really became like if he's a Hall of Famer Who am I gonna say is a better Hall of Famer than the other guy? Right, right, right. It's a list Ultimately, it's a list of guys that are really really good players that just happened to not win an MVP and I think like like I mean I think trying to rank them and say it's like how do you say like Derek Jeter and Ozzy Smith one's definitively better than the other

But I will say when I saw this list of guys who didn't make and you mentioned two of them right there, Derek Jeter and Ozzie Smith, there were a lot of middle infielders or guys that shouldn't say that middle and guys that didn't hit a lot of home runs. So I think, you know, you have Tony Gwynn in there, Wade Boggs in there. So those guys probably runs. And so that's what got you the MVP. Right. Because those guys probably by modern metrics had seasons that should have won an MVP. But because, well, there was a guy that hit 40 home runs and he didn't hit

260? Well, we got to give him the MVP. He hit 40 home runs. That's like the most important thing, because not anybody can do that. I guess I'm surprised that Eddie Murray, who was a power hitter, 500.

Almost Cooperstown (02:33.526)
And Manny Ramirez, I guess some of the great years he had, just played with other guys, had great years, but Manny Ramirez certainly hit plenty of home runs. had 555 of them. So, you know, I'm a little surprised when a guy who's got that many homers doesn't ever. Piazza never got a. He's another second twice. Right, right. But he never got one. And nobody would say, you know, or Wade Boggs never got one. So a lot of the times it's like guys that were really good hitters, but maybe not a guy that was going to lead the league in home runs. And then.

If you're not going to lead the league in home runs, it was just really hard to win the MVP back then. Nowadays, you might mean look at last season, Cal Raleigh had a ton of home runs, but he was not going to be Aaron Judge for the MVP. Yeah, that's something going to go back and look at Cal Raleigh's 20, 25 season. The guy hit 60 home runs. Right. And he hit and he's the catcher and he's a good book. Who the heck? Why did that year judge having a historic run where I think I saw some crazy chart that was looking at Judge and Otani over the last four seasons and judge over the last four seasons.

as an OPS plus of 209. That's unbelievable. He's putting up the greatest run of offensive season since Barry Bonds. It's going to be it's hard when you're in middle of it, right? To sort of get get stock of how amazing this whole run is. When you're looking at peaks, this is going to go down with the Bonds giant peak in 01 to 04, the Albert Pujols peak where you had that run at those first like eight years in St. Louis, where if you haven't looked at those first seasons in St. Louis for Pujols, go look at them. You kind of forgot.

How good he was from the day one. Right. Mike Trout for those for like like that's the kind of run he's having right now. And the problem is that if you're a guy that wants to win the the A.L., the end of the MVP, you've got Judge doing that over in the A.L. and you've got Otani doing that over here in the end now. So you might have another situation here where there's going to be a bunch of guys that don't win MVP, really not through any fault of their own. You have another upswing on this list where you're going to be like, still be Hall of Famers like Jose Ramirez. Did you ever there's a there's a guy that would be

right in that category. Cody, you know, has Corey Seeger won an MVP? Has Cody Bellinger? You have these guys that are going to probably be Hall of Famers. know, Soto. Bellinger did, I think. Soto won a Hall of? No. Soto could be the type of guy that never gets an MVP and he's a Hall of, you know, a slam dunk first ballot Hall of Famer already, pretty much. Yeah. but hitting the home runs back then certainly made the difference in getting there. So I mentioned that we had some some managers. We had nine new managers all together with Warren Schaefer of the

Almost Cooperstown (05:00.388)
Rocky's taking one for the team, literally. name him the interim manager for 2026, which I think is interesting. He was interim manager. Right, right. And so now he's got the job for next year. OK. OK. So they gave him but they only give they give him a full contract. I think if you have him with the season. I don't know how long the season is. I know that.

Who is it, Kurt Suzuki got one year with the Angels. I don't know if they gave him one year. They had to give him more than one year. Who would do that? I mean, it's gotta be tough when you're Kurt Suzuki, when you're on a one year deal. Well, Kurt Suzuki's on a one year deal and the Angels haven't made the playoffs in 11 seasons. kind of is a don't. No, the playoffs are your gun. Right, that's kind of what it feels my pleasure, thank you. Well, and I think Warren Schaeffer probably has more than a year. It's only gonna take more than a year to fix the Rockies. Exactly. And the other guys that made a few Forgotten just surprised me that we've had this much.

We mentioned Suzuki, Skip Schumacher in Texas, replacing Bruce Bochy, Tony Vitello, the Wunderkind from college coming in by Buster Posey for the Giants, Craig Albornaz was given the Orioles job just last week, Derek Shelton's gonna be up in Minnesota with another financially challenged team, good luck, Blake Butera's gonna manage the Nationals, Walt Weiss in Atlanta, and Craig Stamman just got the Padres job and he's been in that organization for a while.

a of new managers that are going to be in. Almost a third. Right. Right. So you so I think one you're going to see a lot less of people talk about managers moving around this off season. I don't think there's a ton of guys that are going to be on the immediate hot seat. If I could think about guys, won't be all the more. They just gave him a two year deal. The guy I don't like. always gets. Honestly, one of the only guys that immediately like people that I could see being on the hot seat if things go wrong. There's only two guys that immediately come to my two jobs where I could see there being problems. Detroit.

just because of that team is slow out of the gate. OK, I think AJ Hinch is I think he's OK. But I'm just saying, OK, like that's a team. And I think Carlos Mendoza. I agree with you. I think I think I think I think the tide could turn and Carlos Menzo quickly, very quickly. Right. Same feeling. I don't know. don't really for you know, we're going into the stuff a little early, but I don't buy into the hall. I don't don't either. But.

Almost Cooperstown (07:16.446)
Think it's set up where if things don't go well He's a very easy scapegoat to have in this high career becomes your new manager and just right They brought this young guy in who's you Analytically driven but able to connect we'll talk about him a little bit more later So I think he's one of them right so but I think going back Aaron Boone as always as always is on the hot seat Except he's not really because they never get rid of him or cashman either for that matter right but moving on to the signings think what we saw this week is pitching is gonna be at a premium this

off season because we saw.

Two and a half two and a quarter big moves this week, you know I'm not sure how much we're gonna give I guess we'll talk about it first because I'm not sure how much we can say Ryan Helsley Signing with the Orioles is a big move as he signs there for two years and 28 million dollars Wow 14 million here, but when you think about it, know Edwin Diaz got 20 million He's sort of that he and hater had the 20 million dollar a year contract for five years about a hundred million dollars give or take And so this is this is 14 for only two years

and they really couldn't afford to go to Orioles and we think that they're gonna have a chance to turn around this year with Felix Batista who's not gonna be ready to start the season they can't do this again. right, we knew they had to go and get a guy. He was terrible with the Mets, he did...

Kind of start figuring out what I say legitimately at the very end I'm not worried that Ryan Helsley is never gonna be good again. I don't think that he was terrible with him really bad It was it's one of the things the worst deals David Stern's me and you kind of feel bad for him because it's not like he's a bad pitcher He just really bad I mean I don't feel bad for him because I would say he is one of I hate to put this but he was one of the biggest reasons why the meds did not have success down with that deal was made met fan when that deal was made they brought in Ryan

Almost Cooperstown (09:03.264)
I was excited. And he was absolutely awful with us. darn terrible. So I don't feel bad. But that's why I don't feel bad for him. was never coming back to New York. No, That's kind of like, you you can't, I'm sorry, that's ground. can't go back over again. Right, right. Because the first time he had any issues, Met fans would have been losing their minds of how we could have resigned this guy because he was that bad with us. But Sonny Gray, you know, and he came in a trade for too hard throw. So they got some assets going forward. And they're also going to pay him

And now the Red Sox, $41 million for one season. And, you know, it used to be a $40 million season like Verlander or Scherzer. That's only one year. Right. So I think that jacks up the price in this situation, because I think if you're Sonny Gray, you don't really want to go into another off season looking to make a deal.

But for the Red Sox, kind of get why you go with a one year deal here in this situation, because as much as you're team that's looking to contend, you're also a team that's in this weird transition period. You're both a win now and a transition team at the same time. think, man, I think there's a lot of talent on that team. I think when you've got Crochet now and Sony Gray and you got Brian Baio, all of a sudden you've got a really strong top three guys and you've got a team that can score runs. they could.

They score runs last year. Not as much as they should have, that's for sure. Right. So I think that going and getting Sonny Gray is great for them. It puts them in a position where they're saying, hey, we're here to compete with literally the rest of the ALEs because every other team in that division, is at least OK. And they did that before the Blue Jays gave Dylan Cease $210 million for seven years, by the way. Right. Right. Which is really just feels like the Blue Jays go, OK, we're going to you one better as they go out. And I'd say they get one of probably the top two premium free agent arms right now.

Yeah, and he's remarkably consistent if you look at that ceases stats, but basically you can plug him in for doing, you know, to about 200 innings, about 200 strikeouts. You know, he's going to give you know, few base runners and all that good whip, you know, just a solid, solid and it's wild to think about where the Blue Jays were at the start of the start of last season where they're starting rotation or Kevin Gousman is their number one. If you watch that team, then go on to make the playoffs. And now he's your number three pitcher. They made the World Series and he's like, you're

Almost Cooperstown (11:21.366)
third starter now because you've got you're elevating a to above him. kind of think the Blue Jays basically did in the postseason. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he certainly he was and he pitched that way to deserve that. And I think I saw some wild statistic where like five of the last seven Dylan C seasons would have more strikeouts than anybody else in Blue Jays history or something like that. That's it. Just like this is a huge signing for them. They are. And I think it's also huge because it's a guy that's taken off the market. And I think it now means frame. Valdez is about.

to get a fat contract for somebody.

The only team where I can't see Framber signing is the Astros. Yeah, that's interesting, you know, because he's been linked to and we'll talk about the Mets. mean, that's you know, when it comes to throwing a lot of money at somebody, Steve Cohen has a reputation for doing that. The Dodgers are doing their thing where they talk about signing everybody. They're like, yeah, we could sign Kyle Tucker. Yeah. Yeah. What about Cody Bellinger? Probably get a Framber too, you know, what are these all these new Japanese players? Yeah, let's get go them. Apparently, Tatsu, you're my

Come on over. for Tatsu Amai who came out and said, no, I don't want to sign with the Dodgers. I want to beat with the Dodgers. course, the Mets are focused on him. Yeah, we want the guy who wants to beat the Dodgers. we like him. Any team would probably say that. That's the guy that we want. But yeah, I think, you know, interesting about the pitchers that were signed and there's only three of them, but two of them as starters, they all go to the American League East. And so, you know, and obviously they all pitched in the National League last year. So that's kind of interesting that those pitches are out and it doesn't really overall weaken the National League. But if you're a team

that competes with the teams they were on, you're not sad to see those guys go. Right. You're not. You're not sad at all. And we might as well get into the Mets here because we're looking at them after their disastrous campaign here in 2020. worse over time. Like it was a tough season. was tough to watch. But now that I hear people talk about it, it seems even worse. it's actually kind of strange because I feel like other people are much more negative on the season than I am. Maybe because we accepted they were a flawed team so

Almost Cooperstown (13:25.774)
quickly after that initial start. Like we were talking about them being a flawed team in like June. We were just like, ooh, we're nervous about this. And the pitching last season got off to such an amazing start that you said it can't last. Right. We were saying that the whole time. we kind of. last. Right. It didn't last. And I think one of the things that we were both talking about and we've seen the organization do is there had to be a change in the coaching staff.

and they went out and they changed the coaching staff. It's almost entirely new across the board. Yeah, I mentioned Carlos Mendoza's heir apparent that in Kai Carraya, who's the new bench coach and all of 30 something years old. they brought in Justin Williard as their new pitching coach, Dan McKinney as his assistant, Troy Snitker as a hitting coach. There's a lot of hitting coaches. Well, replacing the truly much maligned Eric Chavez, because man, did the Met fans hate him. I think there was actually some...

evidence to the you know he would didn't seem like they did great under him so I understand why we got a we have new new first base and outfield coaches we got new third base coaches new catching coaches did you hear the whole thing with the richardson the first base coach who the mets ended up letting go so now we talked about it a little bit apparently they they offered him more than he got anywhere else and he wanted more

and then he signed for less. I don't know if he signed, all I know is the Mets are like, whatever it was, that's too much and enough of you. Enough of you. And off you go and we'll see you next right, and I don't think.

I think the fact that the Met fans were talking so much about a first base coach does show the general level of frustration within the fan base at missing the playoffs last season, especially after they sort of had a miracle run the year before. And so now you enter a very, very uncertain 2026 where

Almost Cooperstown (15:11.758)
Like we were just talking about with the Red Sox they are a team in transition and they got a break last season that they're unlikely to get this season which is that the Atlanta Braves just sort of stumbled and fell flat the entire season. Which year would you target if you're a Metfan to try to know steal the division? Let's see the year the Braves fall flat on their face. I feel like it's tough to say steal a division when the Phillies won like 94 something games. that's missing you only have one team to beat. right. Steal a division would be like both the Braves and the Phillies stumbled and you win like the division.

Almost Cooperstown (15:44.959)
In some ways, all it means is that it just places more importance on the Braves games next season and those head to head series because you can safely assume that the Phillies are going to lose some pitchers, but I think they're going to go out and spend big this offseason for one more run with this group. I think so, too. The Braves are going to be better. The Marlins had a plucky season last year, but they're the Marlins. I said this about the Marlins. OK, so if they think they can compete and I tend to think Clayton McCullough is telling the organization that we can compete.

that they're not going to trade any of those pitchers. Right. And then all of sudden, they're plucky hitters that were getting better. All of a sudden, they're a real pain in the neck. If they're a 500 team or something like that or a little better. And the Nationals had a bad season last year. So if they come on up the come on the upswing, that could be a much more competitive and at least in the twenty twenty. What was this year? Tougher, tougher, which just didn't do that great. Right. So the Mets had a lot of work, I think, coming into the offseason. And well, they've already started it because they made a gigantic trade when.

when we're looking at it as they traded longtime outfielder Brandon Nimmo to the Texas Rangers for Marcus Simeon, which is a giant shakeup in the fabric of this team on a lot of different levels. Well, it speaks to the I did not realize how good a defensive player Simeon was. He's he's.

Very good. Consistently good. Won the gold glove this year, whether you believe it's deserved at 35 or not is another story. But the point is that he's a tremendous fielder. He is a terrific base runner even at age 35. They basically put his base running stuff out there going, this guy who's obviously not as fast as he was just makes the right play in the middle. Little things that David Stearns was saying, I want to have a better defense. I can't go in. We can't go in with the kind of defense we played last year. Nimmo was a minus in left field, let's face it.

always so strange to me that people will be like, Nimmo is a great defender. Because I'm like, OK, this is one of those situations where like the eye test feels like it can flicks with the metrics. Because whatever I watched Brandon Nimmo play the outfield, it looked uncomfortable. Well, let's talk about Nimmo a little bit. know, he's a guy who played 10 years with the Mets.

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drafted by the team. He was on his way to being an all time. He was he was going to probably have his number retired. think that is out the window now because he's not going to play his whole long year with. But I think he'll be in the Met Hall of Fame one day. They put Lee Mazzoli in there. So I got to believe that Brandon Nemo gets in there because he was a better player than Lee Mazzoli. put together a lot of good seasons, but he as a player was profiling less and less as an outfielder and more and more. thing he defensively was was it a twenty twenty two under Buck Strowalter when he played center field because they didn't have a center fielder.

And he outperformed everybody's wildest expectations in center field which gave people the wrong idea that he was a really good defensive player when he was a game guy who got it done that season and never was as good as that. And injuries in time have now further sapped him especially because I think he has the planar fasciitis. He's fought that for years. Right. And that's the kind of thing that just it's the kind of thing that just kills your ability. And he you know he was a guy who came up and couldn't stay on the field. He was hurt early in been much better about that

for the last bunch of his career. He was a little banged up last year, but it wasn't any kind of notice. shipped that moniker, and I noticed that in his MET career, the Mets were 532 and 534, so under 500 for his MET career, which actually surprised me, because he came up during that run. Right, but then they were really bad right after that a lot of games in some of those years that they weren't any good, and that offset the good years that he was on the team for. So I think it was a huge deal that I'm in favor of.

think Semyon and Lindor is kind of a juicy combination in the middle of the infield. Well, when you look at the infield, and I think as a Met fan, of the things that we kind of we talked about how it was how bad their defense was last year, especially, especially on the right side of the field. Yeah. You had sort of a, you know, the Bermuda Triangle effect between Pete Alonso, Juan Soto and the rotating cast that was at second base, where whoever that was, was the best defender of those three. But it's like kind of like when you have like a tiny

anchor attached to a giant ship that's not really that really helping do anything like those other two were so just let's be honest not good that

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a slightly above average second baseman wasn't helping how rough the defense was over there. And I got to think how bad the defense was contributing to how much the pitcher struggled down the second half. That's a good point. And I and I think, you know, I was having a back and forth with a fellow writer, Bill Shaver, who's written a couple of really great baseball books. And, you know, he's a met fan through and through and was sort of getting on the idea that Pete is better than people think at first base. And Soto was sort of his problem because of the laconic nature of what Soto is.

You talk about the eye test. you watch Soto, he kind of does everything kind of low key. So it doesn't look like sometimes he doesn't hustle out every single ball to first base when he hits. When that bothers baseball fans that have been around for a while, it really bugs them that he it. That is a baseball thing. It's legit. It's there. To me, that's one of those things where, I'll be honest, if you're a fan, if you're a fan that goes, I look at Juan Soto and Pete Alonso and...

I'm gonna say I want Pete Alonso on my team over Juan Soto because he has heart and he has effort. You're stupid. that's no, because here's why. Because when you look at any pick one season out of Pete Alonso's career and say you want that over basically any season of Juan Soto's career and you literally can't. If they the same position, you could make that argument. But it's like, so do I want a bad defender who is a worse offensive player?

or a bad offensive player who is a better offensive player than that other guy in virtually every category. think I mentioned that once Soto's career Ops Plus is 160, this year his Ops Plus was 160. So Pete, Pete, has Pete had a 160 season? Has Pete sniffed 150? No.

Right. Closed. Yeah. So if you're going to if you're to talk one side of the infield so then right. But you got Semi in there. And so if you have to replace one of those two guys, you're not replacing Soto unless you move in the left field, which is a possibility. Not replacing Soto. He's not the best offensive player on the roster. He's got a contract for the rest of your life. Right. And then your life. It feels like get ourselves here. And, you know, first, first base wise, you know, the Mets are really, I think, struggling with.

Almost Cooperstown (22:13.07)
Can they have Pete be the first baseman, primary first baseman? No. Or is there some way he can be a hundred game DH or a hundred and ten game DH and play first base a couple of times a week or once a week? I think the idea of entertaining this fantasy of having some guy play 60 games at first base in a hundred games at DH is exactly that. It's a fantasy. That's not going to work. What kind of first base? Think about it. What first baseman would you be happy with?

for 100 games of the season, but you wouldn't want him out there for 162. Injury not being a part. Injury not withstanding, right? Really like, okay, no, I'm gonna sign a guy that like, I only want out there some of the time. Like it doesn't make any sense. Well, and then to the meds are on talking about, I'm the one that should have mentioned this going, I don't know how, because it Scott Boris, his agent that came out and said, yo, people with DH.

I don't still think Pete Alonso basically wants to be a full-time DH and never play first base again. I think that would be hard for him. I think that's his best path to getting a fair contract. And he's not going to get as much as if you were a first baseman. problem is the people who might want to pay him that there may not be that many in it. That's 30 million in a place where he wants to play. Exactly. That might be his big issue is what team is willing to pay him to play first base right now.

Because that's what he's. Rockies say come on out and play for his base. We'll give you 33 million a season for five years. that better? Nobody else is going to give him that. Is that better than playing the DH for the Mets? Right.

Right. For for less money. Say you want to win, you know, and you look at that situation, that's that's a tough situation. So I think that's why the infield when you look at the Mets infield right now, they sort of get it incomplete because we don't know what they're doing at first base. If you look at. Well, we don't 100 percent know we're doing a third base either at this point. I am operating under the assumption that Brett Beatty is the starting third baseman until I am told otherwise. You know, Mark Vientos has been working out all winter on his defense really hard at third base in first base. You better work at

Almost Cooperstown (24:12.296)
He better work out at first base. he can be the versatile infielder that they need. Brett Beatty, I think, to me, earned the starting third base job this season to be there unquestioned that like like like he hit well enough last season. He's the best defensive third baseman they have on the roster. Like the difference between him and Vientos at third base defensively is staggering. Yeah. And as good a defender as Luis Angel Acuna is. And I think he could play third base as well. I don't think you want his bat at third. No, no. Beatty actually had a

And offensive season, especially when you just look at his second half. He was very solid in the second. Bringing in Semyon or ended the idea that Beatty was going to have that that hopefully. That's why I'm saying at second base. That's why I'm saying no, Brett Beatty is your third baseman going into this season. So you've got Semyon, Lindor and Beatty. You're hoping that now having a much better consistent presence at third base and a better consistent presence at second helps revitalize Lindor, who had a down year defensively last year. so that also didn't

help the Mets, I gotta think it was probably not helped by the fact that I have to think he was compensating for what was around him at points. Well, and he was injured. Right. know, he he had the toe injury, I think he wasn't right for a long time, even though he played all the way through it, because the guy just plays through everything. He had, you know, the stories came out this week in the New York Metro area about issues between both he and Soto and the ongoing issue, apparently, between he and Jeff McNeil, who had a screaming match between he and McNeil and the locker room about it.

an error that McNeil made. And by the way, this is all, you know, secondhand, thirdhand reporting. Right. You don't really know. You never know what really happened there. I actually totally buy that happening between McNeil and Lindor, because they've never gotten along. all remember the argument in the dugout tunnel about the squirrel or whatever. The raccoon, the raccoon. Right. Yeah. So I think I think McNeil and McNeil has always sort of had that presence within the clubhouse. I'm going to be stunned if at this point, especially with the trade for Simeon, if he's on the roster next season.

Which if you remove Nemo and you remove McNeil, you have now greatly changed the vibe of that clubhouse. And I think that's an excellent point because there's some talk that your left fielder is McNeil next year. I'm like, well, why would you want to put McNeil in left field? What did he do? You could do better. To do that, because, you know, he doesn't hit for power, you know, didn't hit for average, didn't really hit for average, you know, didn't have the on base average. He's a capable fielder, you know, like he's versatile. He can play center, he can play left, he can play second, and he's pretty, you know, OK.

Almost Cooperstown (26:41.752)
He's now a utility in vibes guy except the vibes are bad. Well said. that's why I think, you I don't dislike McNeil. I just think if there's the problem is I just like watching him play right now. He gets paid a lot of money. So who's going to take his 15 million bucks he's got? Dump him. You're dumping him. some salary and let him go someplace else and wish him luck. And I think that that's probably right to your point about the vibe needing to continue to change there. And that's why when you look at the outfield, the outfield is even harder to judge than the infield, because the

only guy you really know is there for sure is Soto and you've now got a question mark in left field and a question mark in center. Will a kid come up and fill one of those positions? You have to assume they're going to sign to somebody. Is it Kyle Tucker to go play left field? Is it somebody? Is it Cody Bellinger to come play center? I don't know who they're going to sign, but they're going to have to sign someone to play. That's a good thought to carry forward because I went on record as saying is I think it's going to be hard for the mess to fix everything in this offseason.

Like we're going to fix all the things that are wrong with us every unit. No, no, You're going to go into 2026 with really young players at a lot of positions and you're right. Right. I think that's what we're to go in with Jeff McNeil playing left field every day and going, well, that's a that's a one foot in the past. Right. I don't think they're going to do that. I think they're going to not. You're not going to. I'm very hopeful they're not going to. Tyrone Taylor, but you know, they're not going into the season intending him to play 120 games. No, I don't think they're going into the season with the intention that Jeff McNeil

Almost Cooperstown (28:24.267)
And you know What we've seen with guys is sometimes it's worth to let them come up to the majors for two weeks. Some guys will just come up and they'll just start hitting and you're like, OK, you know what? Yeah, you could stay up here and play. Sometimes they can't. You send it back down for more seasoning. That doesn't mean they're not going to.

be a player, but sometimes it's worth just be like, you might be ready at 22. Now you wouldn't go and try and bring Jared Kalanick back in. Absolutely. Okay. Just ask me. But I think, I think you're, I wouldn't be surprised to see one outfielder signing and then Carson bench in the other outfield spot.

I think that that feels like something the Mets would do this offseason because especially now with Dylan cease off of the starting pitcher market, I don't think the Mets are going to go out and spend premium dollars on a starting pitcher. Hold that thought because, you know, I still have all these infielders that we haven't done anything with because we didn't mention Ronnie Mauricio.

What's gonna happen to Ronnie Mauricio? I think MET fans are too in love with the idea of Ronnie Mauricio. trade him just because they can't figure out what to do our new Miguel Andujar. Can he play for his space? He's our Miguel Andujar. You know how the Yankee fans used to be like, oh well what if we trade somebody? We'll give you Miguel Andujar. I like to say this is the year. Right, this is the year Ronnie Mauricio turns into something. You've got him and you've got Acuna and you've got this young Jet Williams who seems to be ready to play Major League Baseball. What are you gonna, he's a young exciting player.

as a bench player. did that with the Cunha, although he might actually be a bench player. I think the Mets would love to package some of these guys together in a deal and go trade those guys one of those young pitchers they have, whether it's Sprote or Tong and just go get somebody. But who like who? Yeah, sure. You might want to trade all these guys, but you need a partner to dance with when it comes to a trade. Who's going to necessarily want to give up, say, a proven pitcher for that package or of guys? Or you're going. And this is why the defense becomes important to the Mets.

Almost Cooperstown (30:15.073)
for anything but in particular in the infield because of Framber Valdez seems like such an obvious thing now to me you know that this is the guy you got to go and get because there's not anything else out there like it. Great but at the same time you're a team that we were just talking about how absolutely god-awful the vibes were last season right? No no it was Framber because that weird thing happened last year as a bad guy? I don't know that.

I would like to think I would have concerns about my team vibes if I'm signing a pitcher that intentionally crossed up his own catcher to hit him with a pitch. am sure that if the Mets get far enough to consider signing Fran Bervaldes, they will understand whether what happened there and wouldn't proceed if they weren't 100 % sure that that's I'm just saying that's not exactly a calculation you have to make with any other pitcher you sign. That's true. But I think, you they've got to make, you know, you can't go into the season with the pitching staff you have right now and expect that.

When you Dylan Cease off the market, it's now going to make a bidding war for Framber Valdez and your manager, general manager in, why am I blanking on it? and Stearns? Right, and Stearns isn't the type of guy to get into a bidding war with the first starting pitcher to sign Framber to some mega contract. Well, and then you try to do it by trade to your point and whether you're going to try to trade for his old guy, Freddie Peralta with the Brewers or somebody like that. You know, there are guys that could be dangled out there. John, not John,

Joe Ryan of the twins is another guy who's been floated about. could be traded. These guys. So those are where those assets in your Mauricio's and your Acuna Junior, by the way, he got a of Acuna Acuna. Luis Acuna got hit in the hand last week. You know, he he missed like one game and now he's got like home runs and he's batting 980. He's amazing. He's having the winter that you hope you would have. It's just interesting. Better for trade value. Kind of sitting here before this offseason looking at it going, OK, we know the MET team is going to be different this offseason. It is not necessarily

going to be complete different. But from where we are here today, and we're recording this on November 30th, to where we're going to be when we start the season, it's going be really interesting to kind of talk about this before the season starts being like, okay, what does the roster look like now? Right, because we could say right now, okay, your number one pitcher for the Mets right now.

Who would be your number one right now? Who's your opening day starter next season? With no trade. With no trade. You would have to, by performance from last year, you'd give it to Peterson.

You might or clay home or clay home. You probably give it to one of those guys because you wouldn't give it to Senga and you maybe would give it to Manaya depending on how we felt. Seems like that seems out of respect more because you still are worried that Manaya can't sustain himself in games and you're not going to want to. He's not going to get a product and you guys already pitch short at the beginning of the season anyway. So you've got those kinds of pictures and none of them really profile as a number one if you're asking any fan by the way. Right. But but making your off season plan go side

and number one is like, sure. basically every- That's Ramber Valdez. Right, right. He's the only guy on the market. And you don't have to trade for him. All you gotta do is overpay him.

Yeah, and the Mets are fine with that, you know, this is what we do. Except that's not at that position. And this gentleman, the Pobo, Stearns, doesn't want to give like any smart, you know, leader is going to, I don't want to give a pitcher any longer contract that I absolutely have to. The seven years that Dylan sees Scott, I don't think David Stearns is going to give seven years to anybody. a Framer, and now that that's been out there, Framer's like, well, I would like seven years. And somebody like, okay, I guess we'll not. And the Phillies like, we'll take them for seven years. So not, at least they wouldn't want,

this guy for seven years. think there's two guys on the market. This major Suarez. I don't think they would sign up for seven years. There's only two pitchers in baseball. I think the Mets would consider signing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And they're not getting scuba. They're not getting either one of them. Right. They're not getting crocheting there to. I would say any of those three for seven years and none of them are coming to New York. So so and above the kids. Right. We didn't talk about the kids at all. It seems McLean will be that other guy. McLean 100 percent. he a number one? I just don't want to be this year. Number one. No, I don't know.

Number one this year. think you're going to he's going to be in the rotation for sure. I think there's a chance maybe Tonger Sproul. I don't think either of other two guys are going to be in the rotation. And I think there's a pretty good chance that one of them won't be there. Right. But one I'm to traded. There is a world where they could pitch themselves into that. Good. But it's unlikely. But it's possible. But I think that for sure you're looking at that. You're thinking, OK, Senga Peterson, Holmes, Manaya, McLean. You've got those five guys.

You would like to add a sixth guy that's like not a throwaway pitcher. Nine guys. keep telling you, you need to add a top end guy and then you can fill out the back with other knee jerk. The title or the deals. Not that he's the one, but those exactly those kinds of guys, you know, that are getting the number one. Yeah, sure. I would love to do that. You're going to need to go get relievers. Are you going to sign Edwin Diaz?

Yeah, the more time goes on and they don't sign on them, the less I think they're going to sign them. But I think they will. If they don't sign Diaz, they'll sign Suarez of the part. They'll go sign Williams, Robert Suarez. Yeah. Right. Or Williams. They're not going to not sign one of those three guys. I think you're right. I think you're right. And they still need a lot of work in the bullpen, by the way. do work. really, who's they're signing with the relievers is so hard to figure out. I'm not like it's like bullpen is sort of just like, OK, I expect David Sterns to roll the dice and hopefully it works out this year. That's kind of how bullpens work.

And you mentioned Carlos Mendoza before, and I think one of the things that has emerged in Atavino's criticism, nonwithstanding, is that Carlos' desire to, or penchant for pulling the starters quickly, that really ended up overtaxing his bullpen. You know, early in the season when the starters were going deeper into games, and the bullpen was humming, it all looked like it was working together, and we kind of thought it was a little bit flimsy. And it really, really came to bear, because once the starters stopped going so deep in the games, and you had to pitch Reid Garrett a million times.

And all that stuff they're effective this went down the drain You just can't have enough arms to have these relievers pitched massive innings the way the Mets relievers do right the way we are in the way they were forced to do that at the very beginning of the season like there was no way we could actually expect them to like I mean clay homes was was had a nice season But he was going four or five innings a start and he did it all season long yet a couple of longer ones, but thatcumulatively eventually affects your team. And even though we liked what he did when he was in there, the problem is he needed to be in there longer. Right. Exactly. And none of those guys were able to do that last. So I guess I just worry about a world in which the options come down to Zach Galen and Merrill Kelly and, you know, foreign pitchers. don't really know who you're right. But I think if you're a fan and that's the world you live in, you have to live in the world that you know what the good thing about that is that's going to change next season. You're not you're not going to sign Zach.

Zach Allen this off season and then not do anything next off season or during the trading deadline. So you have to you know, the idea that you're going to be able to be like, yes, I've assembled every player. I want this off season. I got them all what I got on them all not going to happen. So I think you have to you might have to live with maybe not getting I personally don't really want to go out and give framework crazy contract because I know my team isn't done. So it doesn't make sense to lock myself into a pitcher and a giant contract when I'm still trying to figure my team out. I would say that's

Stearns if he's gonna make an offer to Framber it may not be for any more than five years now Maybe a crazy off could be 200 million for five years, right? It's not gonna be a seven-year deal so I could see see them doing that and I and I think you bring a good point up because What we're seeing now is gonna be different, know through through the offseason and even into the season You can fix some of the stuff you see in you know in in movies you can fix it in post Well when it comes to the Mets you can fix it in post, know Get to June and July and figure out what you need where you're lacking part of the reasons we don't have

like we used to anymore and maybe aside from what the Dodgers are building over in Los Angeles is that guys move teams too often. You're not going to be able to sort of get the, you're not going to have a team and have the year over year. It's the same team. It's going to change. Look at the Blue Jays are going to look like a completely different team.

next season potentially and they were the World Series team last year. They'll be different. They'll be different. There'll be a lot the same. Right. But if Bo Bichette's not there and now you've got Dylan Cease and Treia Savage. You different. It's a different vibe. You're a different vibe. We're in that right without Jose Iglesias on the team. The Mets vibe was vastly different. Not that you attribute everything to him, but that was just that team that year. It worked. It happened. It was over. And you can't make that happen again. Exactly. You know, by by forcing it in there. So, yeah, I guess, you know, there's stilla lot of work to be done. I am confident that our owner will spend money, will it go wisely and work out? it didn't work out with some of the, know, the trade deadline acquisitions, by the way, thus far, since David Sterns has been a Bobo, have not really gone all that great. So hopefully he's just a little unlucky there and it's not a sign of things to come. But I like the idea of building the team the way the Mets are doing it, right? We need to be a good defensive team. You know, we need to have, you know, everybody pulling in the right

direction. That may be a little hard with a guy like Soto on the team because of just the way that he comports himself. Except he's basically, from what hear, comports himself as like the professional. a raw, raw dude. That's all. And so people want that. And Aaron Judge, by the way, is not really a raw

do it either, but he's Aaron Judge and he gets away with that more than, you know, than anybody else. It seems like everybody, know, everybody's like, yeah, there's something off about Soto, except nobody ever can find somebody that actually has an issue with. he does his hit. Right. And then this year, I think I'll steal bases. What I hope happens to him in the offseason is that wherever, you know, Anthony Richardson coached him on stealing bases. I need an outfield coach to sort of help him. And maybe Kai Correa is that guy because he's a specialist there to just say, here are the angles you can be playing. Here's what you can be doing differently, because he seemed so it was very interesting in the

technical aspects of what was going on. That's how we stole 38 bases where a guy was not fast. He figured out what the technique was he needed to do to be more successful. Love to see him do that in right field. Yeah, that'd be big.

Anyway, so next week we're going to talk about we're going to drop the podcast on Monday. Correct. This is going to be talking about the contemporary days. Yeah. Record in the morning. We're going to talk about the Contemporary Year Committee voting and to see if you know, we're going to see if Barry Bonds actually gets in Roger Clemens. Let's see. It's who else? Gary Sheffield. So those three guys know you're right. Right. Which is not fair, but that's what's going to happen. Carlos Delgado, Jeff Kent, Don Mattingly and Dale Murphy.

And I just kind of feel Dale Murphy's. was thinking balance and Murphy are the two that jump out. Well, just passed away. So right. Have that whole emotional aspect there. And I love Fernando Valenzuela. That feels down Murphy who he won those back to back MVP's. if you would deserve more he would have had 400. And that cost the whole thing. Do I think Dale Murphy was a hall of fame? It's fine if he is, by the way. I'm a bigger hall guy. It's funny. Would I put him ahead of those other guys? No, no, no. But those other guys have the big step.

So we'll talk about who and we'll talk about their careers in our podcast next week.