Happy Valentine's Day
Morning Dose: Wednesday, February 14
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Happening now: February 14 is an important date for three reasons:
It’s Valentine’s Day
Spring Training officially begins
Teams can place players on the 60-day IL
While the first two are exciting enough, the third offers the Mets the ability to open up two additional 40-man roster spots, using one to make the Shintaro Fujinami signing official.
How the 60-day IL works: During Spring Training and through August 31st, teams are allowed to place a player on the 60-day IL only if the 40-man roster is full.
Mechanically, that means either Ronny Mauricio or David Peterson can be placed on the 60-day IL to make room for Fujinami, and once Fujinami is officially signed, filling the 40-man roster again, the other can be placed on the 60-day IL.
Keep in mind players placed on the 60-day IL in Spring Training are still not eligible for reinstatement until 60 days have elapsed on the regular-season schedule.
Open 40-man spots: Once Mauricio and Peterson are both placed on the 60-day IL, that will create one (1) open spot on the 40-man roster. But depending on health, several more openings could become available since there are so many players on the current 40-man roster who are out of minor-league options.
Roster Rules: Every player on the 40-man roster must be either added to the 26-man Active Roster, placed on an injured list or optioned to the minor leagues by the end of March. If a player is out of options, he must be placed on Outright Waivers to accept an assignment to the minor leagues, which removes them from the 40-man roster.
What this means:
There are several non-roster invitees who have a legitimate shot at making the 40-man roster out of camp if they perform well and can be placed on Optional Assignment.
The lack of optional players on the 40-man roster also loosens the Mets’ long-term grip on a few recently-signed players who can be claimed on waivers or elect free agency if they are ultimately placed on Outright Assignment and not returned to an MLB Reserve List. New York offered these players attractive split contracts to incentivize them to at least stick around through the 2024 season.
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🍎 Spring Roster Overview
Building on the points above, you can find a detailed view of the Mets’ roster heading into Spring Training below. This projects the initial 26-man Active Roster, includes everyone on the current 40-man roster, along with the non-roster invites to Spring Training.
Highlights: The key names to look at are the ones highlighted in red and yellow. These are the players who are currently on the 40-man roster who would need to be placed on Outright Waivers to be sent to the minor leagues if they do not make the Active Roster.
Michael Tonkin and Sean Reid-Foley can both elect free agency if they clear waivers.
Zack Short, Max Kranick and Yohan Ramirez can be sent to the minors if they clear waivers.
As noted above, this creates the possibility of opening several 40-man roster spots for non-roster invitees to claim by the end of Spring Training.
A few things to keep in mind:
Injuries happen. Unfortunately, for the Mets, they seem to happen more often than not. That means there is a good chance a player listed in the table as an Outright candidate will find life on the Active Roster as players are shuffled on and off injured lists.
The roster is always fluid. Opening Day creates an initial cut-off point for fans to analyze the roster, but we know things change by the day. Don’t get married to anything in early February.
Beyond the 40-man roster: While the non-roster invitees who can be placed on Optional Assignment have a transactional advantage over veteran options to crack the initial 40-man roster, that doesn’t mean players like José Iglesias or Ben Gamel have no chance of hearing their names called on Opening Day. Injuries happen. Mets fans know this as well as anyone. If Tyrone Taylor tweaks a hamstring in Florida, Gamel could find his way onto the Active Roster.
We will talk much more about intriguing non-roster candidates and the evolution of the 40-man roster over the coming days and weeks.
Manager Carlos Mendoza met with the media on Tuesday to give an overview of his new team before the first official workout on Wednesday.
First step: “We’re building that foundation, starting today,” Mendoza said. “That’s going to be the message. We’re not winning a championship on Day One.”
Hungry: “Look, it's New York. And any time you're in the arena and you're competing, you want to win -- understanding that we got work to do. But that's our goal. Those are our expectations. We really feel good about our group, our team. There's a lot of talent -- and they're hungry.”
Centerfield: “We all know Brandon. This is a guy that wants to win. And he will do everything he can possibly do to help this team win a game, whether that’s in left, whether that’s in center.”
🔹 Mark Vientos, who arrived early to Spring Training, is ready to embrace a full-time: “I feel like playing every single day gives the opportunity to showcase myself at its best,” he said. “If I get the opportunity to do that, I’m not going to look back that’s for sure.”
Newsday: “His average exit velocity in 2023 was 92.5 mph, the best on the Mets (Pete Alonso, for reference, was at 89.5). Vientos was just above Mookie Betts and Kyle Schwarber and just below Juan Soto and Julio Rodriguez.”
Read More: Should Mark Vientos be the Mets’ DH? Examining the pros and cons, by Tim Britton, The Athletic ($)
🔹 Baseball America revealed 10 Mets prospects to know beyond the Top 30 in 2024, including right-handers Joel Diaz, Saul Garcia and Layonel Ovalles, along with catcher Daiverson Gutierrez.
🔹 The Mets will debut City Connect uniforms on April 26 at Citi Field against the Cardinals. The Amazins are among 10 teams that have not yet released a City Connect uniform. They are one of nine teams releasing one of them this season.
🔹 Steve Cohen helped spearhead the idea to collaborate with contemporary artists on some of the Mets’ 2024 promotional items. “We just started talking,” Cohen says. “We’re all baseball fans. [We said] ‘Wouldn't it be cool if we did something or made something that we could give to the fans? What can artists do that interact with the baseball team and the fans? Each artist could put their own imprint on it.’” Learn more.
◾️ Arizona and Florida Complex League schedules are changing for 2024, as detailed by Baseball America: “"Last year, the two complex leagues began on June 5 and finished on Aug. 22. This year, they will begin on May 4 and will wrap up on July 25, which means the regular season will be complete just days after the 2024 MLB draft finishes […] The change was described by one farm director as a further effect of the new 165-player roster limits for the domestic affiliated leagues. Some teams expressed concern about having enough pitchers to fill the 600 innings needed if the leagues’ seasons were largely played after the draft.”
◾️ Japanese phenom and presumed number one pick in the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) Draft Rintaro Sasaki signed a letter of intent to play college baseball with Stanford.
🔗 One question facing each Mets pitcher as they head into camp, by Will Sammon and Tim Britton, The Athletic ($): “As spring training gets underway, we’re posing one key question for each player on the Mets’ 40-man roster — a question that may very well determine the landscape of his season and, in turn, that of the Mets’ season. Yesterday was position players, today pitchers.”
🔗 Carlos Mendoza’s Mets job will only get harder after acing Day 1, by Jon Heyman, NY Post: “The rookie manager held his spring-opening news conference Tuesday, but we already knew he’d ace it. He’s great at answering questions. Or how else did he wow at least three teams in interviews off his 2023 performance with the Yankees as bench coach for the most underachieving team in the American League?”
🔗 Mets' Carlos Mendoza settling in at right time as a rookie manager, by David Lennon, Newsday ($): “It’s not about Buck’s brand of baseball anymore. Or even Mendoza’s, frankly. Bottom line, it’s about the the Mets as a whole. And as we’ve witnessed across town in the Bronx, along with the other 28 MLB outposts, that means a collaborative effort — maybe with the front office having their thumb on the scale, to varying degrees.”
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The Spring Roster Overview writeup and graphic was so helpful, insightful, and well done. When I got to the end of it and saw the 14% off Valentines Day deal my response was "heck no, I am paying full price!"
“Mechanically, that means either Ronny Mauricio or David Robertson can be placed on the 60-day IL to make room for Fujinami” - I’m assuming this is a typo and you meant David Peterson?