LAS VEGAS — For the Mets and GM Billy Eppler, things are more conventional this time around, but also probably more critical. One year ago, the Mets entered the annual general managers’ meetings without a front-office leader in place, with Eppler not hired until mid-November. There’s order now, which is great for the Mets, but, man, is this offseason filled with a lengthy to-do list involving high-profile characters.
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And it’s only just getting started.
Here are five things to know about the Mets from the first day of the GM meetings.
1. The Mets want Jacob deGrom and they believe he has interest in re-signing with New York. Sounds good, right? If only it were that simple. Because executives and agents around the league predicted things could take some time to play out when asked about deGrom — with no guarantee it would result in the Mets’ favor, of course — which leads to a few major questions. What happens if another team goes to a place in years and dollars that the Mets would rather not enter with the 34-year-old ace (because such a place may exist)? How long is deGrom willing to test the open market? How long do the Mets wait?
Eppler said he talked with deGrom’s representatives a couple of times leading up to deGrom’s decision to opt out, which became official Monday, and made a pact to stay in touch. But there’s no sense of what deGrom’s timeline could be. So how does that affect the Mets’ decision-making process, especially considering they have plenty of holes to fill in their pitching staff and not just the one created by deGrom’s absence?
“Everybody knows we got business to do,” Eppler said. “That’s part of the communication from our side to them — to everybody — is we’ve got business to do. There’s players we want to acquire, things we want to accomplish in the wintertime. So we are going to get down to it. But that draws back to my earlier statement, where I was saying we want to stay in communication with each other and be very transparent with each other so they’ll feel like they have a sense of what we’re doing and hopefully we have a sense of what they’re doing.”
2. The good news for the Mets is that Eppler on Tuesday shared that he got the sense through his conversations with deGrom that deGrom does have some desire in continuing his career with New York.
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“I think there’s a good deal of interest there on his part,” Eppler said. “That was articulated a number of times throughout the season and reiterated in our most recent conversation.”
3. The Mets are still discussing whether to pick up the $14 million option for next year on Carlos Carrasco. They have until Thursday to decide. It makes some sense to exercise it; the Mets have just Max Scherzer guaranteed a spot in the rotation, and Carrasco again proved to be solid in 2022 with a 3.97 ERA/3.53 FIP in 152 innings, the most he had thrown since 2018. Carrasco had a 2.4 fWAR, similar to Taijuan Walker (2.5 fWAR), who is projected to make $12 million to $14 million annually over three or four years as a free agent. A lot of variables, though, contribute to the calculus of the Mets’ decision about Carrasco, including opportunity cost and projected performance. Carrasco will turn 36 in March.
4. The Mets will pick up Daniel Vogelbach’s $1.5 million club option for the 2023 season, per Eppler. Regardless of picking up the option, the expectation here is that the Mets will continue to explore possible upgrades at DH. Vogelbach always seemed like a likely keeper at this part of the offseason. Things could always change later. But one reason the Mets were interested in trading reliever Colin Holderman for him in July was because of an ability to retain him under club control. At his price, Vogelbach would still be quite valuable as a left-handed pinch hitter. In 183 plate appearances with the Mets, he had an .830 OPS with six home runs.
5. The benefit of having an owner who is willing to spend extends beyond player acquisitions. It involves player development, too. Another example of this occurred Tuesday. The Mets hired Eric Jagers away from the Reds to be their director of pitching, Eppler said. Jagers, 27, comes well regarded as someone who has soared through coaching ranks because of his knowledge of modern pitching and ability to communicate with players. He previously worked at Driveline and was a pitching strategist with the Phillies before moving on to Cincinnati, where he was minor-league pitching coordinator and then assistant pitching coach.
The Mets love what they have at the major-league level in pitching coach Jeremy Hefner. In Jagers, they believe they found someone similar for their player development. Hefner was involved in interviewing candidates for the job. Jagers aligned with the Mets’ vision for pitching because of his understanding of movement science, pitch design knowledge and he knows how to put it all together to maximize pitcher output.
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“I think a lot of players are thirsty for that,” Eppler said. “We’re really trying to serve the players. If a player has questions, I want them to be able to talk to somebody from a technical expertise (standpoint) and maybe from a psychological expertise. If we can really kind of have that diversity of thought, we should be able to serve the players for everything that they need.”
It’s an addition the Mets need. They need to do a better job of developing their own pitchers, particularly in the bullpen. A big reason they’re in the situation they’re in having to rebuild a bullpen from scratch this offseason is because they’ve failed to develop young, cost-controlled relievers like other successful organizations like the Astros. Though re-signing Edwin Diaz to a record-setting deal as their closer was quite the start, the Mets are going to need quality depth in their bullpen if they want to make a deeper run in October, as Houston showed in its path toward winning the World Series. Several strong teams aren’t spending big for relievers; they’re hitting on unheralded additions by making the right tweaks with their stuff. Perhaps the hiring of Jagers is another step by the Mets toward a similar place.
(Top photo of Carlos Carrasco: Brad Penner / USA Today)
