The Mets bring lefty hitters into their organization in a way that would seem more befitting of the New York team with the short right-field porch.
Part of it, perhaps, is they have used high-first-round picks on lefty hitters before the Yankees even had a pick in those drafts — Brandon Nimmo 13th overall in 2011, Dominic Smith 11th in 2013, Michael Conforto 10th in 2014, Jarred Kelenic sixth in 2018, Brett Baty 12th in 2019 and Pete Crow-Armstrong 19th in 2020.
This is an area in which the Mets have done best in accumulating amateur talent. Of the 24 lefty hitters with the most plate appearances in the majors in 2023, four signed their first pro contracts with the Mets, and if you stretch it out even further, that number rises to seven of the top 91: Nimmo with 682 plate appearances, Jeff McNeil with 648, Andres Gimenez with 616, Smith with 586, Conforto with 470, Kelenic with 416 and Baty with 389.
The strength of the overall positional group — including Pete Alonso, Francisco Alvarez and Wilmer Flores — is one reason the Mets rank 13th in our ongoing list of best rosters assembled based on each player’s original organization.
If you would like a reminder, we have been counting backward: 30. Brewers; 29. A’s; 28. Nationals; 27. White Sox; 26. Mariners; 25. Rockies; 24. Tigers; 23. Marlins; 22. Giants; 21. Phillies; 20. Rangers; 19. Yankees; 18. Angels; 17. Pirates; 16. Royals; 15. Red Sox; 14. Diamondbacks and now the Mets at No. 13.
Remember, this is not based on the whole group, but instead what the best 26-man roster looks like. In this case, it would look a lot different (and better) for the Mets with a fully healthy season by Jacob deGrom. Because he only made six starts in 2023, he was not included on this roster, and neither were Baty or Crow-Armstrong, who might change that with how they perform in 2024:
C: Alvarez
1B: Alonso
2B: McNeil
SS: Gimenez
3B: Ronny Mauricio
LF: Kelenic
CF: Nimmo
RF: Conforto
DH: Flores
Bench: Smith, Luis Guillorme, Endy Rodriguez, Amed Rosario
Rotation: Seth Lugo, Tylor Megill, Jose Quintana, David Peterson, Kodai Senga
Closer: Paul Sewald
Bullpen: Jose Butto, Michael Fulmer, Grant Hartwig, Colin Holderman, Steven Matz, Collin McHugh, Rafael Montero
I get why Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery could grow frustrated with their offers in this marketplace.
Snell comes with warts, but also a second Cy Young Award from last season. Montgomery has demonstrated himself to be a durable, above-average starter the past three seasons with the sixth-most starts in that period and 17th-most Wins Above Replacement among pitchers (Fangraphs). Plus, he showed he can handle the biggest games in October in helping the Rangers to their first championship.
Both not only have credentials, but also success at a very high level in their platform years. And I am sure that teams are desirous of signing them — but to this point not at the prices established by the starters and their agent, Scott Boras.
What has mostly taken place in this starting-pitching market is speculating. Either through trades or free agency, many of the acquisitions have been pitchers who didn’t throw in the majors in 2023, hardly threw a pitch in the majors and/or pitched poorly when they did work.
In many — but certainly not all — cases, teams were trying to spend less and hope there was an upside with health and/or different tutoring and/or a different role. Let’s break down the acquisitions into categories:
The category by himself
Shohei Ohtani received 10 years at $700 million. Even with all the deferrals and all the money the Dodgers believe will come their way from their association with the star and all the offense he can offer as a designated hitter, a portion of this investment is about Ohtani, the pitcher. The Dodgers know they will not get one inning out of Ohtani this season, and given he will be coming off a second significant elbow procedure when he does finally retake the mound, there has to be a little doubt (at minimum) at what is coming.
The Japanese stars
Modern pitch-tracking technology allows teams to feel much more sure than in the past about trying to surmise how effective a pitcher from Japan will be in MLB. Teams used that data and Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s age (just 25), and took the bidding to a pitching record of $325 million over 12 years. The Dodgers also can be comforted by the knowledge that the best Japanese starters — Ohtani, Senga, Masahiro Tanaka, Yu Darvish — who have come in the past decade have succeeded. But still, Yamamoto’s next pitch in the majors will be his first.
That also is true of Shota Imanaga. And neither his age (30) nor his stuff is considered as alluring as Yamamoto’s. The Cubs are probably hoping for more a solid No. 3 after signing the lefty to a four-year, $53 million deal.
The Rays — who are trying to figure out how to continue to thrive in a year in which they know they will not have ace Shane McClanahan all season, Drew Rasmussen and Jeffrey Springs for a good portion of the year and no Tyler Glasnow after trading him — signed Naoyuki Uwasawa to a minor league contract.
The trades
Glasnow, Chris Sale and Robbie Ray spent big chunks of the 2023 season on the injured list. All have worrisome injury histories. Yet all of them were traded and, in the case of Glasnow and Sale, received contract extensions.
In each of the past four 162-game seasons, Glasnow has spent considerable time on the IL — three times for arm injuries, last season for an oblique strain that cost him the first two months of the season. Yet, the 120 innings he ended up throwing were a career high. His talent is such, however, that the Dodgers traded for the righty and worked out a five-year, $136.5 million extension.
More than any other team, the Dodgers are banking on quality of stuff over quantity of innings, with Ohtani, who will throw zero innings this year, Yamamoto and Walker Buehler (returning from Tommy John surgery) each having thrown for zero MLB innings last year, and Glasnow, Bobby Miller and Emmet Sheehan (the latter two coming off their rookie seasons) having combined for 184 ⅔ innings in 2023.
As for Sale, 28 MLB pitchers made more starts just last year than the 31 he has made over the past four seasons. Yet, the Braves not only traded for Sale, but agreed to a two-year, $38 million extension. Like Glasnow, Sale would have been a free agent after the 2024 season without working out a deal. The Braves essentially watched their No. 1 free-agent choice, Aaron Nola, re-sign with the Phillies, Glasnow get traded to the Dodgers and were unwilling to meet the price to obtain Dylan Cease from the White Sox.
The Giants traded two contracts they wanted to shed (Mitch Haniger and Anthony DeSclafani) and added $6 million in a deal to Seattle to obtain Robbie Ray, who made one start last year before needing Tommy John surgery.
Ray is not due back before the second half of the season. And he can opt out of the final two years of his contract, worth $50 million, after this season. Having pitched so little in 2023 and with the expectation of the same in ’24, it would seem a no-brainer he would not opt out. But the way teams are willing to gamble on even broken toys with upsides means that if Ray pitches well late in the year, he might just go back into the market if he thinks he can beat $50 million.
The transitions
The Braves and Giants have followed similar paths with their rotations this offseason. They checked out the top of the market in free agency and trades, did not like the prices and instead took on one physical reclamation project (Sale and Ray, respectively) and signed a reliever for multiple years with the idea of transitioning them back to the rotation — Reynaldo Lopez and Jordan Hicks, respectively.
Quite regularly, you hear that starting pitching does not mean as much now. But then the desperation sets in when you don’t have enough of it and you see all the efforts to find more.
The Padres had a lot of success with this by signing Seth Lugo last offseason and putting him into the rotation, and the Rays (Zack Littell) and Yankees (Michael King) had success turning relievers into starters as the season moved along.
Hicks has made just eight starts in the majors, all of which were for the Cardinals in 2022, when he walked 21 in 26 ⅓ innings while sporting a 5.47 ERA. He has thrown a combined 145 innings between the majors and minors over the past four seasons. But his agency followed this same path last year with Lugo, who transitioned to the rotation so well with the Padres that he cashed in as a free agent this offseason with the Royals on a three-year, $45 million pact.
Now Hicks is getting $44 million over four years from the Giants, who will hope he can at least hold the rotation spot until Ray and/or Alex Cobb (hip surgery) return during the season.
The Braves signed Lopez to a three-year, $30 million deal. Lopez has not been a full-time starter since he was with the White Sox in 2019, when he had a 5.38 ERA. The addition of Sale actually pushes Lopez to sixth on the starting depth chart, but Atlanta assumes he will be needed in a rotation that includes Sale.
The short-term gambles
These come in different varieties.
Lucas Giolito (two years at $38.5 million with the Red Sox) and Jack Flaherty (one year at $14 million with the Tigers) are coming off walk years in which they got traded into pennant chases and pitched worse; in Giolito’s case, he also was later picked up on waivers and continued to perform poorly. Both coincidentally were drafted out of Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles and now will get chances to prove themselves again after Flaherty last year posted the 14th-worst ERA at 4.99 (among those with at least 140 innings) and Giolito posted the 15th-worst at 4.88.
Tyler Mahle made five starts for the Twins last year before needing Tommy John surgery. He will not return until midseason this year at the earliest, yet the Rangers signed him to a two-year, $22 million contract. The defending champions are in the fascinating position of having to navigate the early season in hopes that Mahle, deGrom and Max Scherzer can return from significant injuries and give them a strong second-half rotation.
Erick Fedde produced a 5.64 ERA for the Nationals in 56 games (54 starts) between 2021-22. He went to Korea and won 20 games with a 2.00 ERA last year, and translated that into a two-year, $15 million pact with the White Sox, who, like a lot of teams, are trying to find the next Merrill Kelly, who refined quality stuff in Korea.
Frankie Montas pitched terribly for the Yankees when traded into a pennant race in 2022 (6.35 ERA in eight starts) and then needed shoulder surgery and appeared in one game last year. Yet, the Reds gave him a one-year, $16 million deal.
Luis Severino only has pitched 209 ⅓ total innings over the past five years. He cratered last season with the second-worst ERA (6.65) and worst OPS against (.921) in Yankees history for someone who made at least 18 starts. The Mets nevertheless still like his arm and possibilities and signed him for one year at $13 million.
Clay Holmes signed a one-year, $6 million contract to avoid arbitration with the Yankees. I wondered whether the Yankees might come to a long-term agreement with the righty instead.
Holmes has been one of the majors’ best and most durable relievers since being acquired from the Pirates in 2021. From his Yankees debut that July 29 through the end of last season, the righty has ranked seventh in the majors in Fangraphs Wins Above Replacement. Only Emmanuel Clase, Devin Williams, David Bednar, Felix Bautista, A.J. Minter and Camilo Doval are ahead of Holmes.
I previously tackled the subject of an extension for Holmes, but some stuff has changed since then, notably King became a starter for the Yankees and then was traded to the Padres as a key to the Juan Soto trade. He might have been able to step in for Holmes as the closer after this season — though King is due to be a free agent after 2025.
Like Holmes, Tommy Kahnle and Jonathan Loaisiga are scheduled to be free agents after the 2024 season. With Wandy Peralta still out in free agency, the Yankees have lost or are about to lose a lot of the key arms that have made their bullpen deep and excellent
One thing the Yankees have done well over the years is to find relief arms at reasonable cost — like Holmes. So maybe they are out of the game of paying a bullpen arm a lot, as they did not long ago for Zack Britton and Aroldis Chapman.
But for a level of continuity and certainty (or as certain as you get with bullpen arms), might it be worthwhile for the Yankees to find a way to keep Holmes beyond 2024? Maybe they have tried. Maybe they will try more in spring training.
I wonder if the right comp is Reynaldo Lopez. It is imperfect because Lopez was a free agent after his age-29 season and Holmes will not be a free agent until after his age-31 season, but Lopez was signed for three years at $30 million by the Braves with the idea he would try to start again, which he last did full-time during the 2020 pandemic season. He did make 10 starts combined (nine in ’21 and one in ’22), but mainly has been a reliever over his past three seasons.
And his numbers for that period from ’21-23 share a lot with those of Holmes:
Holmes
IP: 196.2
H: 149
ER: 66
BB pct.: 8.8
K pct.: 26.3
Opponents’ slash line: .207/.292/.279
Lopez
IP: 189
H: 143
ER: 66
BB pct.: 7.7
K pct.: 26.7
Opponents’ slash line: .210/.271/.353
How about this? In this timeframe, they have thrown the exact same number of pitches — 3,132, with Holmes throwing 64 percent strikes to Lopez’s 64.5 percent while each allowed 6.8 hits per nine innings.
Holmes can argue if he gets to free agency he could get more than a three-year, $30 million deal. The Yankees can argue that 1) he is not a free agent, 2) there are risks between now and then that could impact free agency and 3) some of Lopez’s dollars represent him at least trying to become a starter again.
However, the Yankees can also use the future certainty offered by Holmes, who might lose control of his sinker a few times a year, but has shown he can handle New York and the late innings.
Can there be a resolution in which the sides take the $6 million Holmes is due for this season and add it to three years at $30 million to replicate Lopez’s deal and wind up with a four-year, $36 million agreement? Again, I think if Holmes pitches as he has in his two-plus Yankees seasons, he could do better than that. But that is 60-ish appearances from now.
Is it possible to reach an accord on a deal that works for both sides before then?