Decisions Decisions

Happy Free Monday! Are you enjoying the postseason despite the absence of a certain team? Yeah, me too. 

A paid subscription would help me out, especially considering that Beehiiv just upped their monthly hosting fee by almost 20 percent, and I know for a fact it’s a major pain in the tuchus to switch platforms. You’d get the newsletter every single weekday throughout the offseason, even when the inevitable lockout happens. 

Every offseason features teams adding to their roster via free agency and trades. That’s typically the most exciting aspect of the hot stove season. But with that comes subtraction - getting rid of players that were on the team this past season. This could happen by letting them go in free agency, or trading them, or non-tendering them. That part of the offseason is wrought with potential disaster. The Mets may never live down letting Pete Alonso sign with the Orioles, or non-tendering Justin Turner. 

You got to do it though - there’s a limit to how many players you can have in the organization you know. So,today  let’s look at the players under contract with the Mets through next season and beyond, then tomorrow about the arbitration eligible athletes, and talk a little bit about what the Mets might do with each group. 

* Senga has a 2028 $15 million club option that’s triggered if he needs Tommy John surgery or suffers a right elbow injury next year that keeps him out for 130 or more days. 

** Bichette can choose to opt out after this season and the 2027 season. If he does, he pockets an extra $5 million. You knew this. 

*** Soto has an opt out after the 2029 season which the Mets can void by increasing his yearly salary by $5 million

Let’s work our way from the top. Sean Manaea is, by all accounts, a good clubhouse guy, someone who has served as a mentor to the young starters. The problem is his play on the field. After a crummy first month, Manaea’s ERAs in May-July were 3.75, 3.72, and 3.77. Then the 34-year-old seemingly got tired in August and September, putting together 4.94 ERA and 5.79 ERA months, respectively. He’s about to enter the third year of a three-year contract he managed after his outstanding 2024 season, which seems like it happened a decade ago. The only options seem to be either keeping him because you can literally never have enough starting pitching, or eating the quarter of a billion dollars and releasing him. It’s unlikely he can be dealt away, even if Steve Cohen lowers the salary burden for a trade partner. 

Jorge Polanco had a nightmare first season with the Mets. You can tell by the way Jed Lowrie’s name was invoked whenever Polanco came up in conversation. Presumably his left ankle bursitis will be all gone by spring training, even if they actually hold it on time. Even so, it didn’t sound like the front office is expecting him to play first base all that much, if at all, which was the original plan when he signed up. So where does he fit? Who knows. I doubt David Stearns would admit to such a mistake by cutting Polanco to pay him $20 million to serve as a bench piece for some other team.

Stearns was noncommittal over whether or not Kodai Senga will come to spring training as a starter or a reliever. As the closer, Senga positively shoved at first, pitching to a 1.74 ERA in August, before the magic wore off when he put up a 7.11 ERA for September. So it’s not like closing is his true calling (it was more of a summer fling). He has some trade value because he’s only (“only”) owed $14 million for one more season, and I bet other teams noticed how much better Freddy Peralta did after he left New York and now think they could be the ones to get Senga back to his 2023 ways.

Bo Bichette has the rest of the month to make up his mind as to whether or not he wants to be a Met for another season. Jon Heyman hilariously gave Bichette’s chances of opting out at two percent, while Jeff Passan said it was a coin flip. It’s definitely more like 50 percent than two. Should Met fans want him to opt back in? After a putrid first two months, Bichette had a great June (.883 OPS), a not so great July (.628), a fun August (.849), then a meh September (.708), But despite that inconsistency, he’ll only be 29 next year, can handle third base, and aside from last year and his injury plagued 2024, his track record is pretty good. So yes, please come back BB.

Stearns notably would not commit to Marcus Semien starting at second base next year, implying Brett Baty, Jefferson Rojas, Émilien Pitre, and/or Mitch Voit might see some time there. What can Stearns and the front office really do though? Would they really release Semien with $48 million still owed to him? I suppose it’s possible - Semien’s 2026 was alarming. Even when he lost a step in 2025 for the Texas Rangers, he won a gold glove and had a 3.2 bWAR. This past year, he definitely will not win one, and his bWAR was 0.5. 

Devin Williams will most certainly be back as the closer, even though he had an ERA in the fours for the second consecutive year after stringing together back-to-back-to-back sub-two seasons prior to that. At least he wasn’t as bad as he was in March/April.

Luis Torrens is signed up for two more years at a total of $9.5 million. It’s a helluva bargain, considering how well he hit after the All-Star Break. If he goes anywhere, the Mets better get a haul in return.

Francisco Lindor’s contract has five years and $160 million left on it. He turns 33 next month, and will come off a year where he only played 105 games due to injuries. His OPS was about league average in August and September. Both metrics and the eye test say he lost a step defensively. That’s the bad news. The good news is he’s Francisco Lindor, and you can easily see him having a few more really good seasons. Plus, he isn’t beefing with Juan Soto anymore. It’s all moot anyway - he isn’t going anywhere with that no-trade clause. 

I have nightmares over Juan Soto asking to be traded. I think about it almost every day. His love for Carson Benge might be all that’s keeping him here, for all we know. 

Carson Benge, as politely as possible, told Mike Puma he thinks he should be National League Rookie of the Year. Regarding the betting favorite Sal Stewart, Benge said, “I don’t know him, but he seems like a great dude. He’s a Jesus man, which I love. He seems like a great person. But I feel like I would be deserving of the award in the most humble way possible. I don’t mean to come off cocky.” Come on Carson, you do deserve it. 

The Lindor family went to see old chum Jose Iglesias in Buena Vista Social Club on Broadway.

Marc Normandin wrote about where MLB stands right now regarding the upcoming lockout.

Edgardo Alfonzo had a Hall of Pretty Good plaque made by the Syracuse Mets.

The Mets posted a supercut (do they still call them supercuts?) of all of Juan Soto’s home run in 2026.

Soto approves of Dodgers rookie Josue de Paula doing the Soto Shuffle.

RHP Ryan “The Eggman” Lambert seemingly got his mojo back in the Arizona Fall League.

On this day in 1999, Hall of Pretty Good inductee Edgardo Alfonzo hit a solo homer off Randy Johnson in the first and a tie-breaking grand slam in the ninth in Game 1 of the NLDS against the Diamondbacks. 

Exactly one year later,  in a 4-4 game in the tenth, Jay Payton gave the Mets the lead with an RBI single. John Franco struck out Barry Bonds in the bottom of the inning with the tying run on base to even the NLDS against the Giants at one game a piece.

On this day in 2024, after being shutout through the first seven innings by old chum Zack Wheeler, the Mets rallied for five runs off the Phillies’ bullpen to take a 5-1 lead. New York (NL) beat Philadelphia 6-2 to take the first game of the NLDS.