Hi, did you know the Mets begin camp this week? It’s been awhile since the last update… I kept waiting for them to get a guy I’d heard of but little luck in that department.
My Super Bowl Sunday read on the ’24 Mets is that they will have a hard time keeping up with the pitching of Atlanta or Philadelphia but hopefully can hit with them, portending lots of 7-6 victories. If they’re in it still come July then they go get the starters they need.
So who are these guys? And what number are they gonna wear? Here’s an early breakdown of the 40-man roster with little help from the Mets’ roster pages.
Tyrone Taylor appears to be issued No. 15. He’s the speedy reserve outfielder we picked up from Milwaukee along with pitcher Adrian Houser, for Coleman Crow, one of the guys we got from the Angels in the Eduardo Escobar trade. I’m getting a Collin Cowgill vibe from Tyrone, hopefully his results are better.
As for Houser, he’s among a bunch of guys–three-fifths of the projected starting rotation–waiting to be assigned uniform numbers. Houser wore 37 in Milwaukee so he’s looking at a change. Taylor was 15 there.
Free-agent infielder Joey Wendle is shown with 18, his number with Miami. Give the Mets’ plans to retire 18 for Darryl Strawberry this summer, it’s a good bet this doesn’t last.
The Mets will be the 9th team for journeyman lefty sidearmer Jake Diekman, who appears to be bound for No. 35. He signed a 1-year+option deal with the Mets.
You know the roster is unreliable when there’s huge swaths of unclaimed digits but two guys assigned the same number. That’s what’s going on with No. 48 where two free agents–outfielder Harrison Bader and reliever Jorge Lopez— both have a claim. Lopez wore 48 with Minnesota and Baltimore. Bader wore 48 with St. Louis. Either guy would be the Mets first 48 since Jacob deGrom.
Free agent reliever Michael Tonkin is listed in 59. I suppose he’s the Mets’ answer to losing Luis Guillorme to the Braves.
Rounding out the 40-man roster but without assigned numbers are starting pitchers Houser, Sean Manaea and Luis Severino; former Pittsburgh reliever Max Kranick; infielder Zack Short; and reliever Yohan Ramirez. They are all new to the Mets this year. Youngsters Alex Ramirez and Luisangel Acuna will also be assigned numbers too.
Manaea has worn 55 most often in his career and that would appear to be available here. Severino was 40 with the Yankees; that belongs to Drew Smith now.
Finally there’s free agent reliever Shintaro Fujinami. The Mets haven’t even made his signing official a week+ after the news got out but I’m hoping he joins so as to have a No. 11 on the mound. When he joins there will be a guy whacked. I’d reckon one of Reed Garrett, Grant Hartwig or Josh Walker but who knows.
Although closer Edwin Diaz signed a new 5-year deal already, there could be three starting pitchers on their way out: Jacob deGrom who apparently has interest in Texas; Chris Bassitt, who rejected the qualifying offer, and Taijuan Walker who didn’t get a qualifying offer.
He’s pretty much that now, I’d ague, even if Todd Hundley has a season’s worth more games played, more home runs (123-63) and way more RBI (388-212). But Nimmo has the superior OBP (a 9-best .385) and his slugging percentage is just a tick below Hundley’s at .441 to Todd’s .447. Nimmo is in fact 4th overall in career OBP among all Mets, so he’s not the kind of guy a contending team wants to lose.
That the problem with Drew Smith wasn’t, as I’d suspected, part of the bad luck all around the night Max Scherzer called for the trainer and walked off the mound, when it appeared all Smith could do to resist an inappropriate thing on on a baseball field with 30,000 watching with one of the three Sports Illustrated swimsuit models throwing out a ceremonial first pitch right there between home plate the pitcher’s mound (she seemed to be considering it is all I’d say as a body language interpreter in the Promenade that night). Instead it was some kind of injury, only the kind of injury that makes you give up way too many home runs.
So that’s also why we have Mychal Givens in the bullpen, along with May, and deGrom is in the rotation but I missed most of the game. Givens is a guy whom I know Buck trusted, so you have to think he asked for it too and though so and I’m beginning to definitely trust in Buck. Like Megill, Givens’ first name seems spelled wrong too.
Naquin is hitting the crap out of the ball in 25. Givens is No. 60. Darin Ruf (who seems to spell his first AND last names improperly) was assigned 28 and platooning with 
It’s a shame Sandy used that joke already because anything to diffuse the one on the field every night would be welcome. Lots of bad news on the injury front–besides the return of Jacob deGrom this evening which I’ll be watching live (or dead) in Citifield tonight.
The roster doesn’t yet list the uni numbers of the new coaches, perhaps we’ll know when deGrom’s diagnosis comes in. By the way, coaches all wear sweatshirts over the unis anyway–and I’m certain Chili Davis didn’t suit on Zoom last year– so I’m barely aware that they Davis had been wearing No. 54 and Slater 56. You’d think Hugh Quattlebaum and Kevin Howard would take those respectively, then wear sweatshirts over them.
We’re piecing the numerical roster together as guys appear and the job would have been easier and less stressful had our overmatched young manager Luis Rojas not made a complete disaster out of last night’s opener, showing off his new team instead of trying to win.
Well the season remains frustratingly hopeless, and I’ll shortly be off to Flushing to watch Zack Wheeler (along with returning bullpen stiffs Avilan, Familia and Wilson) audition for the Yankees, but let’s take a moment to celebrate the naming of three deserving All-Stars from this year’s roster.