Impressive moves for thrifty Mets
ORT ST. LUCIE — With Friday’s signing of Jason Vargas, the Mets have seemingly completed their busy offseason.
Graded on a curve, they get an A.
Go ahead and bemoan ownership’s refusal or inability to match the Nationals (let alone the Yankees) dollar for dollar. The trust deficit won’t disappear until that disparity does. Nevertheless, the Mets repeated a couple of positive patterns established in recent years: They kept the payroll arrow moving in the right direction, and they stockpiled inventory by waiting out the market. As long as he passes his physical, the 35-year-old southpaw Vargas, guaranteed $16 million over two years, will join Jay Bruce, Todd Frazier, Adrian Gonzalez, Jose Reyes and Anthony Swarzak as winter reinforcements to a Mets roster that looked more barren than the beginning of “WALL-E” by the time the 2017 season concluded. In this ice-cold Hot Stove campaign, the Mets have done as much as anyone to better themselves. This still does not rank as a surefire playoff team. As dis- cussed in this space earlier this week, most of the statistical projection services peg the Mets to finish around .500, and the addition of Vargas will probably tick that projection upward by no more than a game. Much still has to go right for the Mets to register their third postseason appearance in four years.
Yet the Vargas signing advanced the Mets’ winter strategy, which, if it pays off, will prove quite savvy: Build the roster depth, but not at the expense of the future.
Sandy Alderson has been honest about the shortcomings of the Mets’ current farm system in the wake of many promotions, many trades and the inability to expediently fill those voids. The currency the club could most afford to spend was, well, actual money. Currently unsigned free agents Jake Arrieta, Alex Cobb, Lance Lynn and Mike Moustakas all have compensation attached, in the forms of a second-round draft pick and $500,000 in international signing bonus pool funds, which would have compromised the mandate to strengthen the organization’s talent base. None of the Mets’ signees featured such a tax, and the Mets now will reside in the same spending neighborhood as last year’s $155 million.
Let’s not be naïve and deny the higher financial commitment on those unsigned guys also factored considerably into the Mets passing on them. However, none of these guys is Bryce Harper, Manny Machado or Max Scherzer. Each features clear red flags, which is why their asking prices haven’t been met anyone in the industry.
For the Mets, Vargas — who appeared in two games for the collapsing 2007 Mets and then got dealt to Seattle in the illfated J.J. Putz trade of 2008 — provides a nice, crafty-lefty change of pace among their many hard-throwing righthanders. He clocked 150 innings or more from 2010-14, then underwent Tommy John surgery in 2015 and went right back over that 150 threshold last year, with 179 2/3. He holds a good reputation as a teammate and spent the past four years working in Kansas City with new Mets pitching coach Dave Eiland.
Think of him as a lefty Bartolo Colon, only less big and less sexy.
As for how Vargas’ arrival impacts the rest of the Mets’ starting pitchers: Really? You just watched a Mets season that featured five starts by Tommy Milone, three by Tyler Pill and one by Adam Wilk, and you’re concerned about the risks of surplus?
It very likely won’t be an issue. If everyone miraculously stays healthy, then my bet is the Mets either will use the 10-day disabled list to rest a guy or, if the schedule features a long stretch of games without an off day, will turn to a six-man rotation. Sending someone like Matt Harvey, Steven Matz or Zack Wheeler to the bullpen can’t be appealing to anyone involved.
The more likely pending issue: If the Mets stay in the race, will they spend more at the trade deadline? Recent history suggests they will. They must, in order to honor the impressive work they already have done.