Mets Rumors

Mets, Kevin Pillar Decline 2022 Option

By Steve Adams | November 4, 2021 at 2:36pm CDT

Veteran outfielder Kevin Pillar is headed back to the open market after both he and the Mets declined the dual options on his contract, per MLB Network’s Jon Heyman (Twitter link).

Pillar held a $2.9MM player option for the 2022 season, which did not carry a buyout, while the Mets held a $6.4MM club option with a $1.4MM buyout. Pillar’s decision was due first, and he opted to decline his end knowing that he had least the $1.4MM buyout of the Mets’ club option waiting for him. It’s a bit of a bet on himself, but so long as he tops $1.5MM in 2022 earnings, he’ll come out ahead in the gambit.

It was a rather unconventional contract that essentially boiled down to one of three outcomes: two years and $6.5MM (if Pillar exercised his end); two years and $10MM (if the Mets exercised their end); or one year and $5MM (both parties declining).

It was a convoluted way to get there, but the Mets effectively were able to sign Pillar for a year and $5MM while utilizing a player option (which counts as “guaranteed” money for luxury-tax purposes) to reduce the luxury hit to $3.25MM. The Mets wound up a good bit shy of the luxury threshold anyhow, but Pillar’s unique contract structure would’ve provided some additional in-season flexibility had they sought to add some payroll at the deadline.

Pillar’s 2021 season was disrupted by a grisly injury that saw him sustain multiple nasal fractures when an errant Jacob Webb fastball hit him in the face. Down on the field for several minutes following that frightening hit-by-pitch, Pillar was eventually able to walk off the field under his own power. Remarkably, Pillar missed only two weeks of action — a welcome outcome after what carried the potential for a far more severe injury.

With the Mets, Pillar tallied 327 plate appearances and turned in a .231/.277/.415 batting line with 15 home runs, 11 doubles, a pair of triples and four stolen bases. His 3.2% walk rate was the lowest in baseball for any player with at least 300 trips to the plate — an ongoing theme throughout Pillar’s career that has continually curbed his on-base percentage. Defensively, Pillar clocked in below average by most measures. Although he was once an otherworldly defender in center, he hasn’t turned in a positive mark in Defensive Runs Saved since 2017.

It’s a thin market for free-agent center fielders, though, and Pillar’s extensive experience there (and ability to play both corners) ought to generate some interest. He’s also a career .280/.312/.459 hitter against left-handed pitching (104 wRC+), so he could land a spot as a part-time outfielder on a contender’s bench next year or perhaps a larger role on a rebuilding team in search of an affordable veteran option.

NL East Notes: Anthopoulos, Mets, Afterman, Nationals, Bones

By Mark Polishuk | November 3, 2021 at 10:55pm CDT

Alex Anthopoulos couldn’t celebrate the Braves’ World Series triumph with the rest of the organization last night, as the president of baseball operations had to watch from home after testing positive for COVID-19 on Saturday. The diagnosis left Anthopoulos “surprised,” as he told Scott Miller of The New York Times, but fortunately, “I’m fully vaxxed, I don’t have any symptoms, I feel great….My family is fine.” To avoid any distractions for the team, Anthopoulos told only manager Brian Snitker and team chairman Terry McGuirk about his diagnosis.

As unusual as the situation was, Anthopoulos got to celebrate with his wife and children, adding to the special moment. The Braves have reached the postseason in each of Anthopoulos’ four seasons at the helm of the front office, and the 44-year-old has now captured his first championship after 10 total years as a general manager (counting his six years with the Blue Jays from 2010-15).

Dellin Betances Qualifies For Free Agency

By Anthony Franco | November 3, 2021 at 2:11pm CDT

The Major League Baseball Players Association released its initial list of major league free agents this afternoon. Among them was Mets’ reliever Dellin Betances, who failed to trigger the innings threshold necessary to vest a $1MM player option (h/t to Tim Britton of the Athletic).

The past two seasons have been disastrous for Betances, who has tallied just 12 2/3 combined innings because of injuries. He’s allowed ten runs in that span, certainly not what the Mets had in mind when signing the big right-hander to a $13.5MM guarantee over the 2019-20 offseason. Betances was one of the game’s most fearsome relievers during his peak with the Yankees, but it’s now been three years since he’s remained healthy. The 33-year-old missed almost all of this past season thanks to a shoulder injury that required surgery.

Now that he’s back on the open market, Betances might need to throw a showcase whenever he’s back to full health. He could be looking at minor league offers after three straight lost seasons, although there should still be plenty of teams willing to at least give him a look in Spring Training if he’s healthy.

Latest On Mets’ Front Office Targets

By Darragh McDonald | November 3, 2021 at 10:51am CDT

The list of names connected to the Mets’ front office continues growing with each passing day. The newest addition is former Angels’ general manager Billy Eppler, as Andy Martino of SNY reports that the Mets “have interest” in Eppler, though he has not yet been interviewed for the position.

Eppler has around 20 years of organizational experience at this point in his career, having been hired by the Rockies as a scout in the year 2000. He moved over to the Yankees in 2004, eventually getting promoted to the director of the scouting department, and then to assistant general manager prior to the 2012 season. He became the Angels’ general manager prior to the 2016 season and stayed in that role until being fired in September of 2020. Two months ago, it was revealed that Eppler had joined the William Morris Endeavor agency as a business partner. Given that Eppler is not currently employed by a rival club, he could seemingly avoid the typical song and dance that the Mets have had to go through with many other candidates, asking the club for permission for an interview and often being denied. At this point, it’s not clear if the Mets’ interest is reciprocated from Eppler’s side or if he’s committed to a new role on the other side of the bargaining table.

It was recently reported that the Red Sox were going to give assistant GM Raquel Ferreira permission to speak with the Mets, and it now seems a conversation is imminent. A report in the New York Post from Ken Davidoff, Joel Sherman and Mike Puma says that Ferreira and Mets’ officials will be speaking in the coming days, although it may not exactly be a formal interview. “It’s believed that the talk will be more of a ’Get to know you’ session,” says the article, “in which both sides will determine whether they want to take this idea any further.” However, Jon Heyman of MLB Network does use the word “interview” in a tweet about the matter. Regardless of semantics, it seems that Ferreira’s process is further along than many other executives, who have either been denied permission to speak with the Mets or quickly turned down their advances.

That same article also confirms previous reporting that the Mets are interested in Orioles’ assistant GM Sig Mejdal, although it’s not known if the Orioles will allow the Mets to interview him and, as the piece states, “There is uncertainty within the industry whether Mejdal wants to run a baseball operations department.”

Elsewhere in the Mets’ organization, they also have a vacancy at the manager level, and Heyman reports that they spoke with Bob Melvin before he made the leap from Oakland to San Diego, but that his preference for remaining on the West Coast kept talks from coming to fruition. There were no rumors of Melvin leaving Oakland before it was announced that he had been hired by the Padres, but it appears it that at least a few teams knew he was available and were discussing things behind the scenes.

Latest Mets’ Front Office Rumblings

By Steve Adams and Anthony Franco | November 2, 2021 at 5:52pm CDT

As names continue to be bandied about in the Mets’ front office search, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman reports that Twins assistant general manager Daniel Adler will be staying put. It’s not clear whether Adler had a formal interview. He was previously reported to be “on the Mets’ radar,” but both Heyman and SNY’s Andy Martino suggest that Adler prefers to remain in Minnesota rather than pursue outside opportunities — be it with the Mets or another club.

Adler has spent the past four-plus years in the Twins’ front office. Initially hired as the team’s director of baseball operations, he was bumped up to assistant general manager over the 2019-20 offseason. Prior to being hired by Minnesota, the now 34-year-old Adler spent a few seasons working in research and development with the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars.

Apparently, Adler has decided to spend at least one more season with the Twins, although it wouldn’t be a surprise if his name comes up in other executive searches in future offseasons. For now, his decision to stay put removes another candidate for the Mets, whose search for a new baseball operations leader has already seen numerous targets either take themselves out of consideration or not receive permission from their current clubs to interview with New York.

While Adler’s no longer in the running for the position, another candidate has emerged. The Mets are considering Orioles assistant GM Sig Mejdal as part of their ongoing search, report Dan Connolly and Britt Ghiroli of the Athletic (Twitter link), although they caution it’s unclear as of yet whether Mejdal has interest in the position.

Mejdal has spent the past three seasons as an AGM with Baltimore, serving as a top lieutenant for baseball ops leader Mike Elias. Mejdal, 55, followed Elias to the O’s after six years working together in the Astros’ front office. A former NASA biomathematician, Mejdal has been a key member of Elias’ analytics staff in Baltimore.

Nationals To Name Gary DiSarcina Third Base Coach

By Steve Adams | November 2, 2021 at 8:56am CDT

The Nationals are bringing veteran big league coach Gary DiSarcina aboard as their new third base coach, reports Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post (Twitter thread). They’re also bringing assistant hitting coach Pat Roessler back in that same role.

The 53-year-old DiSarcina had a 12-year playing career as a shortstop with the Angels, appearing in the big leagues each season from 1989-2000. He spent time in the Halos’ front office and then as a minor league manager in the years following his retirement, but his past eight seasons have been spent on big league coaching staffs.

DiSarcina spent three years as a base coach with the Angels organization before heading to the Red Sox — where he’d previously managed in Triple-A — to serve as bench coach. His next stop came with the Mets, again as a bench coach in 2018, and then as third base coach fort he past three seasons.

Roessler, 61, has been the Nats’ assistant hitting coach in each of the past two seasons. Like DiSarcina, he’d been with the Mets prior to his time in D.C. After a lengthy stint in the Yankees’ player development department (including a run as their farm director), he joined the Mets’ coaching staff in 2015: first as an assistant hitting coach and, by 2018, as their lead hitting coach.

There’s been a fair bit of turnover on the Nationals’ staff already this offseason. Hitting coach Kevin Long departed to take the same job with the division-rival Phillies, prompting the Nats to bring Darnell Coles back to the organization to join the Major League staff in that role. Recently retired outfielder Eric Young Jr. is lined up to serve as the Nationals’ new first base coach, replacing Randy Knorr. DiSarcina will be replacing Bob Henley. Both Knorr and Henley were reassigned to player development roles earlier in the offseason.

Mets Parting Ways With Zack Scott

By Anthony Franco | November 1, 2021 at 10:59pm CDT

The Mets are parting ways with acting general manager Zack Scott, reports Andy Martino of SNY. His tenure in the New York front office lasts a little less than a year, as the Mets hired him away from the Red Sox as an assistant GM last December.

Scott was bumped up to acting general manager a little more than a month later, once then-GM Jared Porter was dismissed after Porter’s prior sexual harassment of a reporter came to light. Scott was in charge of daily baseball operations in Queens for much of this past season, but his own future in the organization came into question when he was arrested and charged with a DWI at the end of August. The Mets placed Scott on administrative leave once his arrest was made public, and that course of events will result in his departure from the organization.

Once Scott was placed on leave, team president Sandy Alderson assumed control of day-to-day baseball ops. Alderson is expected to move back into a broader advisory role — as he initially intended when rejoining the Mets last year — and the club has been on the hunt for a new baseball operations head since the end of the regular season. That search has involved some highly-publicized misses on their early targets (Theo Epstein, David Stearns, and Billy Beane among them), and most recent reports suggest the club has turned their attention to younger, up-and-coming executives with other clubs.

Settling on a baseball operations leader remains the biggest point of order for the Mets to kick off their offseason. Over the summer, it seemed like Scott was a plausible candidate to eventually take hold of that role permanently. But his arrest and subsequent leave placement seemed to foreclose that possibility, and there’d been no indication he was in consideration for the position since the end of the season.

It remains to be seen whether or when Scott will land elsewhere, although that could depend on the resolution of his still-pending legal matter. Deesha Thosar of the New York Daily News reported last week that Scott’s trial is set to begin on December 8.

Latest On Mets’ Front Office Search

By Mark Polishuk | November 1, 2021 at 5:15pm CDT

NOVEMBER 1: The Red Sox are expected to grant Ferreira permission to interview with the Mets, assuming she’s interested in doing so, reports Jon Heyman of the MLB Network (on Twitter).

OCTOBER 30, 1:23PM: Brewers VP of baseball operations Matt Kleine is another candidate the Mets have discussed, as per Martino (Twitter link). With both Kleine and Rodriguez, however, the Mets are wary about approaching the Brewers and Rays since both teams have repeatedly denied New York’s requests to interview other front office personnel in the past. Kleine is believed to be interested, and his hiring could help set the stage for the Mets to land Stearns as a free agent a year from now (or after the 2023 season, depending on the reported vesting option in Stearns’ deal with Milwaukee).

OCTOBER 30, 8:05AM: The Mets’ attempts to hire a new president of baseball operations or general manager has hit its share of roadblocks, and Dodgers assistant GM Jeff Kingston is the latest executive to decline an interview with the team, according to The New York Post’s Mike Puma. However, several other prospective candidates remain, as it seems as though the Mets now could be specifically looking for a general manager, rather than someone to fully take the entire reigns of the baseball ops department.

To this end, Puma writes Rays VP of player development Carlos Rodriguez, and assistant GMs Daniel Adler (Twins), Randy Flores (Cardinals), and Ben Sestanovich (Braves) are all “on the Mets’ radar” as possible candidates. The Mets have also asked the Red Sox for permission to speak with assistant GM Raquel Ferreira, SNY’s Andy Martino reports.

Any of these five executives would be a first-time GM, and ostensibly in charge of the baseball operations department even without the official “president” label. The unusual nature of the Mets’ front office dynamic has led to some questions about how much authority a new GM would have, as team president Sandy Alderson is remaining with the club and has said he’ll be shifting over to focusing on the team’s business matters once a new baseball ops head is in place.

Had Mets owner Steve Cohen been successful in luring one of his big-ticket initial targets (i.e. Billy Beane, Theo Epstein, David Stearns) to New York, it would’ve made for a smoother transition, as any of those execs would’ve been the PBO and had the sway to make their own choice for a general manager to act as their chief lieutenant. However, it is perhaps understandable why Kingston and others have opted out of what could be considered as something of a glorified one-year trial period. If the Mets play well in 2022, a newly-hired GM could be entrusted to become the president of baseball operations; if the Mets struggle, Cohen could resume his search for a major name as PBO, leaving the general manager as perhaps something of a lame duck.

Cardinals GM Michael Girsch, Giants GM Scott Harris, newly-promoted Brewers GM Matt Arnold, and another Dodgers assistant in Brandon Gomes have all declined to be considered for the Mets’ job. For the five names mentioned by Puma and Martino, it is possible any of the Rays, Twins, Cardinals, Braves, or Red Sox could deny New York permission to interview their personnel, though teams usually don’t stand in the way of their executives being offered a promotion.

Kingston technically has experience as a general manager, as he served as the Mariners’ interim GM for the last month-plus of the 2015 season after Jack Zduriencik was fired. Kingston has worked as an assistant GM for the last six seasons (three with the Mariners, three with the Dodgers) and he has been considered for other front office openings in recent years. The Phillies and Angels each had interest in Kingston for their most recent GM vacancies, and Kingston was a finalist for the Angels’ position before the team hired Perry Minasian.

Mets Outright Four Players

By Anthony Franco | October 29, 2021 at 4:54pm CDT

The Mets announced that four players — corner outfielder/first baseman José Martínez, utilityman José Peraza and right-handed pitchers Robert Stock and Corey Oswalt — have all cleared outright waivers. Each of that quartet elected free agency.

2021 was a completely lost season for Martínez, who tore the meniscus in his left knee in Spring Training and missed the entire year. He set out on a minor league rehab assignment in August but apparently wasn’t healthy enough to return to the big league level, as he didn’t play in either a major or minor league game after September 10.

Martínez kicked off his big league career with a couple very productive seasons with the Cardinals. He’s never been a strong defender at either first base or in the outfield, though, and his bat ticked down to around league average from 2019-20. Now 33 years old and coming off a lost season, he might be limited to minor league offers this winter. He should be an intriguing no-risk flier for some team, though, assuming an offseason of rest enables a full recovery from his knee issue.

Peraza was a one-time top prospect, but he’s settled into a utility role over the past couple seasons. An everyday middle infielder with the Reds during the early stages of his major league career, Peraza showed plus speed and bat-to-ball skills but was held back by an aggressive approach and lack of impact power. He hit .225/.275/.342 with the Red Sox in 2020 and posted only a marginally better .204/.266/.380 line over 154 plate appearances for the Mets this past season.

The 27-year-old Peraza still runs well and saw a fair amount of action at each of second and third base in Queens. He shouldn’t have much issue finding a minor league deal with a Spring Training invitation on the open market, but it never seemed likely the Mets would retain him on a projected $1MM arbitration salary.

Stock has bounced around over the past few seasons, playing for the Padres and Red Sox from 2019-20. He began the 2021 season with the Cubs but landed in New York on a waiver claim in June. Previously a full-time reliever, Stock started his three MLB outings this year but only tallied nine combined innings. He owns a 4.71 ERA in 72 2/3 big league frames going back to 2018.

Oswalt is a career-long Met, having been in the organization since they selected him in the 2012 draft. He tossed 64 2/3 innings of 5.85 ERA ball back in 2018 but hasn’t topped thirteen MLB innings in any season since then. Passed through waivers in February, Oswalt earned his way back to the majors in June but landed on the injured list with right knee inflammation after three outings. Like Martínez, Oswalt played in some rehab games in September but never returned to the big league active roster.

Front Office Notes: Mets, Angels, Rangers

By Steve Adams | October 29, 2021 at 12:21pm CDT

The Mets’ front office search has become a rather prominent storyline in baseball at the moment, as several notable executives have either removed their names from consideration or been denied permission by their current clubs to interview. Despite those struggles in pursuing rival GMs and presidents, SNY’s Andy Martino reports that the Mets are not considering some of the rumored former baseball ops leaders who are no longer running a department. Former Giants president Brian Sabean, former Marlins president Michael Hill and former Astros president Jeff Luhnow are not currently being considered, per Martino. Rather, current Mets president Sandy Alderson is still actively seeking permission to interview the No. 2 and No. 3 executives with various clubs as the Mets seek a new baseball ops leader.

Some more front office notes from around the game…

The Angels have hired Tim McIlvaine away from the Brewers to fill as their new scouting director, Kiley McDaniel and Alden Gonzalez of ESPN report (Twitter thread). McIlvaine, who was previously the Brewers’ assistant director of scouting, worked extensively with current Angels vice president of amateur scouting Ray Montgomery when both were in Milwaukee. Montgomery was one of the first hires by under new Angels GM Perry Minasian last offseason. The Angels removed former scouting director Matt Swanson from his post last week but offered him a position elsewhere in the organization. Swanson was hired by former general manager Billy Eppler and has overseen the Halos’ past five drafts.
Josh Bonifay is returning to the Rangers organization as their new farm director, Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News reports. Bonifay had been the Phillies’ farm director for the past three seasons but was removed from that role and offered a spot on the team’s pro scouting staff for next season back in August. The son of former Pirates general manager Cam Bonifay, Josh has spent more than a decade in baseball operations, mostly in the Astros organization, but was also the Rangers’ field coordinator and a member of the Major League coaching staff with then-manager Jeff Banister in 2017. Bonifay has also spent time as a minor league coach and manager, a minor league field coordinator and was the Astros’ hitting coordinator in 2018 before being hired by Philadelphia.

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