The Mets announced Monday that they’ve acquired right-hander Yohan Ramirez from the White Sox in exchange for cash. Ramirez was designated for assignment by the ChiSox last week.
Ramirez appeared in just five games for the White Sox, who acquired him from the Pirates via an early-September waiver claim. He yielded four runs in four innings with the South Siders but had pitched to a solid 3.67 ERA with a 20% strikeout rate and 9% walk rate in 34 1/3 innings.
Now 28 years old, Ramirez made his big league debut with the Mariners in 2020 and has appeared in every MLB season since. He’s totaled 124 innings of 3.99 ERA ball as a big leaguer, striking out 23.2% of his opponents against a 12.5% walk rate that’s well north of the league average. Ramirez was a fly-ball pitcher early in his career but switched from a four-seamer to a two-seamer in 2022 and has since been a pronounced ground-ball arm (54.1%).
Scouting reports on Ramirez from his prospect days praised his stuff across the board but noted that he lacked command. That’s played out through much of his big league tenure to date, but the pieces for a quality reliever are clearly present. He’s out of minor league options, so the Mets will have to either carry Ramirez on the Opening Day roster or else trade him, release him or attempt to pass him through outright waivers prior to the end of spring training.
Solid depth piece
The problem is he (and the other depth pieces) are not depth right now. They’re on the surface. They are the actual bullpen. And since so many of them are out of options, at least one (if not more) of them will have to be DFA’d should the Mets decide to add real major league relievers.
They will need to make higher level moves before entering the 2024 season, to be sure. I think once Yamamoto is signed (whether with the Mets or not) we’ll see how competitive they want to be in 2024. Right now, there are 16 of the top 50 MLBTR FAs signed, so there is room for them to work. As they’ve said, they are targeting ’25 and ’26, but as of now they wouldn’t meet the part about being “competitive” in ’24.
@horaceallen The Mets aren’t targeting 2025, either.
Think about it. There’s no one on the farm that’s going to be up for more than a cup of coffee, if that, in 2024—meaning no one on the farm will have established himself in time for 2025.
In short, the Mets will be in the same position as of the 2024-2025 offseason that they’re in currently, with the brutal exception that the clock is running on their $120m nucleus of six expensive players 30 and over who rate to be losing 2-3 wins a year to age, and two of whom in Diaz and Senga will be leaving after 2025 if they’re actually good, or else will require the Mets to sign them to new FA deals to keep them around.
They’ll be in the same position, meaning if it doesn’t make sense to seek to contend in 2024 it won’t make sense to seek to contend in 2025, either, particularly since 2025 is the year they can get under the LT threshold—the only thing that makes any kind of sense short of Vientos and Baty putting up 4 WAR seasons and establishing themselves as likely stars for the next decade, which we know isn’t happening. And who else is there, which several players currently in the minors in any credible scenario, has you inking them into the 2025 Mets lineup and for whom you’re willing to forgo resetting the LT and sign a rotation and bullpen almost from scratch? There’s no Corbin Carroll in their system, just a bunch of guys of the kind who, if they succeed, take several years to get their feet wet and establish themselves.
It’s a garbage FO that won’t tell you these things, but that’s what the Mets have. Playing games with fans is repugnant, as is their use of weasel phrases such as “we’ll field a competitive team.”
We’ve seen this from the Mets for a number of years now. It makes me feel as though this ridiculous obsession they have had with Stearns began at 3am in some bar with beer goggles on.
Yea I don’t get the Stearns obsession either. They’ve been competitive but haven’t won much of anything. They’re a mid-size market. It’s not the Royals, Rays or A’s. They spend more than those teams do. I just don’t see what has been so appealing about him. I think Cohen likes that he’s a NY guy.
Yup. Deep in fourth place
So, Ramirez will be in 4th place?
I think your name says it all for right now, getting everyone else’s cast offs. Another episode of ground hog day…
Lots of nice depth moves for the Mets. I am really curious what the more significant moves will be either in the event they land Yamamoto or in the event they do not.
Lol Mets?
Is that really an lol Mets move? Seems like a decent depth transaction.
Probably, but I still haven’t gotten that put of my system yet after all the deGrom hate and ill wishes against him by Mets’ fans (including Jon “Arson” Heyman)
Fair enough. Here’s to deGrom thriving when he returns from his second TJS.
How can any met fan resent jdg? There were starts in 2020 or 2021 where he was the defense and the offense. Are memories so short?
Mets had a feeling something was up and dodged a TJS. How can they be mad?
The guy was legendary. A universal baseball truth.
I hope for baseball that he can be that again.
I didn’t see any deGrom hate from Mets fans.
Amen! JDG qas the truth! I hope he can bounce back,and continue his legacy.
I saw quite a bit of hate from Mets fans…
They were talking crap about him before he even chose a different destination.
I understand passion, but that was all completely uncalled for. DeGrom was the Mets, and gave them the best years of his career. He treated them to a period of time where they could consistently go to their ballpark and watch and cheer for one of the most dominant runs we’ve recently witnessed.
Then, they treated him like last weeks garbage after he gave that city his all during his time there.
Very classy, and I wasn’t surprised in the least bit.
Maybe it was a minority of their fanbase, and I just happened to see the worst of it online from their trolls (every fanbase has them), but it definitely happened.
That was beautiful. It almost brought a tear to my eye.
Well any Mets fan trashing him is a scumbag.
I didn’t see Mets fan hate. Fans are clueless. Mets fans even more so. But even they knew the Rangers gave him a awful contract. Most love him, wished him luck, but at that price didn’t want him.
Any TRUE Mets fan knows how much he brought to the team and the fanbase.
There’s always going to be some bad feelings when you know a player is simply going to go wherever the most money is.
Fans knew deGrom didn’t care about the Mets, or New York. If it was just business to him, why should they show any particular kindness towards him?
His command and him allowing walks is a issue, but if he fixes it should be good from there.
The K’s are down, he’s giving more than a hit per inning, he got extremely lucky on fly balls in 2023…
He’s a bad pitcher.
You don’t mess with the Yohan
So original. Goof.
Very embarrassing
More solid under the radar by Stearns. NYM fans need to have faith in this fellow. The big fish is coming but takes a 40 man to have a good season
It takes even more than a 40-man. It takes 50 or more. That said, a lot of these so-called depth pieces are currently in line to be on the active roster. I’d be happy with the depth if I had something legitimate on the surface above it.
WOW 10center! A post from you that is positive towards us Mets fans! Did a Long Island Loudmouth spike your eggnog LOL?
JR gets some belated Hanukkah gelt from Steve Cohen!
What depth? Bullpen help? Wake me up when they get a Robertson, Neris, Maton or someone with real experience and grit.
Did you forget that Diaz is healthy?
@metsgolf Did you forget that he and Raley are the entire bullpen right now? The rest are all quadruple-A caliber “depth pieces”.
Is it March 28?
@geofft Objection–most of these guys aren’t even that. They’re notorious failures, they’re old, each has multiple issues,… If the six that go north with Diaz and Raley from ST end up with an ERA+ as high as 100 I’ll salt and eat this hat.
@metsgolf It’s far later than that.
I’d love to see Robertson return.
Yohan is back with the Mets!
Good depth, BUT, the Yankees traded for Soto, the Dodgers signed Ohtani and traded for Glasnow, and we get no name depth pieces, GREAT.
Season start tomorrow?
It may as well. The Mets aren’t signing serious multiple bullpen arms, they’re not signing a 4 win LFer, they’re living with an old lineup that’s unlikely to be as much as average in 2024, they’re not adding a TOR starter…
Is this the alter ego of Yoan López?
Not a bad up-and-down reliever, and has solid upside. His stuff is great and sometimes he looks like he could be a shutdown high-leverage guy. When he’s on, he’s on and looks like he could strikeout the side without breaking a sweat. But when he’s not on, be ready for a multi-run inning. Very high highs, but very low lows.
This is going to be a long season, I can already tell. I had the Mets at 70 wins. After this acquisition, its now down to 68 wins because this guy will blow atleast 2 games for us. Lets go through the list. Outside of Diaz we have no bullpen. The starting pitching is currently worse then last years second half. Could say the same for the bullpen as well. The hitting has gotten worse with the injury to Mauricio. This team is too old and its run by incompetent fools like Jerry Stearns, George Cohen, and Elaine Garcia. Its becoming like a Seinfeld skit. I’d trade anyone off who has value, give up prospects to get rid of Lindor’s horrible contract, and start from scratch
What little credibility you had was completely lost with the suggestion we should trade Lindor.
@westcoastmetsfan Lindor is worth 34 million a year? Yeah, I don’t think so. Hes a black hole on offense, mainly in clutch situations. Great defense but the hitting is just not there. Hes one of the worst clutch players I’ve ever seen. Whenever you need a hit, he strikesout. If you’re getting paid 34 million a year, you need to hit in the clutch. His true value is probably around the 15 million dollar range. He is currently way overpaid. If the Mets were to trade him, they’d have to give up prospects with him and eat some of his salary. If he was so valuable, you’d see trade rumors of other teams trying to pursue him. No one is because hes not worth the contract
Should have never traded for Lindor. Definitely shouldn’t have extended him. Let metsin7 have the dream of trading him.
If the talent we’re getting doesn’t get better, we’ll be watching Gary and Keith in the booth flipping for baseball cards, like in past years.
Who?
I usually try not to react too much one way or the other on these sort of depth moves. I tend to try to read them with a mildly optimistic eye. But for this one, I just don’t see anything that warrants a 40 man roster spot. Other than some decent strikeout numbers in the minors, there’s nothing really to like here. Please let me know if I’m missing something at first blush.
Who says he is going to stay on 40 man? If he does there are worse relievers taking a spot.
Once again, it is not March 28.
It takes a lot of confusion to believe the Mets FO is seeking to contend in 2024.