The Mets are keeping José Buttó in a multi-inning relief role, skipper Carlos Mendoza told reporters (including Newsday’s Tim Healey). Righty Tylor Megill will stay stretched out as a starter and compete for a rotation spot in camp.
Buttó opened last season in the rotation. He started seven games and managed decent results, working to a 3.08 ERA across 38 innings. Buttó’s command was worrisome, though, as he walked nearly 14% of opposing hitters. New York optioned him to Triple-A in the middle of May. He started eight games and turned in a 3.05 ERA before being recalled at the beginning of July.
Upon his return to the majors, Buttó worked exclusively in relief. He was a quality bullpen piece for the season’s final few months. Buttó allowed only two earned runs per nine with an excellent 29.7% strikeout percentage over 36 frames. His walk rate remained elevated at a 12.3% clip. It’s difficult to stick as a starter with that kind of command, so it’s not especially surprising that the Mets will keep Buttó in a 2-3 inning role.
New York is likely to run a six-man starting staff. Kodai Senga, Sean Manaea, David Peterson, Frankie Montas and bullpen conversion Clay Holmes will be in the Opening Day rotation if healthy. The sixth spot could involve a camp battle between Megill, Paul Blackburn and free agent signee Griffin Canning.
Megill started 15 of his 16 appearances a year ago, pitching to a 4.04 earned run average while fanning 27% of batters faced through 78 frames. Canning started 31 times for the Angels last season, struggling to a 5.19 ERA with a 17.6% strikeout rate. Blackburn, whom the Mets acquired from the A’s at last year’s deadline, had a 4.66 mark while striking out 18.7% of opponents over 14 starts. Blackburn underwent postseason surgery to address a spinal injury, but the Mets are hopeful that he’ll be ready by Opening Day.
Mendoza also provided some details on the team’s infield mix. Free agent pickup Nick Madrigal will get shortstop work this spring, relays Mike Puma of The New York Post. The former fourth overall pick has not played shortstop in his MLB career and only has six innings of minor league work there. He saw some action at shortstop in college, though he was mostly a second baseman in amateur ball as well.
The Mets have less of a need for a true backup shortstop than most teams do. Francisco Lindor rarely takes days off. They’d ideally have someone capable of playing the position available off the bench, though. If Ronny Mauricio opens the season on the injured list, Luisangel Acuña is their most experienced shortstop depth. The Mets would presumably rather have the 22-year-old (23 next month) playing every day at Triple-A Syracuse than spending most days on the major league bench.
New York has three players locked into the starting infield: Pete Alonso at first base, Lindor at shortstop, and Mark Vientos at the hot corner. Second base is arguably the biggest question in a deep lineup. While Acuña and Brett Baty should each get time there in camp, Mendoza indicated that Jeff McNeil has the leg up on the job going into Spring Training.
“There’s competition but Jeff is pretty much right there,” the manager said (link via Tim Britton and Will Sammon of The Athletic). McNeil rebounded from a terrible first half to hit .289/.376/.547 over 40 games in the second half. A broken wrist cut his regular season short. McNeil made it back for the NL Championship Series. He had a rough series, which is understandable for a player returning from a month-long absence from game speed, but the excellent second half and his broader track record should make it an easy call for the Mets to keep him in the lineup to start the year.
This dudes getting roasted- going by Joey?
It’s pronounced “boot-oh,” right? My 12-year-old self hopes otherwise, of course.
There is zero chance that didn’t cross the mind of everyone who knows what that means on this site. =)
I’ve said it many times before and will continue to say it: they need to move Megill to the bullpen full time. And keep Butto there, too. But I just think Megill’s arsenal will just take off across the board in relief. He hasn’t been great there yet, but I’m convinced both Megill and Butto can be like Seth Lugo when he was dominant out of the pen.
His brother is nasty for Milwaukee and that took a minute so you are probably right.
Butso has a brother?
Not to my knowledge, but Tylor Megill’s brother Trevor has been pretty good for Milwaukee.
So many amateur GM’s say this every year. The professionals will not listen. Now, which one should I follow? hmmm …..tough decision.
Megill has an option. Blackburn and Canning do not. Thats not a definitive factor for Stearns, but Megill will have to outplay the others convincingly in order to foce one of them off the roster. Of course, there are always injuries…
Nice to see smart, informed fans on here. I agree about Megill in the pen. I still wish we’d trade for an another frontline starter. This is the most fragile part of the team.
Who would be in their wheelhouse? I’d imagine passing on Flaherty was indication that he was too much. That probably also rules out Luis Castillo. I’m not sure.
Castillo could work if we can include McNeill in the deal. I’d prefer to trade for Cease. But only if we can do so without giving up Jett, Sproat or Acuna.
That’s a tough ask for Cease. And I don’t think the Padres should trade him because they can compete for a WC spot. Perhaps by the deadline if they’re out of the race. Even then, I don’t think their price will drop for him.
If they’re out of the race it’d be idiotic for their price not to drop.
At that point they should be looking to dip under the luxury tax line and get better compensation than a QO draft pick.
@mattymets Agreed—the Mets currently project to 88-90 wins depending on the system you look at or give the most credit to, but they don’t match up well in a postseason series unless Senga comes all the way back—and even then their best starters except for Manaea have real durability issues.
I would have thought with the addition of Declining Pete it would have freed up the Mets to trade at least two of Acuna-Mauricio-Baty. for a big arm. Baty’s been able to play 3B a hair above average on defense, and so limp is the average hitter at third that all he needs to do is bump his OPS+ from 83 in 2024 to 90 in 2025 and he’s a 2 WAR regular at 3B making $1m.
As for Mauricio, he appears to have the arm for 3B, he was raised as a SS, and he looks like despite his height he can also handle 2B. I don’t know about his upside given his dismal OBP in the minors, but 2 wins a year for 6 years is a decent possibility.
Any team that can’t afford to keep their TOR would do well to raid the Mets cupboard for these two, plus the top 5 position player prospect they can probably get, and anyone else they can wheedle—while that haul is available.
Smart? informed? How smart are they when the team never takes their expert advice?
Why not keep Butto stretched out as well?
Inappropriate
Dub: but how, exactly, would they do that? He is out of options, so he cannot go back to the minors (DFA would not work as someone would certainly claim him). The choices are either use him as a big league starter, or use him in the big league pen.
Not to worry. Its a long season. Injuries, trades, or poor performances by Canning, Holmes, or Blackburn could open a rotation spot for him. Or, the Mets might have some sort of innings limit on Holmes which prompts them to move him to the pen at some point.
There has to be an innings limit on Holmes, there’s no way a reasonable person could expect him to sustain a whole season. I still think there is a trade on the horizon for a starting pitcher.
Holmes could easily be in the bullpen by June
There are times when I would give almost anything to keep my Butto in relief.. Sorry, I feel really bad about that one, but it needed to be written.
Is the ump gonna check him for TUCKS medicated pads when he pitches?
So you keep him in relief, but are making clay Holmes a starter? This team seems to have everything figured out except pitching. What is going on mets? this has been such a strange off-season. Go all out and sign Soto, but try to patch together a pitching rotation that you expect to beat the best of the best on the way to the world series? I’m confused, genuinely confused.
The rationale is that the Mets aren’t really ready to contend with the Dodgers. They still have an average farm, five offseasons after Cohen bought the team, so signing expensive FAs who are typically over 30 and already in some decline, saddles the team with more such players than even a $330m payroll can sustain at the 90+ win level.
Sign Bregman and trade for and extend Cease and you might bump the Mets shot at the WS from its current 4.5% to 6.7% in 2025 but they’re a declining stock every year after, just when in, say, 2027 the farm is finally, regularly producing MLB-caliber talent.
They’d also be getting further into their 30s just when Lindor and Nimmo rate to be in significant decline. It’s one thing to carry those two at $55m a year for the next six years (along with Diaz and Senga for another three years, McNeil for two, Manaea for three… it adds up, and it weighs the team down badly), and another thing entirely to boost that $55m to something like $115m. .
TL;DR — Stearns and Cohen came to the decision that they’d look to contend but only without saddling future Mets teams with too much dead or dying weight.
Stearns builds small market teams. Still hasn’t done a think to fix the fact that they have no arms in the bullpen. As long as you look past the overhype on Sproat who pitched well in A ball but got shelled to heck in AAA ball where he gave up bomb after bomb and pitched to a tune of a 7.53 ERA. But the Mets don’t want anyone to know about that. This team lacks pitching, big time.
Stearns can only do one thing, one way, is that what you’re assuring us? Because you know all?
It appears that you are the only one that knows Sproat struggled in AAA also? You and the Mets know that, but no one else does? You are a wizard of knowledge.
JackStrawb Exactly. He’s juggling two goals that are in conflict with each other. And he said that on his Day One press conference when he was announced as the new POBO. Dig up video, its worth the listen.
He said the goal s to compete (never defining what “compete” actually means). He thinks every team should try to compete this year and every year. But the real goal is to build sustainable long-term competitiveness. Sometimes those goals are in conflict, but he believes you can do both. Its hard, and it would be like threading a needle. But with this owner and this market, he feels they have the resources to do it.
He has actually repeated that thought in at least two other interviews since then. He always frames it slightly differently. But his bottom line is that competing this year is a goal, but not at the expense of long-term, sustainable competitiveness.
Do you need to have ‘compete’ defined for you?
@ Cleaver As a matter of fact, yes. “Compete” for what, exactly? We’ve seen plenty of instances in NY sports in which the team front office or the press used “compete” to simply mean not get blown out, be in games most of the time and just get back to .500. Times when “compete” simply referred to “compete for a playoff spot”, often in sports where close to 50% of the teams accomplished that. And “compete” for a division title or championship.
looking ahead to next year, if Alonso and Montas both exercise their opt-outs, the Mets would have about $87 million coming off of their payroll, bringing them down to the mid-240’s, which would be right around next year’s lowest threshold of $244M. They’d be losing 7 players, with a possible, or even plausible chance of replacing anywhere from 4 to 7 of them with in-house prospects. Plus the possibility of being able to trade McNeil’s $12M salary.
The question then becomes: is that team strong enough to stand pat and reset ALL of the penalties, or do they nibble up the ladder into the second tier to field a stronger team?
The answer will probably depend on two factors: how many of the prospects have made progress, and how much have they made? And the owners’ mood and direction for the threshold in what will be the final year of the current CBA.
Diaz could also opt out so almost 100M. I’m hoping for all 3.
Also consider the recent survey regarding the slow movement of free agents in recent years. While Diamond Sports was a factor for some teams, the consensus was that the new playoff format is the biggest factor. With extra teams getting in, and the Wild Card no longer limited to a one-game crap-shoot, most owners no longer feel it necessary to win the division. They’d prefer to stay on the periphery of the wild card race, and decide in July whether to add to the team or not. They hope this will eliminate the boom-and-bust cycle of spending heavily for a few years, then tearing down and rebuilding after falling short. It would appear that this might also be a part of Stearns’ calculus, at least for now. If someone wants to label that a small-market mentality that doesn’t fit in NY, they could be right. Or it could be that this stance is a result of the farm system still being somewhat porous, and only semi-productive, and will change once he gets that corrected.
Nick Madrigal had an amazing strikeout to plate appearance ratio across the minors in 2019. I thought it was a mistake. 16 in 532 plate appearances.