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Marcus Stroman Opts Out Of 2020 Season

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The Mets announced Monday that right-hander Marcus Stroman has opted out of the remainder of the 2020 season. The right-hander, who is a free agent at season’s end, called the move a family decision and cited the many “uncertainties” and “unknowns” of playing in the current health-and-safety atmosphere.

This obviously represents a major blow to the Mets’ hopes in 2020. While Stroman will forgo the remainder of his $12MM salary, it isn’t as if there’s an obvious way for the team to reinvest it for a player of similar quality — at least, not without giving up substantial prospect value via trade.

The decision puts a bow on the Mets’ end of last summer’s trade that brought Stroman to Queens. Adding him cost two promising young starters: Anthony Kay and Simeon Woods Richardson. The club remained competitive late in 2019 but was already in too deep a hole to make a postseason run. And now Stroman won’t throw a pitch in the 2020 campaign.

It all sets up several intriguing contract situations in the future. Stroman, who had been on the injured list, did not opt out until after he had reached six full years of MLB service. That means he’ll still qualify for free agency. Whether the Mets will extend Stroman a qualifying offer, as once seemed sure, remains to be seen. And it’ll be interesting to see how the open market treats the high-quality 29-year-old.

Stroman is now listed among the players around the game that have opted out of the 2020 season.

Mets Place Michael Wacha On 10-Day IL

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The Mets announced that right-hander Michael Wacha has been placed on the 10-day injured list due to inflammation in his throwing shoulder.  Catcher Ali Sanchez has been called up from the club’s alternate training site to take Wacha’s spot on the active roster.

After a strong debut start for New York on July 27, Wacha has struggled over his last two outings, and has an overall 6.43 ERA over his first 14 innings in a Mets uniform.  Despite a 3.60 K/BB rate, an 11.6 K/9, and some generally above-average Statcast numbers, Wacha has been hurt badly by the long ball, with three homers allowed over his 14 frames (1.9 HR/9).  The early returns suggest a troubling continuation of the homer problem that plagued Wacha last season, as his HR/9 went from 0.9 over the first six years of his career to a sudden 1.8 number in 2019.

Wacha’s absence leaves the Mets further short-handed in a rotation that already lost Noah Syndergaard to Tommy John surgery last spring and Marcus Stroman to the injured list due to a tear in his calf muscle.  Mets manager Luis Rojas told the New York Post’s Mike Puma and other reporters that Stroman was still at least another simulated game away from returning, so there isn’t enough time for Stroman to be activated prior to Wednesday, when Wacha was scheduled to start.  Erasmo Ramirez, Corey Oswalt, Franklyn Kilome, and Ariel Jurado are all available at the Mets’ alternate training site as potential fill-ins, both for Wednesday or potentially longer if Stroman needs more time.

Mets Make Handful Of Roster Moves

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The Mets announced a few moves before their loss to the Marlins on Friday. The club activated right-hander Robert Gsellman from the injured list, optioned lefty Daniel Zamora to its alternate training site, added infielder Luis Carpio to its 60-man player pool and outrighted outfielder Ryan Cordell.

Gsellman hasn’t pitched this season on account of a right triceps injury, which has weakened a New York bullpen that has begun 2020 in below-average fashion. Mets relievers ranked 24th in ERA entering Friday’s action.

Gsellman, for his part, has hardly been automatic when it comes to stopping runs, but he has given the Mets 143 2/3 decent innings in relief since 2018, and he averaged a career-best 95.4 mph on his fastball last season. He owns a 4.28 ERA/4.00 FIP with 8.09 K/9 and 3.27 BB/9 in 151 1/3 frames as a reliever.

Cordell joined the Mets on a minor league deal in January, but the team designated him for assignment Wednesday after he opened the season with four appearances and four trips to the plate. The former member of the White Sox cleared waivers after the Mets designated him, and he’s now in line to remain with the organization.

Injury Notes: Cano, Puk, W. Davis, M’s

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Let’s check in on a few injury notes from around the majors…

  • Mets second baseman Robinson Cano is hopeful that he’ll come off the injured list when he’s eligible on Aug. 14, Anthony DiComo of MLB.com tweets. Cano went to the IL on Tuesday with a Grade 2 left adductor strain, which halted what may have been a redemption story for the 37-year-old. While Cano endured a nightmarish first season as a Met in 2019, he got off to a blistering .412/.462/.559 start in 39 plate appearances this year prior to his injury.
  • Athletics left-hander A.J. Puk remains an exciting prospect for the club, but various arm injuries have prevented the 25-year-old from making a major league start. It doesn’t appear as if that will change in 2020. Manager Bob Melvin said that Puk, who’s working back from shoulder inflammation, is expected to pitch out of the bullpen if he takes the hill this year, per Shayna Rubin of the Mercury News. However, the A’s still don’t have a timetable for Puk’s season debut.
  • It appears the right shoulder strain that sent Rockies reliever Wade Davis to the IL over the weekend will keep him on ice for the foreseeable future. Manager Bud Black said Wednesday that Davis still hasn’t begun throwing yet, Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post relays. Davis’ injury is the latest setback in what has been a horrid Colorado tenure since he signed a three-year, $52MM deal with the club going into 2018. The three-time All-Star has recorded a 6.18 ERA/4.67 FIP in 110 2/3 innings as a Rockie.
  • With right-hander Kendall Graveman on the injured list because of neck issues, the Mariners are calling on lefty Nick Margevicius to step into their rotation, according to manager Scott Servais (via Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times). The 24-year-old Margevicius picked up 12 starts as a Padre in 2019, but his year didn’t go well. He wound up with 57 innings of 6.79 ERA/5.64 FIP pitching and 6.63 K/9 against 3.0 BB/9.

Rangers Trade Ariel Jurado To Mets

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The Mets announced this afternoon that they’ve acquired right-hander Ariel Jurado from the Rangers in exchange for a player to be named later and (not or) cash considerations. Outfielder Ryan Cordell was designated for assignment to open a spot on the team’s 40-man roster. Jurado has been assigned to the Mets’ alternate training site in Brooklyn.

Jurado, 24, was designated by assignment in Texas back on Friday when the team selected Greg Bird and Jimmy Herget to the big league roster. The former top prospect has logged 177 innings with the Rangers over the past two seasons but struggled considerably at the MLB level. Opposing hitters have clobbered him for a 5.85 ERA and posted a combined .305/.351/.502 slash against him in 782 plate appearances. Jurado has averaged 5.2 K/9, 2.7 BB/9 and 1.42 HR/9 to go along with a 47.9 percent ground-ball rate.

Obviously, that’s not a pretty collection of numbers, but Jurado has a solid minor league track record. He’s largely skipped over Triple-A — though he pitched well in the 22 2/3 frames he did log there — but put together a more palatable 3.96 ERA with 5.6 K/9, 1.9 BB/9 and 0.92 HR/9 in 302 1/3 innings of Double-A ball. Baseball Prospectus rated Jurado as the game’s No. 72 prospect back in 2017, and he’s consistently generated ground-ball rates comfortably north of 51 percent. Infield defense isn’t exactly the Mets’ strength, of course, but the organization is in need of some pitching depth after seeing Noah Syndergaard (Tommy John surgery) and Marcus Stroman (calf tear) go down with injuries. Offseason additions Rick Porcello and Michael Wacha have both struggled early as well.

Cordell, 28, went 1-for-4 with a stolen base and a pair of strikeouts in his short time with the Mets. Jake Marisnick’s hamstring injury opened the door for the former Rangers/White Sox/Brewers prospect to make the club as a reserve outfielder behind J.D. Davis, Brandon Nimmo and Michael Conforto. However, the Mets’ recent acquisition of Billy Hamilton apparently rendered Cordell superfluous in the club’s eyes.

Cordell has appeared in parts of three big league seasons, hitting a combined .205/.267/.333 in 291 trips to the dish. Those struggles notwithstanding, he’s put together a respectable minor league track record and is capable of playing all three outfield spots, so a club needing some depth might take a look at Cordell if he’s available on the waiver wire. New York will have a week to trade Cordell, release him or attempt to run him through waivers.

Mets Place Robinson Cano On Injured List, Activate Billy Hamilton

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10:41pm: Cano will be on the shelf “until at least mid-August,” DiComo tweets.

6:15pm: The Mets have placed second baseman Robinson Cano on the 10-day injured list due to a Grade 2 left adductor strain and selected the contract of Billy Hamilton, who’ll be on the bench for tonight’s game (Twitter links via Anthony DiComo of MLB.com). DiComo adds that Jeff McNeil (intercostal strain) and Amed Rosario (quad tightness) are both day-to-day.

There’s no telling just how long Cano will be sidelined at this point, but any type of Grade 2 strain (as opposed to a more mild Grade 1 strain) is cause for concern regarding an extended absence. His injury is particularly unfortunate for the Mets given that the 37-year-old had gotten out to a blistering start. In his first 39 plate appearances, Cano was hitting at a torrid .412/.462/.559 clip with a homer and two doubles. While it’s inevitable that he’d have cooled off to some extent, Cano also ranked among the game’s best in terms of hard-hit rate and average exit velocity, and his swinging-strike rate was among the lowest in MLB.

Despite the addition of the designated hitter in the National League, Cano has been the team’s primary second baseman. Yoenis Cespedes had been serving as the regular designated hitter, but he opted out of the remainder of the season over the weekend. With Cano, Jed Lowrie and Jeff McNeil all on the injured list, regular second-base duties for the Mets seem likeliest to fall to top prospect Andres Gimenez and veteran Brian Dozier, who inked a minor league deal late in Summer Camp and was selected to the Mets’ roster last week. Dozier is batting sixth in tonight’s lineup against lefty Patrick Corbin, but the makings of a natural platoon with the left-handed-hitting Gimenez are present. Of course, that’s contingent on Rosario returning to the lineup; Gimenez and Dozier could each draw regular starts as double play partners while Rosario is out.

As for Hamilton, he was acquired over the weekend in a trade that sent recently outrighted reliever Jordan Humphreys to the Giants. He’ll jump right onto the Mets’ big league roster and provide some speed and elite glovework off the bench. Brandon Nimmo is still lined up for everyday work in center, and he’ll be flanked by J.D. Davis and Michael Conforto to begin most games. Hamilton’s role is perhaps the same role the Mets envisioned for offseason acquisition Jake Marisnick, but he’s currently on the injured list with a hamstring strain.

Mets’ Infield Dealing With Injuries

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The Mets are suddenly dealing with a few notable injuries in their infield, Deesha Thosar of the New York Daily News was among those to report. Second baseman Robinson Cano (left groin), shortstop Amed Rosario (left quad) and third baseman Jeff McNeil (lower back) are all battling some degree of “tightness,” per Thosar.

The severity of these injuries are unclear, but they’re the latest hits to an offense that saw outfielder Yoenis Cespedes opt out of the season Sunday. Cespedes got off to a subpar start this season, as has Rosario. On the other hand, Cano and McNeil have been great thus far. It’s especially encouraging in regards to Cano, who was a letdown a season ago, but not surprising in McNeil’s case. After all, he was one of the NL’s best position players last year.

The Mets entered the day at 3-7, so any further bad news for their lineup could make it even harder for the team to dig out of the hole it’s in at the one-sixth mark of the season. The Mets replaced their three lost starters with Brian Dozier, Andres Gimenez and Luis Guillorme on Monday.

Mets Outright Hunter Strickland

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Right-hander Hunter Strickland went unclaimed on outright waivers and has been assigned to the team’s alternate training site in Brooklyn, tweets MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo. Strickland is no longer on the 40-man roster, but because he was outrighted to the alternate training site, he remains in the Mets’ 60-man player pool and could be selected back to the big league roster at some point.

The 31-year-old Strickland appeared in three games for the Mets but struggled, serving up four runs (three earned) on six hits with two strikeouts in 2 1/3 frames. He still averaged 96 mph on his heater, and it’s worth noting that he didn’t give up much in the way of hard contact in his tiny sample of work (80.7 mph average exit velocity). That said, the fact that he went unclaimed underscores the manner in which he’s tailed off since his strong run with the Giants earlier in his career.

From 2014-17, Strickland pitched to a 2.64 ERA with 8.7 K/9 against 2.9 BB/9 and 0.6 HR/9 in 180 2/3 innings of relief in San Francisco. He’s since made headlines for the wrong reasons — breaking his hand when punching a door after a blown save, inciting a bench-clearing brawl by throwing at Bryce Harper — and his production on the mound has deteriorated as well. In his last 72 big league innings, Strickland carries a 4.75 ERA and and an FIP to match. He’s posted a lackluster 57-to-29 K/BB ratio in that time and served up 11 home runs as well.

Yoenis Céspedes Opts Out Of 2020 Season

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3:23pm: Céspedes will indeed opt out of the season, Mets GM Brodie Van Wagenen confirmed to reporters including Heyman. Thankfully, Céspedes is safe and healthy, but concerns about the risks of COVID-19 informed his decision to sit out the remainder of the year.

Thus concludes one of the more confusing and concerning stories of the 2020 season thus far. As Tim Britton of The Athletic reports, Van Wagenen and the Mets were unsure of Céspedes’s safety or location at the time of their initial statement, which was issued in the interest of transparency. After dispatching a security outfit to Céspedes’s hotel room, they discovered that he had left, and it was only when contacting his agent that the team learned of his decision not to play the rest of the season.

With his decision, Céspedes’s Mets tenure has reached its presumed conclusion, with his contract set to expire at season’s end. And perhaps today’s nebulous saga was the only fitting way to wrap up the 34-year-old’s Mets career, which has been a captivating spectacle for Mets fans, from his 2015 heroics to the contentious injuries that cost him nearly two whole years.

Céspedes becomes the 20th player to opt out of the season (not counting Nick Markakis, who reversed his decision and will play this year), and the latest in a string of players to have done so since COVID-19 outbreaks within the ranks of the Marlins and Cardinals over the last week.

It doesn’t appear that Céspedes has opted out in relation to an existing health condition, and if he isn’t considered a “high-risk” individual, he will forfeit the prorated amount of his base $11MM salary for the season, and will reach free agency in the offseason. To be sure, Céspedes is comparatively well-positioned to absorb a year without pay, given his hefty career earnings; still, it’s significant given the precipitous decrease in salary he’s seen over the last two years, with his 2019 and 2020 salaries both taking hits due to the circumstances surrounding his ankle injuries.

From a baseball perspective, the Mets will be nicely equipped to deal with Céspedes’s absence for the rest of the year, with a stocked position player group that includes a handful of DH and left-field options. Céspedes had been off to a slow start this year, striking out 15 times in 34 plate appearances and batting just .161/.235/.387 for the season. His departure should in fact give some clarity to the Mets’ lineup, with Dominic Smith likely handling the bulk of DH duty from now on, while J.D. Davis settles into a regular role in left field.

We’ll have to wait and see what the future holds for Céspedes, who will hit the open market this winter for the first time in his career. Of course, he has a track record of great success since defecting from Cuba in 2012, but injuries have sullied the last few years of his career, making it difficult to detect whether he’s still capable of producing like he did in 2015, for example. This would have been his year to prove that, but prospective suitors will instead have to take a gamble on a polarizing player.

1:18pm: As their Sunday matchup with the Braves got underway, the New York Mets announced that outfielder Yoenis Céspedes’s whereabouts are unknown. The Mets released the following statement:

“As of game time, Yoenis Céspedes has not reported to the ballpark today. He did not reach out to management with any explanation for his absence. Our attempts to contact him have been unsuccessful.”

Obviously, this is a concerning situation for all involved, even more so given the stringent nature of COVID-19 protocols. Further details are not known at this time. We’ll provide any updates as they come in.

The Mets, as one would expect, are doing what they can to locate Céspedes. For what it’s worth, SNY’s Andy Martino has heard that the team has “no reason to believe that Céspedes’ safety is at risk” at this time.

Per MLB Network’s Jon Heyman, there’s speculation across the league that Céspedes intends to opt out of the 2020 season, which would certainly offer some insight into his absence today. However, if that is indeed Céspedes’s decision, he has not yet declared it to the Mets, according to an earlier report from Bob Nightengale of USA Today.

Pirates Acquire Tyler Bashlor From Mets

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The Pirates have acquired right-handed pitcher Tyler Bashlor from the Mets in exchange for cash considerations, reports Tim Healey of Newsday. The Pirates have designated LHP Robbie Erlin for assignment in order to clear a spot on the 40-man roster.

Bashlor, 27, tossed 54 relief innings for the Mets between 2018-19. They were generally uninspiring, as he managed just a 5.33 ERA/6.18 FIP in that span. However, Bashlor averaged a strong 95.6 MPH on his four-seam fastball last season with top-of-the-scale spin. The Bucs will take a low-cost flier to see if they can translate those promising traits into a few more whiffs.

Erlin, meanwhile, managed only two relief appearances in Pittsburgh after breaking camp with the club. The Pirates will have a week to trade, release or outright the former Padre starter.

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