Relevance in 2018 for the Mets will depend largely on the health of their tattered players, but the elephant in the room with this organization is always the payroll.
Owners Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz did just enough last offseason to silence criticisms about thriftiness — giving Yoenis Cespedes a four-year contract worth $110 million was a good start — but now old questions are bound to arise, given the Mets’ dismal performance this season, empty seats at Citi Field and the general manager’s assessment next year’s payroll may decrease.
The Mets have about $65 million coming off the books, all of which may not be reinvested in the team. Already, it has been alarming to hear general manager Sandy Alderson say the Mets’ Opening Day payroll of $155 million this season, which ranked 12th in the major leagues, was “beyond” what the organization expected to spend.
“So I’m certainly not sitting here and saying, ‘OK, [the payroll] is going to be at least as high this year as it was last year,’ ” Alderson said Tuesday.
“We expect to be a competitive team next year. I know that is going to depend a lot on our pitching staff, particularly the health of our starting pitching and so forth, but the fact we have so many dollars coming off the books will be recognized and a good percentage of that — at this point undetermined — certainly will be reinvested in the payroll.”
The Mets have shed additional dollars by dumping Lucas Duda, Addison Reed, Jay Bruce, Neil Walker and Curtis Granderson in the past five weeks, but offset some of it with the addition of AJ Ramos from the Marlins.
But it doesn’t change the fact the Mets have questions at three infield positions heading to next year — only shortstop is set — and probably could use another outfield bat. The Mets also need another proven reliever and probably a veteran starting pitcher. Filling some of those needs will be expensive.
One item that likely won’t appear on Alderson’s shopping list is a new catcher. A bare market coupled with the front office’s acceptance of Travis d’Arnaud and Kevin Plawecki as suitable has pushed the idea of finding another catcher far to the back burner.
“I think we feel pretty good about those two,” Alderson said, referring to d’Arnaud and Plawecki. “The other thing you have to do is evaluate what other options exist and at that position it would be difficult for us to find a pair that we like appreciably better, so I think we have been generally happy with our catching play.”
For the rotation Alderson acknowledged the possibility of finding a “Bartolo-type” — a reference to Bartolo Colon — who can pitch 180-200 innings and stabilize a starting staff that will have enormous questions behind Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard.
The Mets need more than health to contend next season — they also need pieces. And pieces cost money. How about a commitment from the top to at least match this year’s payroll?