With Spring Training now underway for all teams, Dave Cameron of FanGraphs did his annual rankings of which teams had the best offseasons.
He grades the Chicago Cubs with an A and puts them in the No. 1 spot followed by the Milwaukee Brewers who also fetched a grade of A. The Mets ranked third with an A-.
“The Mets had one of the weirdest offseasons of any team in baseball. After watching their defense betray them in the World Series, they doubled down on poor defenders, bringing in Asdrubal Cabrera and Neil Walker to cover minimal ground up the middle. Once Yoenis Cespedes fell into their laps, they essentially were all-in on an offense-and-pitching strategy, and while it isn’t necessarily the way I’d prefer to build a roster, the individual moves look smart enough to call it a good winter overall. At the prices they paid for Cespedes and Walker, those deals were too good to turn down, while Cabrera is still a useful player, and he didn’t cost much either.”
“The team’s strength of dominant starting pitching should help alleviate some of their defensive weakness, and if the line-up hits well, the Mets will be contenders once again. Overall, you have to give the Mets positive marks for their moves this winter; they took advantage of a soft market for hitting and set themselves up for a chance to return to the World Series in 2016, and gave up nothing they’ll miss long-term to do so.”
Noticeably absent were the additions of Antonio Bastardo and Bartolo Colon which were two significant pickups for the Mets. I mean if you’re going to laud the Cubs for getting Adam Warren and John Lackey then Bastardo and Colon deserved at least a mention.
