Sandy Alderson has made his intentions clear regarding his pursuit of a reliver who can assume the closer’s role for the team next season. Despite missing out on relievers Joe Nathan and Jonathan Broxton (who they really wanted), the Mets still have several options remaining in Octavio Dotel, Brad Lidge, Matt Capps, Frank Francisco and a few others.
Broxton signed a one-year, $4 million deal with the Royals, which the Mets felt was was too high, given the injury histroy and the potential risk.
While it was originally thought the Mets would not pursue anyone until they knew where they stood with Jose Reyes, that does not appear to be the case according to Steve Popper of The Record, who writes:
Alderson recently said that waiting out the Reyes decision could affect the decision on a closer, but the Mets have numbers in mind they will spend anyway.
“We have an independent sense of what a closer would be worth to us based on what’s out there,” Alderson said. “So if we have Jose, would we opt for somebody lower in that range rather than higher in that range? It’s possible.”
Last week Alderson did say that he “expected his offseason work to intensify after Thanksgiving” according to Andy Martino of the Daily News, who also writes:
According to one source familiar with the Mets’ process, the team is still still “kicking the tires on quite a few things” in its search for one or two late-inning relievers.
It looks like the market for relievers is moving rapidly, so it’s a wise move for the Mets to try and secure something that could help the team next season before the better options start to vanish.
