Photo by James Farrance Photography

With MLB’s general manager meetings set to start Monday in Arizona, we’ll finally be experiencing the hot stove season instead of just talking about it (hopefully). For Brodie Van Wagenen and the New York Mets, this winter is an important one when looking at the short- and long-term future of the organization.

Van Wagenen heads to Phoenix with an incomplete coaching staff, but he at least has his next manager set in Carlos Beltran. The Mets are in an interesting place right now as an on-field product. Fresh off an 86-76 record, they ended up enjoying just their third winning season of the decade, even though it ended with disappointment in the form of no ticket to October.

There is an intriguing core group of players on the big-league roster, including Jacob deGrom, Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil, J.D. Davis, Michael Conforto, Amed Rosario, and Noah Syndergaard (at least, for now). But still, this squad isn’t just a small tweak or two away from getting over the hump in the National League East, which I mentioned last week.

New York could use some more help in the bullpen, even if Edwin Diaz and Jeurys Familia improve, and even if neither Seth Lugo nor Robert Gsellman get pulled from the relief corps to the rotation. A fifth starter is necessary with Zack Wheeler currently a free agent, and a natural center fielder would also be helpful.

Trying to Eliminate The “If’s”

Part of his effort in overhauling the roster last offseason included Van Wagenen mentioning a number of times that he’d like to eliminate the “if’s” on a day-to-day basis. Two acquisitions that stick out when thinking about this strategy is the trade that brought Robinson Cano back to New York and the free-agent signing of Jed Lowrie.

Cano — without thinking about his contract status and age — hypothetically holds the type of veteran leadership and consistently above-average production that hadn’t been around since David Wright landed on the injured list. As for Lowrie, he was another veteran coming off two of the best years of his career and could play multiple positions.

Even if the moves made someone scratch their head upon initially happening, it at least made a little sense because we knew a lot less about the Mets’ current roster a year ago today. McNeil only had a half-season of big-league experience under his belt, Alonso wasn’t the MLB homer king for 2019 yet, and Rosario also hadn’t taken another step forward in his overall development.

But That’s Not Happening

With all this in mind, BVW was trying to find “creative” ways to bolster the roster from the perspective of having enough depth to withstand multiple injuries. Cano and Lowrie were supposed to stabilize the lineup on a nightly basis, but here we are a season later with the opposite happening.

These two seemingly important pieces of the Mets’ 2019 infield combined for just 431 plate appearances, with Cano accounting for all but eight.

With regard to Cano, his ability to play virtually every day since becoming a big leaguer was worth admiring heading into this past season. Before his PED suspension in 2018, he had suited up for at least 150 games for 11 consecutive years. While Lowrie couldn’t exactly tout that kind of durability, he did post new single-season career-high marks when it came to fWAR in 2017 (3.6) and then again in 2018 (5.0).

Cano’s second-half production at the plate in 2019 was nice to see (126 wRC+) after struggling mightily in the first half (72), but any good vibes he did provide for New York were negated by multiple trips to the IL, which isn’t a good sign for a 37-year-old. It’s also hard to know what to expect from someone entering his age-36 campaign after being forced to the sidelines for basically the entire year like Lowrie was.

Even if New York wanted to offload Lowrie to alleviate the roster logjam they’re potentially feeling, it’d be hard for other clubs to be convinced everything is cool without having the Mets pick up a significant portion of the salary.

A 2020 Infield That Probably Won’t Happen

Young and unproven players bring a certain level risk into any roster-building activity for a GM in professional sports. However, it’s unfortunate that Van Wagenen didn’t give his younger players more leeway before bringing in veterans that were supposed to raise this club’s performance floor.

After seeing what happened over the past 162 regular season games, it’d be awesome to have an infield with Alonso and Rosario remaining at first base and shortstop, respectively, along with McNeil sliding into second-base duties and Davis manning the hot corner on a daily basis. That’d leave Conforto and Nimmo to occupy the corner outfield positions, allowing New York to try and find a true solution for center field.

To me, that’d be an exciting group to watch take the field every night, and it’d be fun to see what they could accomplish by knowing exactly where they’d be playing on a daily basis. Unless something drastic takes place, that won’t happen due to the presence of both Cano and Lowrie on the roster, and the best-case scenario moving forward is that this nucleus of players mostly stays together heading into next year.

For a squad that likely won’t spend a ton in free agency (regardless of what’s already been said), it’ll be imperative to engage other teams in trade discussions to improve roster weaknesses. That could possibly bring some hard decisions on who to trade away because we all know you have to give up something you like in order to get something you need.

It’s just unfortunate that it might happen because of the unknowns surrounding two veterans who were supposed to answer some questions for the Mets, not add more.