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Steve Cohen has spent a copious amount of money throughout the offseason to improve the team for 2023. However, one position the Mets didn’t seem improve on was DH. On Tuesday, Pat Ragazzao of Sports Illustrated spoke with Billy Eppler about how the DH will be utilized during the 2023 season.
“I would say the DH position is undefined,” Eppler told Inside the Mets by phone. “We have a number of players that contributed in it last year, but I would say it’s undefined.”
The Mets primarily started Daniel Vogelbach and Darin Ruf at DH after the 2022 trade deadline. In total, the Mets DHs slashed .218/.314/.371/.685, hit 18 home runs and recorded a 94 sOPS+. Of the 18 home runs hit by Mets’ DHs, in 2022, Pete Alonso hit six.
Ruf in particular struggled in the role after being traded to the Mets, slashing just .152/.216/.413, with a 20 OPS+. He also did not hit a single home run. When asked about Ruf’s role on the team in 2023, Eppler said he was a part of the Mets’ plans.
“He’s got a long track record of hitting left-handed pitching,” Eppler said. “He hit left-handed pitching in 2022 and 2021. Unless some things have materially changed, we would bet that skill still exists in him.”
If Ruf has a bounce-back season with the Mets, they’ll be a drastically different team. In his career, Ruf holds a .523 slugging percentage against left-handers, which would be a jolt to a Mets lineup that slugged .394 against lefties in 2022.
In addition to Ruf, the Mets have an abundance of options at DH, and Eppler told Ragazzo that the team would use the position strategically this season.
“There’s a number of different ways we can utilize the DH on any given night. We’ve used it for workload management purposes and matchups. That’s ultimately what we will use spring training and the conversations with the coaching staff to figure out.”
Keeping the DH role as an open and versatile spot in the lineup is a good idea for the Mets, as they were the oldest team in MLB in 2022 and didn’t get younger through free agency. The DH role also paves the way for younger players such as Brett Baty and Mark Vientos to receive at-bats.
One prospect not named for the DH position however was phenom Francisco Álvarez. When asked by Ragazzo about the potential of Álvarez winning the DH role, Eppler stated that his development as a catcher was more important.
“’We see Francisco as a catcher over the long-term,” Eppler said of Álvarez. “So you wouldn’t be able to develop a guy as a catcher if he was sitting in the designated hitter role full time.”
Ragazzo also mentioned that Eppler and the Mets value Álvarez’s development as a pitch framer and receiver, solidifying that the Mets do not view him as a DH option.
With pitchers and catchers reporting in 16 days, Eppler was also asked if the Mets were still looking to add to the roster. The Mets GM stated that the club didn’t have much roster flexibility and was done adding position players.
“’Our roster is pretty well filled out with not a lot of flexibility left on the position player side,'” Eppler said. ‘There’s a number of people we either acquired or are on guaranteed contracts, so I think it’s not too difficult to start writing out the depth chart. It’s not a complete picture, but it’s a majority of the way there and we’ll look to define those roles over spring training.'”
