New York Mets center fielder Brandon Nimmo (9) follows through on a solo home run against the Washington Nationals during the fourth inning at Citi Field.

Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

The New York Post released an article that covers their Top 30 free agents for this year with an “outside expert” predicting the contract and Jon Heyman noting teams that he believes will be involved.

Six of the Mets’ huge free agent class are on the list, here are the rankings and contract predictions for each:

Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge is the No. 1 ranked player on the list and his predicted contract is nine-years, $330 million. Right-hander Noah Syndergaard was also on the list with a two-year, $28 million deal expected and fellow former Met Michael Conforto is predicted to get a one-year, $14 million contract after missing the entire 2022 due to injury.

Mets’ GM Billy Eppler will have his hands full this offseason as the team has a large portion of a 101-win team headed to free agency. Eppler and owner Steven Cohen have both noted their desire to build a long-term winner and that was part of the season they didn’t want to trade more and/or prominent prospects at the trade deadline this year. With that said, the Mets will have a hard time simply bringing back a similar team to the one that won 101 games in 2022 strictly through free agency and will almost surely have to swing a trade or two to make that happen.

To re-sign only the six Mets free agents listed above it would take (per the predictions) $531 million overall and add roughly $130 using average annual value to the Mets 2023 payroll. That’s without deciding on Carlos Carrasco‘s $14 million team option, re-signing other bullpen arms like Seth Lugo and Trevor Williams, and the raises that are coming to arbitration-eligible players like Pete Alonso and Jeff McNeil.

Any way you slice it, Steve Cohen is going to have to open his large wallet for the Mets to be contenders next season.