September 1st is just over one week away and looking over the Mets 40-man roster, there are really no players worth calling up.
The players that currently occupy spots on the 40-man include players like Josh Satin, Andrew Brown, Cesar Puello and Erik Goeddel. None of the top prospects, guys like Noah Syndergaard, Matt Reynolds or Kevin Plawecki are on the roster and therefore a player would need to be removed in order for the September call up to take place.
What makes this an interesting month is that the Mets won’t be playing for anything in September and all of the players that they could call up would be filling spots occupied by other starters. Take Syndergaard as an example. Unless there is an injury to one of the five starters, someone would have to be skipped or removed from the rotation to make room for him.
In addition, someone would need to be removed from the 40-man and passed through waivers. That could be a guy like Goeddel, a five-year minor leaguer who hasn’t shown much in that time. Another guy could be Puello who has struggled mightily since returning from his steroid suspension. He is batting just .238 in 100 games (AAA) this year after an impressive .326 in 2013 (AA).
The question becomes: Is it worth it?
Sure we’d all like to see Syndergaard but couldn’t he make his debut pitching in the fifth game of the 2015 season after Matt Harvey, Zack Wheeler, Jon Niese and Jacob deGrom?
There is one guy that could make sense in September. If the Mets choose to give their pitchers some extra rest and move to a six man rotation, Steven Matz could be recalled from AA to make a few starts. Matz is 6-4 with a filthy 2.17 ERA and 8 strikeouts per nine innings. Sure it’s a jump to go from AA to the majors but because he’s already on the 40-man roster it’s an easy move to make.
The Mets will look different in 2015 but for now it will be nice to get a small peak at the future. On September 1st we’ll start to see what the Mets have moving forward and which players will be moving on from Queens.
