Mets’ Latest Move Is Frustrating, Because Of What It Isn’t

The Mets signed Alejandro De Aza to a 1-year, $5.75 M deal today.

When the news first broke, reactions were positive. De Aza is by no means a great player, but he is decent, and a solid upgrade over Kirk Nieuwenhuis (his four memorable home runs aside) in the 5th outfielder slot. With that need filled, the Mets were clear to address the two big concerns they have remaining: a center fielder (with a bat)  and a setup man.

It was a nice move. Some people wondered aloud, though— isn’t $4.5M a bit much for a 5th outfielder, especially for a team with a constrained budget?

And then further reports began to come out, reports saying that De Aza WAS that center fielder, the guy who will play against righties (read: most games) in a not-so-even platoon with Juan Lagares. Reports that this likely ends the Mets’ quest for outfielders.

That’s it. That’s the Mets’ move. Not the stat-geek’s darling Jason Heyward or the relatively young slugger Justin Upton. Not Yoenis Cespedes, the hitter the Mets waited years to get in their lineup and were rewarded beyond their wildest dreams when they made the move.

We braced for that. We saw Heyward sign with the Cubs, but not before the Cubs had signed Mets target Ben Zobrist and added John Lackey and Adam Warren to a rotation suddenly strong enough to make even the most confident of Mets fans— the ones who viewed four games in October as more predictive of the future than the 162 before that— wonder whether the teams’ next meeting will play out like the 7-0 Cubs sweep in the summer or the 4-0 Met triumph under the lights of October.

We heard Cespedes was unlikely to come back. Some of us talked ourselves into the idea that we didn’t want him back. A couple fans probably let one kicked fly ball during the World Series turn them against the man who got us there (unless you think that was Daniel Murphy, who will also be playing elsewhere). People complained about streakiness, or flukey contract years, but at the end of the day, nobody doubted that Cespedes was the scariest bat the Mets had employed since Carlos Delgado.

So we complained about the glove. Nevermind that Cespedes has the best arm in baseball and terrific speed. Forget that he won a Gold Glove in the outfield this past season. He couldn’t play center field and he couldn’t learn it— his arms and legs are blessed with that which can’t be taught, but nevermind that.

With our heads held high and our resolve as strong as ever, we prepared for Gerardo Parra (not a centerfielder himself, but competent, and cheaper) or Denard Span— (injury prone and currently injured, but catalytic, and again, cheaper). We weren’t going to get a big slugger, but we were going to get a real center fielder, who wouldn’t break the budget, and who wouldn’t be an automatic out against righties.

And now we see that we have settled for Alejandro De Aza. He doesn’t give us the bat Cespedes brings, the guy who changes the lineup regardless of whether he has it that day, and wins games when he does. The guy who gives you a team that doesn’t need to hope three of its 6-12 hits come in the same inning in order to score a run. But Cespedes wasn’t a center fielder.

Here’s the thing: Alejandro De Aza isn’t a center fielder. He played one game there last year and 16 in 2014. He isn’t good there when he does play— he’s not a good outfielder in general. And unlike Cespedes, he lacks the physical tools that the advanced metrics can’t argue with. Cespedes, Conforto and Granderson is a better defensive alignment than De Aza, Conforto and Granderson. Granderson could probably manage center just as well as De Aza, giving us our choice of slugging outfielders to fill that last corner spot. The Mets know this. Signing De Aza is a concession to the reality: We can’t afford Cespedes, or Upton.

Alejandro De Aza is a decent player and he’s better than one of the outfielders the Mets had last year. With that in mind, he makes the Mets better. But, as is often the case with our decent signings, this move seems to have lowered the ceiling on this team. If Cespedes is out the window, if Parra and Span are out the window, if the plan is to rely on several decent pieces to make up for our big slugger—God forbid we keep the slugger AND add some decent pieces— well, I’m not sure where that leaves us.

We hit the lottery with this rotation. It might cost a billion dollars to sign these pitchers in free agency. We have a window to win a World Series in front of us. If not for a cruel twist of fates— four losses in a best-of-four series in games where we brought Jeurys Familia in with a lead, after three months of undefeated baseball when we gave the ball to #27— we’d be going for a repeat right now.

But the window means nothing if we don’t take advantage. The Cubs have a similar window because of their young hitters, and they’re doing what needs to be done to make the offense (and defense) even scarier while making their relatively weak rotation a force as well. The Mets, supposedly swimming in playoff revenue, handed a gift with the retirement of Michael Cuddyer, and fresh off of weeks of seeing fans flock to the building they said they would spend to put a winner inside of if fans came to see those winners play, could have kept pace (no, we weren’t ahead) this winter. We could have signed a big bat and put him in the outfield, letting the fly balls work themselves out, UZR be damned. We could have signed a top reliever or two, building a bridge to our elite closer and putting out the fire we spent all of October playing with before falling in November to a Kansas City team that had enough reliable bullpen arms to go 9, or 12, or 14 innings many times over.

Sure, maybe Zobrist didn’t make sense. That’s a move you make when you’re the Cubs or the Yankees, with all the money in the world. The guy who isn’t elite, but makes a good team even better— a good team that can afford to pay top-dollar for that extra win or two that makes all the difference.

We know why the Mets don’t have as much money as the Yankees. But the Mets might have more than they do now if they spent responsibly with the money they did have. They came dangerously close to signing Zobrist to a deal that would have seriously limited the budget while not adding all that much to the team. They’ll pay Bartolo Colon, De Aza, Jerry Blevins, and Addison Reed about $24 Million this year, and while those are all one-year deals, that’s $24 Million the owners won’t have when they wake up on the first day of the offseason next year, so it’s nothing to spit at. The $5.5 M given to Reed is perhaps the most frustrating, with elite setup men having signed deals worth “only” $8M per season this month.

And while these relatively low-commitment contracts should leave room for a setup man at least, filling the second-biggest hole on the team, all the setup men have signed deals already. The only solution appears to be a trade for a guy like Jake McGee.

Now, I am a huge fan of Juan Lagares. I would rather have had Juan play every day than sign De Aza, and I am hopeful that he can get back to being an elite fielder (he wasn’t last year) who makes anything he does at the plate just added gravy— and I think his production at the plate will indeed improve. A full season of Michael Conforto will be a big boost as well. Curtis Granderson might regress a bit, but he certainly should get the job done (although his struggles against lefties had me wondering whether there wasn’t room— at least against some pitchers— for Cespedes in the corner, after all). David Wright should provide more than he did last season. Travis d’Arnaud can’t possibly keep suffering freak injuries. Neil Walker, Wilmer Flores, Asdrubal Cabrera and Ruben Tejada give us four solid middle infielders to pick and choose from (but I’d rather quality over quantity). The likes of Danny Muno won’t be getting at-bats in 2016. Depth won’t be a concern.

But did the Mets do enough to take advantage of their pitching-based window? One big concern is the pitchers themselves. Harvey drama aside (Matt, not Steve), the Mets had good health from The Dark Knight, Jacob deGrom, and Noah Syndergaard. Will we get that again in 2016? It’s not a given. Zack Wheeler will bolster the rotation further, but he won’t arrive until July at the earliest, and he might not get fully back into form for some time after that. Steven Matz needs to stay healthy and prove he’s more than a five-inning guy, but he’s certainly on his way to being the best fifth starter of all time. It’s a great pitching foundation, but it has its risks, its (minor) holes, and it’s not all that deep after several trades of guys like Jon Niese and even Michael Fulmer.

We can take the Royals’ approach. Not much spending. No major sluggers. But the Royals have speed, elite defense, and a lockdown bullpen. Lorenzo Cain finished 3rd in MVP voting, so it’s a stretch to say they don’t have star power.

The Mets’ pitching isn’t enough for them to sit back and coast to a World Series championship. They need a bullpen and, most importantly, they need hitting. And it seems all but certain now that their best hitter— the best hitter they’ve had in a long, long time— will be playing elsewhere in 2016.

Is Alejandro De Aza enough to fill that void? Because he’ll be the one flanked by Michael Conforto and Curtis Granderson on Opening Day against the team we just watched celebrate on our field.

There might be more to come. There should— SHOULD— be some payroll flexibility left. Heck, I still have a dream— a complete pipe dream— that Cespedes ends up here. And as we saw last year, impact players can be acquired mid-season to support a playoff push. Maybe De Aza DOES end up being used as a top-notch fifth outfielder. Reports aren’t too promising, but I won’t rule the Mets out just yet. With this team, new developments seem to come out of left field.

But if what we have seen so far is indeed the bulk of the Mets’ effort to return to— and win— the World Series, it makes for quite a letdown.

The championship isn’t won in December. But let’s hope the Mets surprise us (and the reporters, and the “sources,”) by making some moves that make them a more dangerous team when the games begin. Ya Gotta Believe, but ya gotta act, too. Tug’s crew didn’t win the World Series, did they?