The tender baseball deadline has come and gone. If you missed any of the Mets news from it, here’s a great recap for you. But one thing happened on Wednesday in addition to all of this news — Cohen took to Twitter to ask Mets fans an important question:
Who was the most interesting player non- tendered and why?
— Steven Cohen (@StevenACohen2) December 3, 2020
Just another way that Cohen shows the fans he cares about what they think, what they want, and the improvement of this organization.
Naturally, we here at MMO have taken it upon ourselves to also answer this question, just like when he asked what would make our Mets experience better.
Steve Cohen, here is who we think is the most interesting player non-tendered and why.
The most intriguing non-tender is our familiar friend, Hansel Robles. Robles was dominant in 2019 and struggled in the shortened 2020 season. I’d still love to see his arm in the bullpen though. I think if you’re Sandy Alderson and company, you’d like to see Robles over Brad Brach. Robles has ways to go but he’s also shown the capability to have dominant stretches. He also has the greatest reliever entrance of all time but that’s not relevant to this.
Two intriguing non-tenders from today that jumped out we’re Kyle Schwarber of the Chicago Cubs and David Dahl of the Colorado Rockies. While those players don’t necessarily profile well for the Mets current needs, it was interesting to see them let go, especially in the case of Dahl who’s shown to be quality major league hitter during his time in Colorado. If the Universal DH is here to stay there should be plenty of suiters for Schawber’s power bat as well.
In terms of who the Mets could use this upcoming season, I think Ryne Stanek could be an interesting suitor as both an innings option at the front of the bullpen and possible depth at the back of the starting rotation. He barely got any action with the Marlins this past season, but once held down the fort as an opener with the Tampa Bay Rays, and he wasn’t half bad: he averaged 10.7 K/9 in 122 appearances (56 starts, 22 games finished) between 2018 and 2019, and lefties hit just .183 against him in that time.
He also sat in the 97th percentile for fastball velocity, and gets a lot of spin on the ball, too. Between him and Sam McWilliams, the Mets would have two hard-throwing righty projects from a solid pitching background serving as basic, short-term relief depth. Sandy and co. should not hesitate to offer Stanek a minor-league deal.
I’ve got to agree with Dilip here in that I think Robles would be an intriguing option. You can bring up the “pointing to the sky” jokes all you want, but the fact is that this dude still has a mid-90s fastball and was dominant in 2019 with the Angels, posting a 2.48 ERA with 9.3 K/9 and 2.0 BB/9. He’s good, and still has a live arm, plus plenty of familiarity with this organization. Especially for a team whose bullpen struggled so mightily last year, this is the kind of guy you absolutely take a flyer on if presented the opportunity.
