Credit: Andy Marlin-USA TODAY Sports
While the Houston Astros were successful in forcing a World Series Game 6 showdown in Texas on Tuesday night, there’s no way around it — the baseball season will officially end sometime this week. That means the Hot Stove will finally become the main focus of all 30 MLB teams.
The New York Mets are still trying to get their open front office roles filled, but as the offseason calendar gets underway, there will be no time to wait for people to come in before making important roster decisions. Two of those decisions include pending free agents Noah Syndergaard and Michael Conforto.
As each year passes by, it’s another year further from New York’s last successful run of consecutive playoff appearances in 2015 and 2016, which included a trip to the World Series. The 2021 roster didn’t have many players left from that period, but it did include Syndergaard (although he was hardly active this season), Conforto, Jacob deGrom, and Jeurys Familia.
Familia is also set to be a free agent and reportedly wants to stay in New York, but he already left once via trade before returning in free agency. And at least for the immediate future, deGrom isn’t going anywhere, which leaves us with just Thor and Scooter, who rented an apartment together during the 2016 season.
There was hope that both Syndergaard and Conforto would be crucial pieces to a competitive Mets team this past season, but that obviously didn’t happen, and they put forth two very different disappointing seasons. However, it’s impossible to not see the impact they’ve made since both debuted during the 2015 campaign.
Two seasons have been cut short by injury for Thor (2017 and 2021) outside of completely missing 2020, but when he was on the mound consistently, he made his presence felt. He started at least 24 games and never hurled fewer than 150 innings on four different occasions. This included an appearance in the 2016 All-Star Game, and he enjoyed three years with at least 4.0 fWAR. While his 717 career innings with the Mets ranks just outside the top-20 all-time, his cumulative fWAR of 18.6 ranks ninth in franchise history.
Conforto has also made his mark on franchise leaderboards during his short time with the club. Outside of etching his name in record books thanks to a two-homer performance in Game 4 of the 2015 World Series, the 28-year-old has been a mostly steady contributor in New York’s lineup. Not only is his 16.9 fWAR within the top-15 in franchise history, but he’s done quite a bit of work on the home run leaderboard.
Pete Alonso is hot on his tail, but Conforto finished the 2021 campaign with 132 career homers. Only six Mets hitters have hit more during their time in Flushing: Darryl Strawberry, David Wright, Mike Piazza, Howard Johnson, Dave Kingman, and Carlos Beltrán. That’s some decent company, I’d say.
The immediate future for both of these guys also seems to be different, according to reports earlier this fall. After making his season debut in September, Syndergaard essentially said he’d be willing to accept and grateful to receive a qualifying offer from the Mets and leaving the organization would be a “tough pill to swallow“. As for Conforto, early indications are that the Scott Boras client wouldn’t accept a qualifying offer if one is extended to him.
Time will tell how much of a presence the last successful Mets team will have on the 2022 roster. At its best, there won’t be more than 2021, with a good chance there will be less. What’s tough here is the emotional aspect of the game — these two dudes were part of a National League pennant-winning club as rookies. They were seen as crucial parts of the future, with the hope that 2015 was just the beginning of the next successful batch of Mets teams.
That didn’t happen, and now their potential departures give us yet another opportunity to think about what could’ve been. Or, maybe they’ll both be back to have another crack at earning some October glory in New York.
What do you think, Mets fans? Out of these two, which one is more likely to return to the organization? What are the chances they both return?
