For the first time since the sports world shut down in mid-March, Mets General Manager Brodie Van Wagenen took questions from the media in a virtual briefing on Monday.
Here are some of the big takeaways.
Team health updates
The Mets have had one player on their current 40-man roster and multiple minor leaguers test positive for the coronavirus, Van Wagenen said.
It isn’t precisely clear what stage of the virus that 40-man player is currently battling, if any. Van Wagenen said the player is “recovering and is in a good position.”
It’s possible that the team uses the newly-created COVID Injured List when camp opens.
Van Wagenen also specified that none of the minor leaguers who tested positive had been at the team facility in Port St. Lucie.
With regards to the players that had been injured when spring training was suspended in March, Van Wagnen did not provide concrete declarations on the statuses of Yoenis Cespedes and Jed Lowrie.
“We are looking forward to [Cespedes] getting into camp and he should be closer to being game-ready than when we saw him last in March,” Van Wagenen said.
“Our hope is that [Lowrie] will be able to continue to transition out of that brace and start to see some more advanced action in the coming days,” Van Wagenen said, confirming that the infielder’s status has not changed much over the past three months.
Michael Conforto, who battled a sprained oblique in March, will not have restrictions.
Noah Syndergaard is progressing well following season-ending elbow surgery in March and will continue his rehab with personal trainers in Florida.
Team will be strict with virus management
As news breaks around the league of players choosing to opt-out of the season, Van Wagenen expects the entire Mets roster to participate.
“At this point we’ve heard that all of our players are making travel arrangements and hope to make it here on time,” he said.
Meanwhile, Van Wagenen will be heading the baseball operations of a club that, not unlike 29 others, will be navigating the health risks that playing during a pandemic poses.
“We have to be careful,” he said. “We have to continue to consult with our medical team, continue to be in touch with Major League Baseball and are following the protocols that they’re advising us to.
“But really education is going to be crucial to us. We have to make sure we understand best practices and social distancing, make sure we know we are keeping ourselves not only apart from one other, but behaving in a way that’s consistent to what’s going to keep us all healthy.
“We will continue to be strict. We can control social distancing on our complex, and we want players and staff to recognize the importance of adhering to those guidelines as much as reasonably possible when they go home.”
Van Wagenen said it will important for clubhouse leaders, like manager Luis Rojas and veteran players, to use their voices to help enforce guidelines.
Designated hitter will be diverse
The Mets’ designated hitter will likely be a committee to start.
Van Wagenen specifically cited Cespedes, J.D. Davis, Dominic Smith, Robinson Cano, and Lowrie as players who have “the offensive profile to take at-bats as a designated hitter.”
Cespedes, however, won’t being viewed strictly as a DH when he’s ready to return to action, with Van Wagenen noting his athleticism as being a strong asset.
State of the pitching staff
The Mets are likely to start the regular season, barring injury, with the presumed five starting pitchers in the rotation, even though a group of six would take the pressure off of everyone to ramp up more quickly.
According to Van Wagenen, the pitchers kept themselves in top shape in the immediate aftermath of the league’s suspension when no one knew how long the break would be.
When it became clear it would be a while, the pitchers slowed down their workloads before speeding back up over the past week to ten days.
“We anticipate everybody being in a position to come here and face hitters pretty quickly into camp,” Van Wagenen said. “How they progress over the next three weeks will be determined on a day-to-day basis.”
Van Wagenen also emphasized bullpen depth as being crucial in the 60-game sprint.
“The bullpen is something that we put a lot of time and energy in over the offseason,” he said. “We’re going to view this as all-hands-on-deck.”
Player pool notes
The Mets did not fill their initial 60-man Player Pool to the limit on Sunday, though the group has increased by five to 50 over the past 24 hours with veterans being brought in on minor league deals.
Van Wagenen said it’s likely that homegrown players will not be added to the Pool until the alternate training site at MCU Park in Brooklyn gets underway.
Compared to other organizations, it was notable that the Mets decided to omit their top prospects from the initial Pool.
“This team is built to win,” Van Wagenen said. “Our intention, at least in the early portion of this process, is to have players in camp that we think are capable of helping us at the major league level this year.”
