The deadline for teams to tender arbitration-eligible players a contract is coming up on Nov. 17 at 8:00 p.m. ET and the New York Mets have to decide on several players. The Mets started the offseason with 16 arbitration-eligible players, but already outrighted OF Rafael Ortega, RHP Elieser Hernández, OF Tim Locastro, C Michael Perez, UT Danny Mendick, and RHP John Curtiss off the 40-man roster and they chose to be free agents.
The Mets have the following arbitration-eligible players with their estimated 2024 salary:
- 1B Pete Alonso $22 million
- DH Daniel Vogelbach $2.6 million
- RHP Drew Smith $2.2 million
- LHP David Peterson $2.0 million
- RHP Trevor Gott $2.0 million
- LHP Joey Lucchesi $2.0 million
- INF Luis Guillorme $1.7 million
- OF DJ Stewart $1.5 million
- RHP Jeff Brigham $1.1 million
- RHP Sam Coonrod $900,000
Drew Smith. John Hefti-USA TODAY Sports
Outside of the obvious in Alonso, the safe bets are likely only lefty pitchers Lucchesi and Peterson; the rest of the bunch are non-tender candidates. Stewart, coming off an impressive short stint to finish the 2023 season, is probably safe, given the lack of outfield options the Mets have right now.
Vogelbach, previously non-tendered by David Stearns in Milwaukee, has the second-largest projected salary of the group and is likely to get cut as the Mets look to upgrade at the DH spot. Smith and Gott are also candidates after uneven 2023 seasons, though the Mets lack of bullpen depth right now could help them. Guillorme is one of the more interesting cases, as he’s coming off a subpar 2023 season and might not have much of a role in the future as the Mets look to go with prospects/younger players in the infield.
There will be several players across MLB non-tendered over the next day, and sometimes that adds interesting names to the free agent pool. Just last year, Cody Bellinger and Jeimer Candelario were non-tendered and went on to play critical roles for their new teams in 2023.
