The best Mets baseball directors have arrived in Florida, many of them quarantining themselves, preparing for pitchers and catchers to appear and launch what figures to be a unique campaign.
However, this does not mark the end of Mets’ Hot Stove League participation.
“No, we’re not done,” Zets Scott, acting director of Mets, said Friday at a Zoom news conference. “We want to do other things. Will everything line up and those things happen? Maybe yes, maybe no.
“I said [Mets president] sandy [Alderson] that I am satisfied with the team as it is, but if we make improvements, we will make improvements. We certainly haven’t finished trying to make improvements to the team. ”
As a result, the Mets remain in touch with left-hander Justin Wilson, an industry source said. Wilson, 33, has enjoyed playing for the Mets for the past two seasons and is interested in returning. He could make the decision this weekend.
The Mets face obvious depth issues in the starting rotation, with a handful of interesting free agents such as Jake Odorizzi, James Paxton and Taijuan Walker still unsigned. Scott acknowledged that the team’s defense was not a recent force, which explains the Mets’ serious search for free agent center fielder Jackie Bradley Jr. (who is waiting for better offers).
Then there is the third base, which has generated a blizzard of speculation.
“We really like JD Davis,” Scott said of the current third-place leader. “He is someone who can really hit and obviously we can have him under control for a while. He is a very valuable player for our organization. So … I know there were a lot of rumors out there. We will always look for ways to improve the team in any way we can. But we feel completely comfortable entering the season, JD Davis playing an important role in our club. ”
In his first official appearance in the press since Alderson promoted him following the dismissal of Jared Porter, Scott addressed a number of the team’s issues, including:
• The team has not yet engaged with All-Stars, Michael Conforto and Francisco Lindor, on potential extensions.
“I’ve always looked at these, the best time to do this is in spring training and I think we’re going to have these conversations,” Scott said. “We had internal conversations [about extensions]. … This is an important thing for us, at least to talk to the players about the potential for these types of offers. ”
Lindor would probably need an extension of over $ 300 million, and Conforto over $ 100 million, to bypass the free agency, and both said they would prefer not to negotiate during the regular season. Scott said: “There should be a lot of time to talk about this before the season starts to figure out if there’s anything to do or not.”
• The club hopes to have Noah Syndergaard, who is rehabilitating after Tommy John’s operation, until June.
• National League uncertainty that adds the designated player this season will not stop the Mets from making a significant commitment to a positional player, despite the potential blockage.
“I think we have a lot of flexibility here,” Scott said.
• New outfield coach Tony Tarasco will play a significant role in improving the club’s outfield defense, with center-back (for now) Brandon Nimmo and left-back (for now) Dom Smith, both important gears.
• The purchase last week of Khalil Lee of the Royals, in a three-team deal that sent outfielder Andrew Benintendi from Boston to Kansas City, took place as a by-product of Scott’s relationship with his former co-workers. .
“We haven’t had direct conversations with Kansas City about it,” he said. “With my connections to Boston, honestly, they know I liked Khalil Lee. They reached out and asked if there would be interest here. We were delighted. Our professional scouts here really liked the player. Lots of tools and athletics. We also liked a lot of things about his performance. ”
• Scott saved his best dances for a pair of polarizing players, Trevor Bauer and Tim Tebow. Asked if Tebow, the ever-injured minor league outfielder of the Mets, will be invited to the major league camp, as he has been for the past three years, Scott said: “We’re still finishing these things, so I’m hesitant to I’m talking about certain players. “Major League Baseball limits teams to a maximum of 75 players in the big league camp, for health and safety reasons.
As for the controversial Bauer, to whom the Mets offered $ 105 million over three years, before he signed with the Dodgers for $ 3 million less, Scott was asked how seriously they viewed the Mets’ history. social media aggression pitcher.
“I’m reluctant to talk about a player who just signed with another club, but I’ll talk more generally: These things are important to discuss whenever you sign a free agent,” Scott said. “It’s not so much about investing dollars in a person. You put that aside. You just want to know what kind of person you bring to the organization, so you have to do a lot of checks in this regard. In some cases, you need to talk directly to the player about some things and ask good questions and see how they handle things. I think this is a process we do with everyone. ”
• Scott finally shed some light on his unusual path to his current job: interviewed for the opening of the GM Mets, finished second to Porter, joined the Mets anyway in December as a GM assistant, and then went up when the Mets found out about Porter’s 2016 harassment. of a woman journalist.
“He certainly recorded his ups and downs,” Scott said. “It simply came to our notice then [the GM job] it was a disappointment, but I was still very excited to join the organization. … One of the reasons I joined the Mets is obviously that I had a long professional relationship with Jared [from working together at the Red Sox]. He’s a good friend of mine. It is unfortunate what happened there. … I am here to step up and do whatever it takes to help the organization. I have a slightly different role now. ”