Where do we go from here?
So, yeah, not much going on here these days. After a monster 2017, I took a step back in 2018 and have continued that in 2019. Keeping up with the current releases just isn’t as much of a priority for me because there’s just too damn much out there and most of it isn’t particularly interesting. After seeing what Topps did with 2019 Series 1 Jumbo, I’m not hopeful for a whole lot of value in their products this year. And with rising overhead costs on the secondary market, it’s getting harder to track down hidden gems on the low end. On the plus side, I’ve got tons of great stuff that has yet to be scanned, so I’m buried in work if I ever come up with something to put together. Not much of a plus side, but there it is.
2019 is a transition year for the Mets as the Captain has left the field and the front office had significant turnover. That translated into a flurry of offseason moves, but whether that turns into success has yet to be determined. Last year had to have been rock bottom (just look at how many cast-offs were on the roster), but there were still a few glimmers of hope (Cy deGrom) tinged with despair (deGrom’s extension talks). Basically, same old Mets.
Farewells
Adrian Gonzalez, Jose Bautista, Austin Jackson, and about half a dozen relief pitchers I’ve never heard of before were on the Mets in 2018. They’re all pretty much gone. Maybe some of the relievers are still hiding somewhere.
Also gone: two players the Mets just couldn’t quit, Jay Bruce and Jose Reyes. The Mets also cleared their mediocre catcher logjam by dealing Kevin Plawecki, leaving them without Reyes or either of the players they got for letting him walk the first time around. That sure was anticlimactic… And then T.J. Rivera, finally healthy after missing the 2018 season, was cut during spring training. He gave it everything he had, but it apparently wasn’t enough.
More significantly, the Mets dealt 2018 1st round pick Jarred Kelenic and 2016 1st round pick Justin Dunn in their biggest deal of the offseason. Kelenic has the most hype of any Mets prospect since Generation K, so that’s a pricey name off the Mets checklists. Dunn is still well-regarded but was starting to lose some of his luster in 2018.
And most significantly, David Wright ended one of the finest Mets careers of all time. After 40 years, it’s time for Ed Kranepool to pass the torch to the only other player to appear in more than 1,500 games with the Mets and 0 for any other club.
Lastly, Peter Alonso bid farewell to the letter R and now goes by Pete. That’s good news for Topps, where he has been Pete since 2016. Except when he wasn’t.
Hails
The Mets entered the offseason with plenty of questions about the infield, bullpen, catcher, and outfield. The answers were Robinson Cano, Edwin Diaz, Wilson Ramos, and Bry- er, Keon Broxton. Thanks for playing.
But that’s not all the Mets added in their flurry of offseason moves. The Plawecki trade brought in Walter Lockett as pitching depth to be stashed in Syracuse. Jeurys Familia is back, joining Kyle Dowdy (Rule 5 Draft) and Justin Wilson (free agent) in the upgraded bullpen. J.D. Davis and Jed Lowrie add infield depth to, um, ensure playing time for Jeff McNeil and Pete Alonso? I’m sure they’ll find a way to make it work, the Mets are masters of roster management after all…
Beyond the 40-man roster, the Mets loaded up on NRIs like it was going out of style. Ryan O’Rourke, Rajai Davis, Gregor Blanco, Rymer Liriano, Arquimedes Caminero, Hector Santiago, Luis Avilan, Danny Espinosa, Adeiny Hechavarria… Even Devin Mesoraco, Dilson Herrera, and Carlos Gomez are back. It’s a packed clubhouse in St. Lucie.
And that’s not all! So many minor league free agents were signed that I can’t keep track of them all. Here are some of them. Who will make the majors, nobody knows. But I’m ready in any case.
Rookies
All aboard the Jeff McNeil hype train! A dozen or so Mets became eligible for Rookie Cards in 2018 without receiving one that year, but McNeil is the only one with a card in 2019 Topps Series 1. 2019 Topps Heritage pairs him with Drew Smith, who has since had Tommy John surgery, likely taking him out of the running for later releases. None of the other eligible Rookies are likely to be significant factors in 2019, but McNeil has the potential to match Amed Rosario’s record-setting Mets Rookie Card checklist. And without any competition for Mets RCs until Peter, er, Pete Alonso is eligible, we should be seeing plenty of him in 2019.
Prospects
Pete Alonso will wrap up his prospect eligibility in 2019 and Tim Tebow, um, is still around. Beyond that, look for Topps to try to make up for lost time with Andres Gimenez and Ronny Mauricio; the former finally got his first autographs from Topps/Bowman in 2018 and the latter only has a single fully licensed card to date (an insert in 2018 Bowman High Tek). I’ve lost track of most of what’s going on in the minors, but there could be some interesting names in play with Alonso and Kelenic off the board. Or Topps could just go with guys they haven’t used since 2017 and a few random 2nd and 3rd round picks. Yeah, probably that.
Memorabilia
It’s safe to say that Mets memorabilia has cooled down a bit since the 2016 boom. As with most things, we’re down to Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard, the year’s default Rookies, and occasional appearances from a few other players. But while quantity was down, quality was a different story. Let’s face it, junk relics are, well, junk. Better to have a few nice pieces than a pile of junk (of ever-increasing thickness for no good reason). Patches from holiday jerseys were out in force, including Memorial Day (deGrom and Syndergaard), Independence Day (deGrom and Syndergaard), and Mothers’ Day (Syndergaard). Jeurys Familia’s 2016 Spring Training patches were also a nice surprise. Holdovers from the Royal Giants jerseys (Syndergaard) and racing stripe replicas (Cespedes, Matz, and Syndergaard) added to the variety. While I hate most of these silly patch sets, at least they’re good for keeping things from getting too stale. And it makes it easier to justify spending a little more to get cards from premium products.
Speaking of Memorial Day, the Mets had it as a home game in 2017, which means they wore pinstripes. Black pinstripes. That’s a first, as are these black pinstripe jersey cards. Welcome travelers from the distant future wondering when the Mets wore black pinstripes! Other pinstripe firsts included Jay Bruce’s first Mets pinstripes (from a pair of pants) and the first Mets Arizona Fall League memorabilia (from Tomas Nido).
Jacob deGrom was the Mets’ lone representative at the 2018 MLB All-Star Game, so we got some bits of red and blue fabric from the jersey he didn’t wear in the actual game. So that much went according to plan. Futures Game jerseys continue to be hit or miss, which was ‘miss’ for the Mets who appeared in the 2017 game. Good thing the Mets keep picking up guys who appeared in early 2000s iterations of the Futures Game, which still have plenty of material available.
Despite those odds and ends though, there’s still a lot of Mets memorabilia we haven’t seen in cards yet – Todd Frazier, Brandon Nimmo, Jeff McNeil, Luis Guillorme, and the various newcomers could all be in play. The move to slightly less common (but still readily attainable) memorabilia cards with larger swatches and, in some cases, MLB hologram authentication could keep things interesting. But they’ve got to keep expanding the player selection if they want to keep my attention. And lay off that player-worn crap, which is already in full force for Pete Alonso over on the Panini/Donruss side of things…
Autographs
Noah Syndergaard is still going strong with the pen, nearly matching his 2017 output in 2018 and already getting a good start in 2019. Only Amed Rosario was a more prolific Mets signer in 2018 and he’s due for a break as Jeff McNeil takes over as the default Mets Rookie. Jacob deGrom should be in demand after his Cy Young season, but expect his print runs to remain low. The surprise big signer of 2018 turned out to be Darryl Strawberry, who kicked off 2019 as a last minute replacement for Keith Hernandez at the 2019 Queens Baseball Convention and had autographs in 2019 Topps Series 1.
2019 could prove to be a breakout year for Brandon Nimmo, who hadn’t had a Topps autograph since 2014 before 2019 Topps Series 1 (and only had a handful of autographs from Panini in that span). Michael Conforto also continues to be underutilized (and Panini still hasn’t gotten his redemptions from 2014 signed…). And with so many new faces, the active roster could be full of notable autographs by the end of the year.
On the retired side, the actual 50th anniversary of the 1969 Mets should be good for something, but the Heritage “50th” anniversary was only good for six extremely limited autographs. Art Shamsky has been spending a lot of time with the team alongside Ed Kranepool and Cleon Jones, maybe there’s an opportunity there? Maybe Felix Millan is an indication that Topps is looking ahead to the 1973 team? Jon Matlack is on my shortlist of most-wanted autograph subjects…
Sadly, it looks like Tom Seaver is off the list of potential signers as he retires from public life to focus on his health. He had started to make a return to the hobby, but some things are more important than scraps of cardboard. He’s given us so much, we can give him this.
Playing Pepper 2019: New York Mets
You would think that the sheer number of actual well-informed year-round Mets writers who take part in this every year would eventually bump me off the invite list, but Daniel Shoptaw once again sent me a list of questions about the Mets. And I once again provided something resembling answers.
1) What are your thoughts on the offseason? What was good, what was bad, what else could they have done?
Oh boy. Um, well, they certainly could have tried harder to obtain the entire 2018 AL All-Star team. They got three of them, leaving some intriguing names on the table. I mean, sure, I’m joking here, but the list includes Manny Machado, Craig Kimbrel, and Corey Kluber, so it’s partly serious.
Collections aside, they got enough players to field a real major league team, so that’s, good? In all, the new front office picked up more than three dozen players for the majors, minors, and indeterminate points between, so there’s a lot to process here. Honestly, I lost track somewhere around Justin Wilson. They stocked the bullpen, beefed up the infield, got a legitimate starting catcher, and seem to be counting on Yoenis Cespedes returning sooner rather than later. Yeah, that last part’s kind of a problem. When you start hyping a player’s expected midseason return as being like a big trade deadline deal in January, that’s certainly less than ideal. Until then, enjoy the Jeff McNeil Left Field Experiment.
2) Who is the player most likely to pick up the mantle of “face of the franchise” that David Wright laid down?
Well, the literal interpretation is obvious. If Brandon Nimmo isn’t the Face of the Franchise, it’s not a franchise I want to be a part of. And if you’ve ever met the guy, you could absolutely see him taking over David Wright’s role in the clubhouse. He had a breakout season last year, so hopefully that keeps him in the lineup this season. But this team’s track record with young position players doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence.
3) Is pitching still the core of this team and the best indicator of how the season will go?
Yes, but not necessarily for the right reasons. The rotation is the only thing left unchanged from last season (well, that and ownership…), so it’s as close to a known quantity as there is with the Mets. That leaves very little margin for error as the rest of the team finds its footing over the course of the season. Add to that the lack of starting pitching depth and any problem with the rotation could doom the team’s chances. Sure, Chris “Not Good Enough for a Rookie Card from Topps” Flexen is in the best shape of anyone’s life and looks like he can literally carry the team, but it’s mostly question marks and lottery tickets behind the top four starters.
The more subtle indicator to watch for is player utilization. This team is more a collection of odds and ends than a traditional team, so it’s going to take some skill (or a lot of freak injuries) to make the most of the available talent. There should be plenty of opportunities for everyone, but the tendency to play underperforming veterans over up-and-coming young players could keep this team from reaching its full potential. And if Pete Alonso is healthy and in the minors three weeks into the season, something has gone horribly wrong.
4) What is your general outlook for 2019? Where will they finish in the division?
Ahead of the Marlins. Beyond that, there’s just too much variance to say anything with any certainty. Let’s say 84 wins +/-6 and 3rd place +/-1. The NL East is a division filled with unknowns this year, which should make things interesting. Expect one team to break out in a big way, one to utterly collapse, two to be competitive but come up short, and one to be the Marlins.
5) What’s the biggest question for this team going into the season and what’s the answer to it?
At the moment, “Will Jacob deGrom be the next ‘Tom Seaver: Franchise Ace’ or the next ‘Tom Seaver: Midnight Massacre?'” is the big question. I don’t see how the Mets could let deGrom go, but they let Seaver go. Twice. How this plays out will be very telling.
6) What do you expect will give you the most joy watching this team on a regular basis this season?
Did you say joy? Again, that would be Brandon Nimmo. Really though, it’s great seeing young players come up through the minors and have an impact at the major league level. I see more minor league games than major league games (mainly due to being out of market and too cheap to buy a streaming service plan), so I’ve gotten to see Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Michael Conforto, Brandon Nimmo, Amed Rosario, Jeff Mcneil, Pete Alonso, and many others at earlier points in their careers. Most never make it to the majors and many more make it but don’t stick. It’s truly special to see a player live up to unreasonable prospect hype or overcome obstacles in the minors to find success with the big league club.
OK, I lied. I will almost certainly get the most joy from seeing my greatest creation pop up everywhere I expect and then some. From the moment I captured this clip, I knew it had the makings of something special that conveyed the Mets experience better than anything else. But I never could have imagined that it would resonate with #MetsTwitter quite this much. It’s almost a given that I will see some random person using it 162 times a season. Even if the team goes 162-0 and all of their postseason opponents forfeit in fear, every day will find some reason to bring shame upon the club. And so we hang our heads with Mr. Met (sometimes because of Mr. Met…) and come back the next day full of hope for what will probably be another lost season or a postseason run that just falls painfully short. Because even when everything comes crashing down, there’s a GIF for that. And somehow, that makes it all seem a little bit better.
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