On August 18 in Colorado, Ha-Seong Kim led off first base, then dived back to beat a pickoff attempt. He tore the labrum in his right shoulder, and that was the last time we saw him play in 2024. After a failed rehab attempt, Kim underwent surgery in October, and he won’t be ready to play again until sometime between April and June. Just as uncertain: Where exactly Kim will be suiting up when he returns. There’s no doubt about his skill. Over the past four years, Kim has spent time at second, short, and third, and neither DRS nor FRV has ever rated him as below average at any of those spots. He needed a year to adjust on offense after arriving from the KBO in 2021, but over the past three seasons, he’s run a 106 wRC+. That ranks 13th among shortstops, and over the same period, his 10.5 WAR ranks 11th.

Kim entered free agency after both he and the Padres declined their ends of a mutual option, and he came in at ninth on our Top 50 Free Agents. According to the projections, he’ll command a four- or five-year deal with an AAV in the neighborhood of $19 million. However, the shoulder injury could cost him as much as half of the 2025 season, and it makes for a tough needle to thread. He’s got to sign with a team that needs a solid infielder, but not badly enough to need one right away. Moreover, a shoulder injury is especially scary for Kim, whose arm strength is an important part of his overall value and who already possesses below-average power at the plate. For that reason, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Kim get a pillow contract: Ben Clemens proposed two years with an opt-out. Back in November, Mark Feinsand reported that Kim had generated “lots of interest,” and wrote about the possibility that he’d be among the first free agents off the board. However, it’s now late January, and if you cruise through our Depth Charts, you’ll notice that there just don’t seem to be many good landing spots for Kim. Let us begin our litanies. Read the rest of this entry »

For the 21st consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Batters

The Pirates got off to a hot start in 2024, winning 10 of their first 14 games, but getting swept in consecutive series against the Mets and Red Sox quickly vaporized their small early cushion in the NL Central. Pittsburgh didn’t collapse, though, and played respectable baseball for the next three months; at the trade deadline, the Pirates stood just 2 1/2 games out of the final wild card spot in the NL, with the debut of Paul Skenes serving as a harbinger of hope that better days might be ahead. Pittsburgh made some low-key pickups at the deadline, but none of them made much of an impact, and its pitching collapsed in August, sealing the team’s 2024 fate.

Looking down the lineup, it’s not truly a mess anywhere – with the possible exception of DH, which makes me sad since it’s Andrew McCutchen – but it’s hard to get past the feeling of being underwhelmed. Moving Oneil Cruz to center field isn’t the worst idea around, but you’d like to see the organization’s grand plan involve something more ambitious than Isiah Kiner-Falefa playing shortstop every day. I know it’s a pipe dream given their ownership, but the Pirates would be a whole lot more interesting right now if after moving Cruz to the outfield, they’d splurged on, say, Willy Adames in free agency. Alas.

However, there are some things to like, if not love, with this lineup entering 2025. Nick Gonzales has improved enough that he’s a perfectly fine second baseman, albeit not one likely to make any All-Star appearances. ZiPS is optimistic about Spencer Horwitz’s bat at first base, and it was a nice little move to get him for Luis L. Ortiz and hope he’ll see some positive regression from his .243 BABIP. I think we’ve reached the point at which we recognize that Ke’Bryan Hayes does not have the offensive upside that he showed in a very brief debut, but he’s still got a terrific glove; ZiPS projects a far more typical season for him. I’m still not sold on Joey Bart, but I also think Endy Rodríguez has a pretty decent ceiling so long as he’s fully recovered from his UCL injury, so catcher isn’t really a problem position for Pittsburgh.

I hope that Bryan Reynolds has had enough consecutive 2-3 WAR seasons that people stop sending me angry DMs about ZiPS projecting him to have 2-3 WAR seasons! It’s nice that the Pirates actually paid to keep him around, but Reynolds is also just a solid player, not a star. Right field feels more like a collection of role players assembled rather than a real upside position, but ZiPS does believe Jack Suwinski can get back to his 2022-2023 level of offense after an absolutely brutal 2024.

The Pirates’ lineup is… OK… ish. I think what lends to the pallor is that it just doesn’t feel like there’s much of a ceiling here. A reclamation project or a gamble or two, rather than filling out the roster with known quantities, would have been a lot more interesting at some of these positions. McCutchen isn’t going to suddenly be 25 again. The big exception might be Henry Davis, but he was brutal enough in his very brief time in the majors that he’s likely going to have to continue raking at Triple-A before he gets another shot in the majors, and possibly answer the question of what position he should play (if any).

Pitchers

Paul Skenes and Mitch Keller are a double reminder that the Pirates — even though they’ve finished with a winning record just once (barely) over the last nine seasons — do at least some things far better than in the bleakest days of the Cam Bonifay/David Littlefield era. Skenes was the right guy to take in the draft, and Pittsburgh did a good job with him, promoting him quickly with confidence while ramping up his pitch count slowly and surely. Back in the bad old days, there’s no chance that Keller would have gotten a five-year contract extension. Skenes and Keller are a solid one-two punch, and ZiPS has a lot of confidence that Jared Jones can build upon his rookie year success.

The back of the rotation is adequate. Bailey Falter is extremely hittable, but at least he’s developing into a decent fourth-starter/innings-eater type. Johan Oviedo, Bubba Chandler, and Braxton Ashcraft all get projections in the same general realm as Falter, and ZiPS also includes Thomas Harrington in that same tier. Overall, this is a solid staff because of its first three pitchers, but none of these other guys are breakout candidates, so the ceiling of Pittsburgh’s rotation is limited. Because of Skenes, Keller, and Jones, the Pirates probably have the makings of a top-10 rotation in baseball, and even though this group probably won’t climb into the top five, this amounts to a team highlight.

The bullpen looks a lot like the rotation, except it doesn’t have a reliever of Skenes’ caliber. It’s a bit Olive Garden-esque, which I don’t actually mean as an insult. There’s nothing exciting about the bullpen, but at least most of the relievers are decent, if somewhat interchangeable. ZiPS projects seven Pirates relievers to finish with an ERA+ between 100 and David Bednar’s 116, with nobody projecting above that mark. That’s not the end of the world; if you’ve seen an episode of Kitchen Nightmares, you should be aware that the quality of new restaurants can fluctuate widely, whereas middle-of-the-road chains are known commodities. This bullpen will hold leads as well as Olive Garden’s endless breadsticks will get you a week’s worth of carbs on the cheap, but neither will be the highlight of your Instagram. He didn’t get a great projection, but Kyle Nicolas in a relief-only role might be the most interesting of Pittsburgh’s non-established relievers, with enough nastiness to his stuff that he could blossom if his command improves.

ZiPS sees the Pirates as a .500 team, but in the very early team projections I’ve run, they just have less upside than the rest of the division. If ZiPS is accurate, it’s certainly a concern for the lowest-spending team in the division to have the lowest ceiling as well. Considering this, if the Pirates aren’t going to spend more — which they surely will not — they should instead roll the dice a little bit more to get some low-cost, high-upside players. As of now, though, that isn’t what they’re doing, and that’s a shame because they do have some young and exciting stars who could make for a talented core if ownership were willing to surround them with some capable complementary pieces. Even so, the bright spots of this overall lackluster roster should offer fans enough of a reason to watch the Pirates this year.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here. Size of player names is very roughly proportional to Depth Chart playing time. The final team projections may differ considerably from our Depth Chart playing time.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned or have retired, players who will miss 2025 due to injury, and players who were released in 2024. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Norwegian Ukulele Dixieland Jazz band that only covers songs by The Smiths, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.11.

Hitters are ranked by zWAR, which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those that appear in the full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR. It is important to remember that ZiPS is agnostic about playing time, and has no information about, for example, how quickly a team will call up a prospect or what veteran has fallen into disfavor.

As always, incorrect projections are either caused by misinformation, a non-pragmatic reality, or by the skillful sabotage of our friend and former editor. You can, however, still get mad at me on Twitter or on BlueSky.

Look, I get it. You’re up in arms about the Roki Sasaki deal. The rich got richer and we’re all tired of the Dodgers signing every free agent (even you, Dodgers fans) — can they at least make it seem like it’s a level playing field? If that’s how you’ve been feeling this week, though, I’ve got some bad news for you, because I think the two moves the Dodgers have made since signing Sasaki might be bigger deals for 2025. Over the weekend, they signed the top reliever on the market, Tanner Scott. Now, they’re reportedly working on an agreement with Kirby Yates. As Yates’ signing is still pending a physical and has yet to be finalized, let’s cover Scott first, then ruminate on Yates at the end.

Scott’s deal, for four years and $72 million, befits an elite reliever, and that’s exactly what he is. He’s compiled a 2.04 ERA (2.53 FIP) across 150 innings over the last two years, using a lights-out slider and excellent fastball in roughly equal measure. We’re not talking about smoke and mirrors here; both of our pitch models think his fastball is one of the best handful in the game. His gaudy swinging strike rates provide supporting evidence. He sits 96-98 mph and touches 100. Sure, he walks his fair share of batters, but he’s a reliever – that’s just part of the bargain you accept sometimes.

If you’ll recall, the Dodgers leaned heavily on their bullpen in the 2024 postseason. Some of that was because of injuries to the starting rotation, but plenty of it was by choice. The Dodgers assembled a unit with four late-game options, and they used those options aggressively and opportunistically. Best opposing hitter up in the sixth inning? Send in a closer. Starter in a jam and the game on the line earlier than you expected? Send in a closer. Save situation? Fine, sure, we have a few left over anyway, send in a closer. Read the rest of this entry »

Like most of you, I’ve spent all winter with one eye on the Hall of Fame ballot tracker run by Ryan Thibodaux, Anthony Calamis, and Adam Dore.

As an aside: I love the tracker, partly because it’s in the best traditions of citizen journalism/archivism, and has been made essential within its niche by the enthusiasm and thoroughness of the people who run it. It reminds me of The Himalayan Database, which is considered the definitive list of all the climbers who have summited the highest mountains in the world. The Database was founded and run not by a sponsor or NGO, but by a single journalist, Elizabeth Hawley, who tracked, verified, and published ascents from the 1960s until her death in 2018. In this age of corporatization, conglomeration, and misinformation, it’s invigorating to see a single trusted list of Things That Happened published online somewhere by people who care about the historical record.

Anyway, last week, I noticed a fresh shipment of ballots from voters representing the Philadelphia BBWAA chapter, which included a swell of support for Jimmy Rollins’ candidacy. By Sunday, as I was looking over Inquirer columnist Marcus Hayes’ ballot, I found myself experiencing an unexpected combination of emotions. Read the rest of this entry »

It must have been fifth grade or so when I encountered the “compare and contrast” essay prompt for the first time. I remember thinking: What the hell? These two passages were written by different people. Why is it on me to tell you what is similar about them?

Over the years, I got better at these prompts. But it appears I’ve regressed. Two relievers signed eight-figure contracts last week. What’s similar? They both closed out games for World Series-winning teams in the 2020s, will likely handle the eighth inning for their new employers, and were born in the glorious and blessed year of 1993. What’s different? One throws right-handed, one throws left-handed. One signed with a contender; one perhaps got paid a premium so his team can try to avoid an MLBPA grievance.

But there are limits to the illuminating qualities of comparison. These days, individualized analysis is required to assess the effectiveness of a pitcher, so that’s how this post will proceed today. A.J. Minter and José Leclerc will earn life-changing quantities of money to chuck leather a few dozen times. Let’s find out why. Read the rest of this entry »

The Toronto Blue Jays have finally signed a free agent slugger, agreeing to a five-year, $92.5 million deal with outfielder Anthony Santander on Monday afternoon. A former Rule 5 pick out of Cleveland, Santander has spent his whole major league career with the Baltimore Orioles. He’s amassed 9.6 WAR, 155 home runs, and a 113 wRC+ in 2,830 plate appearances since his 2017 debut, but these numbers are also dragged down a bit by the fact it took him a few years to really get going as a hitter. Since the start of 2022, his age-27 season, he’s been worth 8.3 WAR and posted a much sunnier 124 wRC+. This past year was the best full season of his career thus far; he slashed .235/.308/.506 and set career highs with 44 homers, a 129 wRC+, and 3.3 WAR en route to earning his first All-Star selection and Silver Slugger award.

Anthony Santander and Blue Jays are in agreement pending physical, sources say. @MLBNetwork

— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) January 20, 2025

Santander’s deal includes a club option for 2030 and an opt-out after the 2027 season, according to multiple reports. The club option is a conditional one; if Santander chooses to opt out, Toronto can void his decision so long as it tacks on the sixth year, which would bring the total value of the contract to $110 million. The options here don’t change the calculus of the deal all that much. Considering Santander is already 30 and doesn’t offer much more than his power, he probably won’t risk the security of his contract unless his production with the Jays exceeds what he did with the Orioles — and even then, he might rather stay put. Similarly, the Jays probably won’t exercise their option for the sixth year unless he continues to be a viable middle-of-the-order slugger into this mid-30s. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2025 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Adam Jones was Mr. Baltimore. Though he was born in San Diego and began his major league career in Seattle, Jones took to Baltimore upon being traded to the Orioles in 2008. On the field, he set an example for younger teammates during lean years, and his combination of power, speed, and graceful defense eventually helped the team end an epic streak of futility. He served as a starter on the Orioles’ first three playoff teams in this millennium, winning four Gold Gloves and making five All-Star teams. Off the field, Jones invested in the city, annually donating a significant chunk of his salary to the local Boys & Girls Club and other charitable endeavors. He emerged as a civic icon, a Black athlete who could relate to the hardships experienced by the city’s Black population, and one who wasn’t afraid to speak out regarding the injustices he saw both locally and nationally.

Jones’ national prominence reached its zenith in 2017 when he made a memorable, iconic catch to rob Manny Machado of a home run while playing center field during the World Baseball Classic — a key moment in helping Team USA win the tournament for the only time thus far. Read the rest of this entry »

Kristian Campbell shot up the rankings last year, and elevating was a big reason why. Known primarily for his athleticism and bat-to-ball skills when he was drafted 132nd overall by the Red Sox in 2023, the Georgia Tech product transformed his right-handed stroke to the tune of 20 home runs and a 180 wRC+ over 517 plate appearances across three levels. Flying under most radar as recently as a year ago, Campbell is now one of the game’s top prospects. Moreover, he has a legitimate chance to break camp as Boston’s starting second baseman.

I asked the 22-year-old infielder about his swing change when the Red Sox held their annual rookie development camp at Fenway Park earlier this week.

“It’s been all about bat path,” explained Campbell, who had a 90% contact rate but just four home runs in his lone collegiate season (he’d been a freshman redshirt in 2022) . “Instead of being flat, or straight down, I’m trying to hit the ball at a good angle. That’s what I lacked coming into pro baseball, hitting the ball in the air. I never really hit for power before last year.”

The proof is in the numbers, and not just ones that can be found on the back of a baseball card. In 2023, Campbell went deep once in 84 professional plate appearances while logging a 48% ground ball rate with a minus-2 attack angle. This past season, the aforementioned 20 home runs — eight each in High-A and Double-A, and four in Triple-A — were accompanied by a 39% ground ball rate and a plus-9 attack angle. His xwOBAcon jumped from .327 to .422.

According to Campbell, his conversion didn’t require a complete revamping of his mechanics. Read the rest of this entry »

Major League Baseball had its “Kevin Durant is a Warrior” moment on Friday, when 23-year-old Japanese phenom Roki Sasaki agreed to sign with the defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers for $6.5 million. Sasaki himself announced his decision via his Instagram, while his bonus was reported on X by The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya and Alden González of ESPN.

If he can stay healthy, Sasaki is a likely front-of-the-rotation arm who has the talent to win Cy Young Awards. When he’s been fully operational, his fastball has averaged nearly 99 mph, he has an elite splitter, and his slider became a useable weapon in 2022. He joins a loaded Dodgers roster that has five or six other players who either have won a Cy Young or MVP (Freddie Freeman, Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Blake Snell), or could conceivably do so in their best season (Tyler Glasnow and maybe Yoshinobu Yamamoto). One and a half of those players weren’t even on last year’s Dodgers title team. As I’m writing this, the Dodgers have not yet announced the signing. Though Sasaki’s contract is technically a minor league deal, and he isn’t yet on the 40-man roster, he is overwhelmingly likely to break camp with the Dodgers’ big league club and be part of their squad that opens the season against the Cubs in Japan on March 18-19. Read the rest of this entry »

When the Mets signed Juan Soto in December, he was, technically speaking, filling the hole that Jesse Winker left behind. Of course, that’s a bit like buying the Batmobile to replace an expired bus pass. Winker’s greatest strength is drawing walks, and Soto’s career walk rate makes Winker’s career walk rate look like Jeff McNeil’s career walk rate. Still, the point stands. The Mets lost one lefty-batting corner outfielder to free agency and replaced him with another. Yet, on Thursday afternoon, they re-signed Winker anyway. His one-year, $7.5 million contract is fairly straightforward, but the ramifications for New York’s roster could be much more complex.

Poor baserunning, miserable defense, and frequent injuries have limited Winker throughout his career. All the same, his bat was a major asset for the Reds from 2017-21. In just over 1,500 plate appearances with Cincinnati, he slashed .288/.385/.504 with a 132 wRC+. While he thrived at Great American Ball Park, he made his mark outside of that hitter’s haven, too, producing an .845 OPS and 126 wRC+ on the road. He made the All-Star team in his final season with the Reds, batting .305 with 24 home runs in 110 games, good for a career-best 3.2 WAR.

The next two seasons, however, marked a period of steep decline for Winker. Playing for the Mariners and Brewers, he managed just 0.7 WAR in 2022 and -0.8 in 2023. His agent might point out that back, neck, and knee injuries hampered his performance in that time, as did some bad luck on balls in play; his xwOBA was nearly 30 points better than his wOBA, while his BABIP was more than 50 ticks below his average from the previous five years. Even so, it would have been more than fair to worry about his future as a major leaguer after his dismal 2023 campaign. Entering 2024, his ZiPS projection was a mere 0.4 WAR in 415 plate appearances, and he was forced to sign a minor league contract with the Nationals less than two weeks before spring training began.

Back to full health, Winker rebounded in Washington. While he wasn’t a power threat like he’d been in his Reds heyday, he knocked 18 doubles and 11 home runs, giving him a middle-of-the-pack .162 ISO. His BABIP was back up above .300, and his 14.0% walk rate ranked fifth among qualified batters (as of his final day with the Nats). All in all, he put up a 125 wRC+ and 1.2 WAR in 101 games.

This was enough to pique the Mets’ interest ahead of the trade deadline. However, after Washington sent him to New York, Winker wasn’t the productive hitter that the Mets thought they were getting when they acquired him. Well, at least not during the regular season, when Winker was little more than replacement level with his new team. All the more disappointing, he was set up to thrive with the Mets: He had the platoon advantage almost every time he came to the plate. While Washington used him as an everyday player, New York shielded him from southpaws; he faced just four left-handed pitchers over the final two months of the season. Nonetheless, his 97 wRC+ with the Mets was much closer to his career mark against lefties (88) than righties (129).

The problem was rooted in Winker’s approach at the plate. With the Nationals, he ran that aforementioned 14.0% walk rate and struck out just 22.2% of the time. After the trade, he lowered his strikeout rate to 17.1%, which might’ve been a good thing, except that his walk rate also dropped way down, to 7.8%. With the Mets, Winker swung more often and made more contact, especially on pitches in the strike zone. His Z-Swing% (per Statcast) jumped from 60.5% to 70.4%, while his Z-Contact% jumped from 85.5% to 91.2%. This wouldn’t have been a problem if he crushed many of those extra balls he put in play, but, naturally, he did not.

So, why did Winker suddenly change his approach at a time when things were going well? I’d posit the Mets noticed that he was holding back on too many hittable pitches over the first four months of the season and let him know that was the case after the trade. According to Robert Orr’s calculations from his Damage leaderboard, Winker was better than the average hitter at identifying hittable pitches every year from 2020-23. Yet, with the Nationals this past season, his Hittable Pitch Take rate put him in the bottom third of the league. After he started swinging at more strikes with the Mets, he rose back up to the 66th percentile. The problem, however, was that he sacrificed another critical skill in the process. Winker’s selectivity rate — Orr’s metric that shows how often a player avoids swinging at bad pitches — fell from the 73rd percentile as a National to the 35th percentile as a Met. All that is to say, Winker swung at more good pitches, but he also swung at more bad ones, and he didn’t do enough damage against good pitches to compensate for his lack of production against the bad ones. Ultimately, his hard-hit and barrel rates were lower with the Mets than they were with the Nationals, as were his wOBA and xwOBA on contact.

This raises another question: Why would the Mets want Winker back if their efforts to improve his approach went so poorly? Perhaps they think he just needs a little more time to reap the rewards. After all, 129 plate appearances is nothing. Aaron Judge was still hitting below the Mendoza Line with an OPS in the mid-.700s by his 129th plate appearances last season. Thankfully for our purposes, we have an easy way to increase the sample size of Winker’s 2024 season with the Mets: Include the playoffs, as Winker took an additional 32 plate appearances in October. He continued to swing at strikes at a similar rate, but he used those swings to record several big hits, including two triples and a home run. He also drew seven walks, compared to just four strikeouts. If you combine those numbers with Winker’s regular season stats as a Met, you get a 10.6% walk rate, a 16.1% strikeout rate, and a .341 wOBA. Even more promising is his .353 xwOBA, notably higher than his .335 xwOBA with the Nationals. All of a sudden, it makes a lot more sense why the Mets decided to keep this guy around.

It’s far too soon to say if Winker’s new approach will work in a larger sample size. Still, it’s not hard to see why the Mets think he’s worth a longer look. In a best-case scenario, he could be an even more productive hitter than he was overall in 2024. And if this new approach doesn’t befit him going forward, he doesn’t have to be anything more than the hitter he was in Washington to be valuable on a one-year, $7.5 million deal. After all, the Mets will continue to shield him from left-handed pitching, and his track record against righties is strong:

So, that’s Winker. But this signing is an iceberg – and ironically, it’s the rare kind of iceberg that isn’t so good for a polar bear. At first glance, this is just a 1.0- to 1.5-WAR player signing a short-term deal commensurate with his talents. Yet, there’s a lot more to it than what you see on the surface. When SNY’s Andy Martino first reported the Winker signing, he added that the Mets are now preparing for life after Pete Alonso. Indeed, while no one could argue that Winker is a direct replacement for the All-Star first baseman, there is a connection between this signing and the Mets’ possibly giving up on Alonso if you follow the trail of dominoes far enough.

With Soto, Brandon Nimmo, Jose Siri, and Tyrone Taylor to man the outfield, the Mets are likely to use Winker as their primary DH against right-handed pitching. However, he can still play the corner outfield if he needs to; he spent 95 games on the grass last season, including 27 with New York. So, in the event of an injury to one of the team’s other outfielders, Winker can fill in. That means the Mets are less likely to ask McNeil to play the outfield in 2025. Instead, he can ideally play second base almost every day. As long as McNeil is covering the keystone, the Mets won’t need any of their young infielders at second base, therefore allowing Brett Baty, Luisangel Acuña, and Ronny Mauricio to focus their efforts on third. If just one of them, or some combination of the three, can competently cover the hot corner, Mark Vientos will be able to play first base full-time. Long story short, Winker improves the outfield depth, which indirectly improves the infield depth, which should allow Vientos to formally replace Alonso at first.

Another aspect to the iceberg is how this all affects Starling Marte, whose Gold Glove years are long behind him. In 170 games in the outfield over the past two years, he has accumulated -13 DRS, -14 OAA, and a -12 FRV. Meanwhile, neither ZiPS nor Steamer sees him as much more than a league-average bat. As a righty hitter, he could theoretically platoon with Winker at DH. After all, he posted an impressive 141 wRC+ against left-handed pitching last year. Yet, even with the platoon advantage, Marte might not be a strong enough hitter to warrant the reps. While he has had positive platoon splits the last three years, he had reverse platoon splits every year from 2014-21. In other words, he’s hardly a guaranteed lefty masher. On the contrary, ZiPS projects him for a .698 OPS against lefties and a .713 OPS against righties in 2025. Even if the Mets were willing to give a roster spot to the short side of a DH platoon, Marte probably wouldn’t be that guy.

The final component of the iceberg is what the Mets do next. Steve Cohen’s pockets are already deep, but if the Mets aren’t going to give Alonso a multi-year contract, and if they can get someone to take on any of Marte’s remaining salary, they’ll only have more to spend. With a projected payroll still $49 million below last year’s final tally and a luxury tax payroll still $17 million below the top penalty threshold, the Mets remain major players to watch as the offseason rolls on.