Shh, the offseason is still on
The Mets, a wish list for the rest of the winter, and Stuff
The Mets have had the worst offseason and the best offseason, all in one offseason. Mostly because of the content creation complex.
Early moves saw the departure of fan favorites Pete Alonso, Edwin Diaz and Brandon Nimmo. Then presumed targets flew off the board, without landing in Queens. Panic and anger swelled in the city. Hannah’s grandma swore off the team.
Well, I hope she at least gives Bo Bichette and Freddy Peralta and Luis Robert a chance to win her over.
This week, David Stearns pounced. The Mets president of baseball operations probably didn’t construct exactly the roster he envisioned to solve the Mets’ defensive woes. But in a fireworks display of transactions this week, he drastically raised the ceiling of the 2026 team, shuffled excess to cover needs and set himself up to make more decisions in a year or two, instead of locking in more of the roster for half a decade.
The Mets — who, reminder, were wildly disappointing in 2025 — now look like the most improved team of the offseason. Let’s quickly hit the three big additions, none of whom are 30 yer:
Peralta, acquired from the Brewers with one year remaining on an early career extension, gives their rotation a tried and true frontline option. There are concerns that he doesn’t pitch deep into games, that he doesn’t pound the zone. That’s true. He’s comparable to Dylan Cease, or a poor man’s Blake Snell. But here’s the thing: Cease just signed for $210 million and Peralta gets better results, more consistently. Over the past three seasons, only 19 pitchers have thrown 500+ innings. Peralta is one of them, and his park-adjusted ERA- has been bested by only Zack Wheeler and Logan Webb. Lower the threshold to 400 innings, and he still ranks in the top 10. This is a version of being a front-of-the-rotation starter in the 2020s. Stacking Peralta on top of emerging ace candidate Nolan McLean, Clay Holmes, Sean Manaea, David Peterson and Kodai Senga takes a lot of uncertainty and pushes it down the ladder of importance.
Bichette is a great aggressive contact hitter who brings a new flavor to the Mets lineup. He was a .299 career hitter, with a 126 wRC+, before a weird down year in 2024. In 2025, he hit .311 with a career-best .357 on-base percentage, for a 134 wRC+. I’m inclined to write off 2024 as a blip. He’s going to play third base as Jorge Polanco takes over at first. That could make the infield defense an adventure to start, but they are both moving down the defensive spectrum.
Robert gives the Mets a real starting center fielder, which is a good thing to have. A tantalizing talent who only briefly actualized it for the White Sox, he’ll be a useful addition if he just stays mostly healthy and a phenomenal one if he taps into the 2021 to 2023 version of himself.
A friend of the newsletter mused yesterday, before the Peralta deal, that there haven’t been a lot of fun, eyebrow-raising moves this offseason. You can define that how you wish, but broadly I interpret it as moves that suddenly change our understanding of a team.
The Orioles’ deal for Alonso certainly qualifies. The Blue Jays’ post-World Series stockpiling might count. And now these Mets additions make the grade. But a lot of the other transactions could be perceived as solidifying excellence, merely holding steady, backpedaling or truly running it back — hello, Yankees and Phillies.
As Stearns has resoundingly proven, though, the offseason isn’t over yet! With that, I have a brief and totally speculative list of interesting twists this winter might still throw at us.
Reds trade a young starting pitcher for a bat. Cincinnati has several really fascinating young arms — Hunter Greene, Andrew Abbott, Nick Lodolo, Chase Burns. If they decide they could part with one, it might net them a much-needed offensive infusion. My pie in the sky thought is a swap with the Yankees involving hot-button prospect Spencer Jones or a fresh start for Jasson Dominguez.
Padres trade for Joe Ryan. Do I think the Twins are moving Ryan? Not really. The starter won’t be a free agent until after 2027. But if anyone would make the offer necessary to pry him away, it would be A.J. Preller.
Diamondbacks trade for Jarren Duran. You seen the D-backs outfield options other than Corbin Carroll? It’s rough. Duran might not match that 2024 season again, but he would be very valuable to a lot of teams, more so than to the Red Sox. Plus … he runs like a lizard. Let him thrive in the desert.
A’s sign Zac Gallen. Oakland’s barrage of young hitters is closer to contender-ready than you might realize. The pitching … is not. Gallen, who might seek a pillow contract to reset his value, could be a great upside play if he’s willing to pitch in Sacramento.
Giants import Brendan Donovan and Lars Nootbaar. Honestly, it feels like Donovan just should be a Giant. A productive second baseman who feels like he comes from the Marco Scutaro lineage, one of the few remaining veteran Cardinals would fill a huge hole in San Francisco.
The Bullpen
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On the Brewers’ end of the Freddy Peralta trade, they have found a new version of their spirit animal in 5-foot-7 Jett Williams. I have to assume this is like an X-Men situation where someone gradually discovers they are different (short) before they are summoned to make the most of their powers (in Milwaukee).
Like about half the Brewers’ roster, he is probably most naturally suited for second base, but will play somewhere else. There’s plenty of good analysis out there on the Brewers being the Brewers again, but I want to focus on the most frivolous angle for a second. As Jeffrey Paternostro wrote at Baseball Prospectus:
Much like the grandparent who once heard you were interested in exotic birds as a ten-year-old and gets you some sort of crocheted Macaw for every birthday and Christmas well into your twenties, the Brewers have gotten Pat Murphy another Lilliputian middle infielder to annoy opposing teams with.
Murphy, the Milwaukee skipper, was Dustin Pedroia’s manager at Arizona State, a connection that still pops up pretty frequently. Now, it seems the Brewers are constantly trying to find him the new version.
In 2025, the Brewers became just the third team since integration to give regular at-bats (400 plate appearances) to three hitters who stand 5-foot-8 or shorter — Isaac Collins, Caleb Durbin and Sal Frelick. They were the first club to do that since the 1958 Washington Senators (who were terrible). The other team to do this was the 1948 Yankees, adding Snuffy Stirnweiss to the long-running duo of Yogi Berra and Phil Rizzuto (they went 94-60 but finished third in the AL).
Then, they appeared to give up on their underdog exceptionalism — shipping out Collins to the Royals in a trade for pitcher Angel Zerpa — until Wednesday night. I don’t know if Williams will carve out a full-time role in Milwaukee in 2026, but for now Milwaukee certainly gets to keep the banner as the capital of short baseball stars.
Which is good. Might have needed to find a step ladder to take it down.
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At FanGraphs this week, Davy Andrews confirmed the latest hypothesis in baseball’s spin cycle of recognizing a valuable thing, acting on it, and rapidly shaving away the edge any one team or player gains from it.
Namely: Stuff metrics, which grade pitchers’ arsenals and provide a quantitative way for hurlers and front offices to chase and track improvement. Stuff+ ratings, for instance, are becoming more tightly clustered and less correlated to success. Here’s one good section of Davy explaining why:
Several years into the pitch model revolution, pitchers are absolutely using this measure as a target. We hear them talking about it all the time, and they sound like nerds. Trying to improve your repertoire certainly isn’t a new phenomenon, but combined with instant feedback from Edgertronic cameras and portable Trackman units, pitch modeling offers a more direct path toward nastiness. It’s never been easier to add new pitches or to improve old ones, and pitch models often help guide that work.
Or, for visual learners, proof in a chart gif.
There is a lot more to say about this and the implications of it. But take a second to absorb it and enjoy Davy’s quest to bring it to light.
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Nolan Arenado is on the Diamondbacks now. That’s because the aging star third baseman reportedly leveraged his no-trade clause to steer the Cardinals away from a deal that would have sent him to the A’s.
At this point, I think it’s possible Arenado has squeezed more uses out of his no-trade clause — agreed upon with the Rockies when he signed his extension before the 2019 season — than any player in recent memory? We know he also squashed a deal to the Astros, has generally limited all interest in his services to the West Coast and wielded it to ensure a good landing spot in St. Louis in the first place.
This is what you negotiate that clause for. Hopefully Arizona works out nicely for him.
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Braves shortstop Ha-Seong Kim, who re-signed with Atlanta as the starting shortstop to attempt a healthy bounceback campaign, is already out for months with a torn finger ligament suffered in Korea.
That is a big time woof for both Kim and the Braves, who have struggled to find consistency at shortstop since Dansby Swanson left in free agency, outside of that one Orlando Arcia season.
They might be the one contending team that could have used Bichette at shortstop. Alas, Atlanta will probably deploy Mauricio Dubon at the six until Kim returns, but they inked former Orioles middle infielder Jorge Mateo as an apparent stopgap, too.
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“I’m a big Red Sox boy.”
This is an odd sounding thing to say. Unless you say it in an Irish accent and, well, then it’s still an odd thing to say but because of the Red Sox part.
Actor Paul Mescal, currently of Hamnet fame, told GQ he has become a baseball fan, with the Red Sox his team of choice thanks to a “partner connection.” The partner, in this case, is pop star Gracie Abrams. She’s often spotted in a Red Sox hat and got Mescal more hooked by taking him to Fenway Park to sit near the on-deck circle.
Up the Red Sox? Come on you Red Sox? We’ll work on it.
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Lastly, a little Band Wagon.
The bitter cold of midwinter is a great time, in my experience, to bathe in music that moves like the ambient heat of summer. Not frenetic, not aggressive, just enough to loosen things up.
The baseball writer favorite for this is the technicolor-Tom-Petty rock of The War on Drugs. Indeed, they’re one of my favorite bands (and good news, it seems like they have new music coming). See this recording, hat tip to Steven Hyden of the essential Evil Speakers music newsletter.
But for now, I’d encourage you to consider a spin for a band that has actually released new music in this vein. The Berries — which is really the project of (big Giants fan) Matthew Berry with a rotating band of collaborators — play more Fleetwood Mac-tinged but similarly evocative rock.
The self-titled 2025 album has become a mainstay for me, particularly the songs Vagabond and Angelus. This is moving music in the kinetic, not emotional way. It’s perfect for driving or walking briskly to wherever, destination unimportant. It’s for forgetting about the conditions outside yourself, for just a few minutes.
not spirit animal :/