New York Mets Offseason Strategy: Big Moves Ahead?

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00:00I want to start with your Metropolitans though. You see the flag in the background. You see the

00:05David Wright, you know, five in the background as well. They feel like the dormant player right now,

00:11the sleeping giant of the off season. And they're always the active giant of the off season,

00:16at least since Steve Cohen has stepped into his current role. Now, do you feel like this week

00:20could be somewhat intriguing for the New York Mets or is this just kind of, Hey, you know what?

00:26We'll stand Pat. We got Devin Williams. We're going to hang out. I think it's definitely

00:30intriguing because to me, it feels like the Mets are due to make a big trade at some point this

00:35off season and winter meetings are a great time for a big trade to take place. So the Mets have

00:40a need in the outfield after trading Brandon Nemo. So could they go in on Jaron Duran at the top of

00:45the market or could they take a flyer on a Luis Robert? I think any of those trades could happen.

00:50And then when it comes to their rotation, they obviously need a frontline arm. Today,

00:55there was some report that they're not going to be giving a long-term deal in free agency.

00:59What does that mean? Does that mean that they're out on Frambois Valdez? If he gets a five-year

01:03deal, is that too long? If so, then it really is just strictly the trade market, I think. So

01:07that was an interesting report this morning, just that they're not in on a long-term deal.

01:12But again, in this market, how many guys are going to get the long-term deal? It could still keep

01:17everything pretty wide open. It's just so vague to me that they wouldn't be in on a long-term deal.

01:22I guess I just need the definition of a long-term deal because if you've got a five-year deal that

01:28is cheaper than some three-year deals because of the quality of player. Now, it's a little weird,

01:34those waters who's to say that a five-year deal is going to be cheaper than a three, but I'm just

01:38thinking like, okay, you've got pitcher A that wants five for 150 and you've got pitcher B that wants

01:44four for 130. Which one are you actually going to go with? I find it a little weird that they would

01:51immediately discount one of them. But I also had this moment with Buster Olney of ESPN when he

01:57joined us on Saturday. And I wanted to run a question by him that's just been burning in my

02:03brain. With the upcoming labor negotiation and the possible lockout after the 26 season going into 27,

02:09I just wonder what is affected because obviously we know the free agent market is affected.

02:14I want to know what it is. Is it the AAV, the average annual value of these contracts,

02:19over a five-year deal? Is it the length of contract? Hey, we're not going to go six years

02:24because that's too many years that we're grandfathered into your contract and we'd like

02:28to keep it short, but we'll pay a little bit more money. I'm just trying to figure out which part of

02:34the contract structure is most heavily influenced by the upcoming labor dispute and the possible

02:41resolve that we could get. Do you have any feeling as to which piece of the contract could be altered?

02:47It's so hard to tell. I mean, for a team like the Mets, you'd wonder if they're just overall trying

02:54to be cautious about too much long-term spending because of the potential of a salary cap. But it

03:01also, I could argue both sides of it because the other side of the coin is spend while you can and

03:07figure it out later. So I think the way that I would imagine this is going to impact things primarily

03:13is sort of the middle of the market. I feel like it's always that way in sports, right? Like the top

03:18of the market is never really affected by these things. And it's more the middle to the bottom of

03:22the market that we see a little bit of an impact. So I don't know if this necessarily is going to

03:28impact the very top free agents, but it is interesting that it just seems very quiet in free agency.

03:36And it seems like teams, if they can address their needs through trades first and lock in more fixed

03:42reasonable costs, maybe people just want to be a little bit more cautious just with the fear of the unknown.