Odds & Ends: Extensions, Relievers, Cookies
Two extensions the Mets should sign, two relievers who might be trouble, and two players who enjoy a good laugh.
Stroman
I’ll have a column at Metsmerized sometime soon on this, but here’s the gist of it: Marcus Stroman is entering his walk year, looks poised to have a good season, and his value has probably never been lower. Combined, what do those three factors mean? Friends, it’s extension time.
Stroman hasn’t been mentioned as an extension candidate as much as Francisco Lindor, Michael Conforto, and Noah Syndergaard — but Stroman is an excellent pitcher, and right now, the Mets have an exclusive window to negotiate with him at a discount. He just sat out an entire season, and the 2022 free agent pitching class is weak: he’s only going to get more expensive. Sign him now, and be happy about it later.
Nimmo
Speaking of extension candidates: if I was a senior Mets front office official, I would be looking intensely at buying out Brandon Nimmo’s arbitration years and a few seasons beyond.
Nimmo is in the midst of those arbitration years right now, and will be a free agent after the 2022 season. Like Stroman, his value may never be lower. He had a great year in 2020, but that was a 60 -game season, so it’s hard to put too much stock in it. But Nimmo has demonstrated time after time that he can get on base at an elite rate — with his eyes closed.
Nimmo’s career On-Base Percentage is .390. If he hits the free agent market in two years with three consecutive .390 or better OBP seasons under his belt, what will he cost? $100 million? More? Jeff Euston of Cots Contracts/Baseball Prospectus told me before the 2020 season that an extension for Nimmo might cost somewhere in the area of five years, $35 million — but that was before Nimmo’s successful 2020 season. Of course, that’s exactly why I advocated extending Nimmo before the 2020 season, but better now than never. If the Mets can lock Nimmo up for any even remotely reasonable amount — would six years, $90 million do the trick? — they should do it.
Familia
I remember the exact moment when I noticed that Jeurys Familia’s dominance was slipping. It was during the 2015 NLCS, when Familia was pitching to Dexter Fowler trying to end game four and send the Mets to the World Series. Suddenly, I realized: he’s not going to swing and miss. Familia just can’t strike him out. Fowler could stand up there and hit foul balls until the wee hours of the morning.
Familia actually did end up striking Fowler out, but only with the benefit of a generous strike call on a letter-high pitch. But it’s not 2015 anymore. As yesterday’s game against the Nationals proved, if Familia still has that strikeout stuff, he hasn’t found it yet. Everyone should probably steel themselves for some classic Familia at-bats, wherein the opposing hitter fouls off 19 pitches with three balls interspersed.
Betances
Speaking of people steeling themselves, get ready for a full season of Betances. The man with the comically Metsian Spring Training pitching line as of yesterday (WIN: Betances, 1-0, 36.00) hasn’t shown any improvement from 2020 so far. I’ve heard strange rumors that this might be totally normal; apparently, it might just be a certain Betances’ Spring Training je ne sais quoi, and if he’s throwing 92 right now, he’ll be up to 98 by April 1st. Please raise your hand if you believe that.
*scans room*
Seeing none. Well, we’ll see; maybe Betances can find himself. But considering his average fastball velocity has dropped from 98.3 miles per hour in 2017 to 93.6 last year, it will be — at minimum — an uphill climb.
Cookies
Finally today, we turn to Dom Smith, J.D. Davis, and the return of “The Cookie Club,” an SNY series featuring the pair of them alongside Steve Gelbs that returned yesterday for season 2. A few hours before the new series debuted, Smith was interviewed during the ESPN broadcast of the Mets/Nationals game, and among other things, the interview featured the story of why Andrew Stevenson, a Nationals’ outfielder, is his “nemesis.”
This has nothing to do with Smith’s — or Davis’ — potential numbers in 2021. It’s just extremely satisfying to have players with excellent comedic sensibilities. Of course, The Cookie Club can’t match that once-in-a-lifetime Spring Training game last year, when Smith, Davis, and Jeff McNeil were all mic’ed up simultaneously, and viewers were treated to what amounted to a live broadcast of Smith’s internal monologue (“uh oh, where am I supposed to be playing?”). Well, I say once in a lifetime; hopefully that’s not true. Hopefully SNY remembers the must-see TV that those three players produced and reprises the segment sometime this spring. They’ve already renewed “The Cookie Club.” Clearly, they know how to harness the TV talent they have.