For the 20th 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 first team up is the New York Mets.

Batters

At the very least, there’s a good sense of clarity when looking at the Mets depth chart. Francisco Lindor and Brandon Nimmo are plug-and-play options — just stick them in, and if they’re your biggest problem, you’re doomed anyway. Pete Alonso qualifies as that as well, though the Mets are not long from having to make a decision on whether it’s better to offer him a potentially ludicrous contract extension or find a new polar bear (they’re endangered after all!). Jeff McNeil will likely have a season somewhere in between his 2022 and 2023. Francisco Alvarez has a hold on the starting catching job now that he’s outlasted his predecessor (Tomás Nido) and the guy who really, really liked playing said predecessor (Buck Showalter). It’s also obvious that this is a crucial season for Mark Vientos and Brett Baty; the Mets don’t have infinite patience. There likely need to be better solutions in left field, and it’s time to start thinking about a post-Starling Marte right field.

While people are looking for the Mets to make big, splashy signings, it’s also a team that could use an extra bat or two in reserve. With questions at third and in left and right, it’s really hard from a roster standpoint to keep a platoon DH with no defensive value hanging around unless he absolutely crushes his side of the platoon (and Daniel Vogelbach really doesn’t). Eduardo Escobar was traded for good reasons, but he was handy to have around. The fixes to the offense might be low-key because of the need in the next section of this article. There aren’t any young phenoms really threatening to seize a roster spot from any of the offensive stragglers; the Mets have four offensive prospects in our Top 100 who are about a year away from making a real impact in the majors. The fifth, Ronny Mauricio, certainly has upside at second, but then the question becomes how much value McNeil really has as a corner outfielder.

Pitchers

There’s a lot of work to be done here. Kodai Senga is written in with permanent marker, and while ZiPS is very lukewarm — to be nice — about José Quintana, he’s certainly going to be in the rotation as well. After that, the Mets have a deep stable of just-a-guy types; the rotation is probably the biggest hurdle preventing the team from having a nice little bounce-back season. Not to pick on Mike Vasil, who I think will be a serviceable fourth/fifth starter for a while, but if Mike Vasil is this high in the projections, you’ve got some slots to fill. The Mets may have been relieved of the worry of Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander’s inevitable aging curve cliffs, but even if their time with the team didn’t go exactly to plan, without them, the rotation looks like a smoking crater. The good news is that while the free agent market has a real lack of impact bats, starting pitching is well-stocked, even before you consider the availability of Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shōta Imanaga.

A healthy Edwin Díaz is a boon for the bullpen, though he’s not enough to single-armedly make this a plus unit. The relief corps is less of a smoking crater than the rotation, and ZiPS is more or less is cool with the rest of the group in Brooks Raley, Drew Smith, Trevor Gott, and Phil Bickford. ZiPS sees Josh Walker as a pretty decent swingman option, if a very low-ceiling one. Still, there’s room to improve. I don’t think the starters who fail to make the rotation next spring have electric enough stuff to be overly enthused about their bullpen chances, so the Mets will likely need to find an arm or two here. It doesn’t have to be a Díaz-like arm — good luck finding that — but a couple of mid-tier relievers might keep the wheels from coming off this apple cart.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned or have retired, players who will miss 2024 due to injury, and players who were released in 2023. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Belgian Death Metal Skiffle Band that only plays songs by Franz Schubert, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.33.

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.

As always, incorrect projections are either caused by flaws in the physical reality of the universe or by the skillful sabotage of our friend and former editor. You can, however, still get mad at me on Twitter.

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