The New York Mets have had a productive offseason in many respects, but they still missed out on a number of opportunities that would have improved their team in both the short and long term
The Mets addressed many needs this offseason, especially with their signings of Curtis Granderson and Bartolo Colon to bolster their outfield and starting rotation respectively. While filling these holes was necessary, the Mets missed on a number of opportunities to improve the team, especially since the signings of Granderson and Colon were geared to improve the team in the short term.
In early January, I laid out four areas in which the Mets needed to make further acquisitions, and they successfully completed two. They added cheap, veteran arms for their bullpen by signing Kyle Farnsworth and Jose Valverde, and they added veteran depth to their starting rotation with the acquisitions of Daisuke Matsuzaka and John Lannan.
The team clearly doesn’t have the funds or desire to approach big-money players such as Shin-Soo Choo, Robinson Cano or Masahiro Tanaka, so I do not classify the failure to sign players like them as a missed opportunity.
Looking back at the offseason, here are the Mets’ biggest missed opportunities, although some of them could still be fixed.
All statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference.