“When is Soon? What a terrible word. Soon. Soon can mean in one second, Soon can mean in one year. This Soon compresses the future, shrinks it, offers no certainty, no certainty whatever, it stands for absolute uncertainty.”
— “The Train Was on Time,” Heinrich Böll
The Mets will finally make the move Monday, promoting Brett Baty from Triple-A Syracuse after Baty’s absurdly hot start to the season. Sometime this week, Baty and Francisco Álvarez will share a major-league field for the first time; the Mets hope that pairing, with some additions, constitutes a long-serving homegrown core. It’s especially fitting that it should happen in the next few days at Dodger Stadium — the franchise the Mets have been trying their hardest to emulate.
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Are you tired yet of hearing about the Dodgers blueprint? It’s been a linchpin of analysis around the Mets’ long-term construction since the day Steve Cohen was introduced as owner and said he “likes what the Dodgers are doing.” It’s the understood context of Cohen’s remarks over the last six months about building the farm system so he doesn’t have to spend as much in free agency. Just in the last week, The Athletic has twice referenced the Dodgers blueprint in headlines.
So, with Baty and Álvarez here, with Ronny Mauricio and Mark Vientos mashing in Triple A, and with the Dodgers across the way for three games, let’s take a look at that blueprint and its timeline. How did it play out for Los Angeles, and how closely aligned to that timeline are Cohen’s Mets in 2023?
Guggenheim Partners bought the Dodgers during the 2012 season. Below is a graph of Los Angeles’ luxury tax payroll from 2012 through 2023, per Cot’s Contracts.
The key takeaways:
• The Dodgers’ payroll jumped up from 2012 to 2013 thanks mainly to an at-the-moment-and-still-in-retrospect stunning trade with the Red Sox in August 2012 to acquire Adrian González, Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett and Nick Punto — and the $262.5 million they were owed after the 2012 season. Alongside moves for Hanley Ramirez and Zack Greinke, the trade helped double LA’s player payroll from one year to the next. LA’s highest-paid player in 2012 was Ted Lilly; he ranked eighth on the team the following year even as his salary had increased.
• The payroll peaked (so far) in the third full season of ownership in 2015. By that point, Clayton Kershaw had signed a $215 million extension. The Dodgers had dealt Matt Kemp’s big salary but were still paying almost all of it for the 2015 season. Los Angeles had been active in the international market with very mixed results. Yasiel Puig and Hyun Jin Ryu were inexpensive success stories; Héctor Olivera, Álex Guerrero and Erisbel Arruebarrena were not. That 2015 season did see LA start incorporating young, cost-controlled talent in Joc Pederson and Corey Seager.
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• The payroll dropped significantly ahead of Year 6 of ownership in 2018. That’s when the long-term deals signed by González, Crawford and Ethier all came off the books. Cody Bellinger had joined Pederson and Seager as an everyday star in 2017, and minor-league signing Max Muncy would do the same in 2018.
• The Dodgers’ pennant-winning team in 2018 cost $100 million less against the luxury tax (and $84 million less in player payroll) than the 2015 team; it did win one fewer game in the regular season and require a tiebreaker game to edge the Rockies for the division. The entire position player core had turned over from the initial spending spree, with none of the team’s biggest offensive contributors coming on as high-priced free agents. Instead, the Dodgers were led by Muncy (minor-league signing), Justin Turner (minor-league signing now on a long-term deal), Pederson (first year of arbitration), Kiké Hernández (first year of arb, picked up as minor-leaguer in an earlier trade with Marlins), Seager (pre-arb), Bellinger (pre-arb) and Chris Taylor (pre-arb, picked up as a post-hype player in a deal with the Mariners).
• The payroll bumped back up in subsequent seasons as those younger players became more expensive, and as Los Angeles added Mookie Betts in a trade (eating money to lower the acquisition cost) and Freddie Freeman in free agency.
The Mets are in the third year of Cohen’s ownership, and he likely hopes this is also the peak of his payroll for a little while. The payroll is going to be high next year, as well, but it can start to stabilize in Year 5 (2025) when only six players have guaranteed deals right now (Francisco Lindor, Brandon Nimmo, Starling Marte, Jeff McNeil, Edwin Díaz and Kodai Senga).
The main issue, of course, is finding enough pieces to replace what’s leaving between now and then. That’s the hard part. Los Angeles drafted and developed Pederson, Seager, Bellinger, Will Smith and Walker Buehler. It signed Julio Urías as an amateur. It supplemented that homegrown group by maximizing the talents of Muncy, Taylor, Hernández and a host of starting pitchers. It was shrewd and creative in trades, often turning more expensive established talent into controllable young pieces at the right time (and occasionally converting those young pieces back into better-established talent than were initially dealt away).
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The Mets hope Baty and Álvarez are the start of that next core, with Mauricio and Vientos possessing the potential to join them relatively soon. It’s the pitching side where New York has invested the most in the short term, and that’s where a void exists in the system. Los Angeles invested a lot of money in starting pitchers — multi-year deals for Greinke, Ryu, Dan Haren, Brandon McCarthy, Scott Kazmir and Rich Hill — and that was even though it already had a Hall of Famer in his prime (Kershaw) and eventually an outstanding homegrown starter (Buehler). The Mets are going to have to keep spending on their starting staff even when Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander are off the books.
The exposition
The Mets finished off a sweep of the Athletics with a come-from-behind extra-inning victory Sunday. New York has won four straight to move to 10-6. That’s good for second place in the NL East, two games behind Atlanta. If the season ended today, the Mets would be the top NL wild card, prepping to host the Cubs. Fun with small samples!
The Dodgers would not be a part of that small-sample postseason because of Sunday’s loss to those Cubs. Los Angeles dropped two of three in the series and is 8-8 on the year, one game behind first-place Arizona.
The Giants had about as bad a weekend in Detroit as you could have. They lost Friday on a walk-off. They lost Saturday on a walk-off. They lost Sunday when the game was rained out and postponed to a July off-day between games in Washington and San Francisco. They’re 5-9 and three back of the Diamondbacks.
The pitching possibles
at Los Angeles
LHP David Peterson (0-2, 4.91 ERA) v. RHP Dustin May (1-1, 1.47 ERA)
RHP Tylor Megill (3-0, 2.25) v. LHP Clayton Kershaw (2-1, 3.50)
RHP Max Scherzer (2-1, 4.41) v. RHP Noah Syndergaard (0-2, 5.63)
at San Francisco
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RHP Kodai Senga (2-0, 3.38) v. RHP Anthony DeSclafani (1-0, 1.42)
RHP Carlos Carrasco (0-2, 8.56) v. RHP Logan Webb (0-3, 4.76)
LHP David Peterson v. LHP Alex Wood (0-0, 1.17)
RHP Tylor Megill v. RHP Alex Cobb (0-1, 3.14)
What can we learn about the Mets this week?
I’m interested in how the Mets’ pitching staff as a whole holds up over the course of a 10-game trip. Sunday was hugely helpful in that regard, with José Butto, Denyi Reyes and Jimmy Yacabonis combining to toss eight terrific innings in a game New York won. That means the ’pen should be relatively fresh come Monday (especially if Butto is sent down for another relief arm). But New York’s starters haven’t been consistently going deep into games, and the only one you expect to go deep is the one nursing an injury (Scherzer).
Recent series history
The Mets claimed the season series from the Dodgers last year, the first time they had done so since 2015. That included splitting a four-game series in Chavez Ravine that was a whole lot of fun. This year marks just the second time in the Mets’ last seven trips to LA that it’s just a three-game series at Dodger Stadium and not four.
New York also won the season series from the Giants last year, though it lost the three-gamer by the Bay. You may remember a wild 13-12 game in there.
Before 2022, the Mets had not won the season series against both of New York’s original National League franchises since 2008. In fact, 2022 was just the sixth time in 61 seasons of Mets baseball that the club won the season series from both Los Angeles and San Francisco; before 2008, the other instances were 1969, 1986, 1990 and 1992.
Three questions with a beat writer
Let’s chat with Fabian Ardaya, who covers the Dodgers for The Athletic. Read Fabian on Chris Taylor’s strikeout woes.
To the untrained eye, the Dodgers’ lineup just feels a lot shallower than it used to be. Who is a key figure who can lengthen it for LA this year?
It definitely is, which is easy to say when you lose Trea Turner right at the top of it. J.D. Martinez has done a good job replicating Justin Turner’s production in the early going, but this still isn’t the type of group that’ll drain opposing pitching staffs over the course of a series like last year’s group. So much of what they do will likely depend on their two rookies, James Outman and Miguel Vargas. Both are off to solid starts — Outman with showing he can make consistent, impactful contact on pitches in the zone and Vargas with taking a step forward with his plate discipline. If both are able to be around a 100 OPS+ or higher by the end of the year, that’s a massive win for the Dodgers.
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The consensus seems to be that the Dodgers took a step back in the offseason. Has that changed the level of expectations for the team?
It kind of has to. The Dodgers shed a lot of salary and didn’t make a single move that, on the surface, makes them better in 2023 than they were in 2022. Noah Syndergaard was signed to pitch in the role they originally envisioned for Tyler Anderson, J.D. Martinez fills in for Justin Turner and even adding the likes of Miguel Rojas, David Peralta and Jason Heyward was more about shoring up depth than upgrading.
The expectations are still pretty much the same. This is a roster that should still be good enough to contend in the division and for a title. Winning 111 games a year ago gave them plenty of breathing room in being able to sustain losses from the roster. It just looks like a harder path now.
What was the Dodgers’ blueprint for a Noah Syndergaard revival, and how has it looked to this point?
Syndergaard’s blueprint was about finding the velocity, as he so boldly proclaimed when he signed with the Dodgers over the winter. Those ideas that he will just start throwing 100 mph again have faded away, and instead, the focus has been on getting the right-hander back to a consistent, repeatable delivery. The command and stuff should still be good enough to be a quality starter, though the margin for error is much smaller. To adjust, they’ve scrapped Syndergaard’s slider for a harder cutter, mothballed his curveball and instead had him throw a ton more changeups.
It’s been a mixed bag. Syndergaard called his first three starts “a roller coaster.” But it’s clear that the stuff is what it’s going to be, and it’s going to come down to days where Syndergaard is clicking with his mechanics and command.
Injury updates
Player | Injury | Elig. | ETA |
|---|---|---|---|
Low grade strain of teres major in right shoulder | Now | 4. April | |
Right shoulder strain | Now | 4. April | |
Back spasms | 4/19 | 4. April | |
Right lat strain | Now | 5. May | |
Right elbow bone bruise | 4/30 | 5. May | |
High-grade right lat strain | 5/29 | 6. June | |
Medium to high grade calf strain | Now | 6. June | |
Stress fracture in left ribcage | 5/29 | 7. July | |
Torn patellar tendon in right knee | 5/29 | X. 2024 | |
Tommy John surgery | 5/29 | X. 2024 |
Red = 60-day IL
Orange = 15-day IL
Blue = 10-day IL
Gray = COVID-19 IL
• Max Scherzer isn’t on the IL, but it is concerning to see Scherzer push his scheduled start back three days to cope with what manager Buck Showalter called “lingering soreness” in his right side and back. Scherzer said he was trending in the right direction and compared it to what he felt in 2019 with the Nationals — more a back issue than a side one. That’s an important distinction given that Scherzer had to manage issues with his right side ever since returning from a six-week-long stint on the injured list last summer caused by an oblique injury. Those issues were at the root of Scherzer’s late-season struggles last fall. To this point this season, the right-hander just hasn’t looked like himself. The Mets hope a couple of days of extra rest — for a pitcher who typically eschews that much — can alleviate it for the time being.
• Justin Verlander threw a bullpen session on Saturday and is slated for at least one more. After that, he has to face live hitters (likely in the form of a rehab start, but the Mets haven’t committed to that) before returning to the major-league club.
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• Edwin Díaz reiterated what Will Sammon reported right after his injury: There’s a slim chance he can make it back by the end of the season. Nobody’s banking on it, but Díaz is optimistic about his recovery.
• Stephen Nogosek landed on the IL on Saturday with a right elbow bone bruise incurred on a comebacker. There’s no real ETA for him yet.
• Tommy Hunter is in line to return when or shortly after he’s eligible on Wednesday.
Minor-league schedule
Triple A: Syracuse v. Durham (Tampa Bay)
Double A: Binghamton at Hartford (Colorado)
High A: Brooklyn v. Wilmington (Kansas City)
Single A: St. Lucie v. Lakeland (Detroit)
Last week in Mets
- On Eric Chavez’s ambition to be a major-league manager and how his new role as bench coach fuels it
- From Will Sammon, a nuanced breakdown of the decision for the Mets on Eduardo Escobar and Brett Baty
- The veteran stalwarts at the front of the rotation haven’t really done the job yet. But the veteran stalwarts at the back of the bullpen sure have.
- With Will, midweek notes on Francisco Álvarez’s development and why the Mets are going with a six-man rotation
- From Ken Rosenthal, if the Mets want to follow the Dodgers’ blueprint, Max Scherzer isn’t quite Clayton Kershaw
- The biggest issue facing Scherzer in his last few starts: finishing off hitters
- Andrew Baggarly, our other excellent Giants writer, spoke at length with Darin Ruf about his disappointing tenure in New York
- TWIM: What is the Mets’ plan with Álvarez?
- From Kaitlyn McGrath in Toronto, how Sportsnet took a page from SNY by following Jordan Romano’s entrance from the bullpen
A note on the epigraph
Oftentimes, for a shorter piece of fiction to remain memorable for me, it has to reach a very high bar. You don’t spend as much time with it, right? So short stories, novellas — I forget the gist of a lot of them.
“The Train Was on Time” leaps over whatever bar you could have.
Prediction time
Noah Syndergaard’s start against the Mets on Wednesday at Dodger Stadium will not be as memorable as that 2016 start for the Mets at Dodger Stadium.
(Photo of Brett Baty: Rich Storry / USA Today)