The Mets’ offseason starts with a familiar kind of accounting: who stays, who goes, and which names are worth protecting before the Rule 5 draft. With the 40-man roster set to climb to 43 once Jorge Polanco, Reed Garrett, and Tylor Megill come off the 60-day injured list, the real work is in figuring out where the next openings come from.
At the top of the board sit the guaranteed deals for 2027. Juan Soto, Francisco Lindor, Bo Bichette, Marcus Semien, Jorge Polanco, Sean Manaea, Kodai Senga, Devin Williams, and Luis Torrens are all on that list.
Some are obvious keeps because of their value or contract status. Soto is Soto, Lindor is too important unless he’s moved, and Torrens is covered by a low salary and a recent extension.
Others - Williams, Senga, and Manaea - would be difficult to move without the Mets swallowing most of the money, which would defeat the point.
Bichette, despite the chatter, still looks like someone who will opt in after the year he’s had. That leaves Semien and Polanco as the names most likely to be squeezed out, and the stronger case is for Semien to go.
The argument is straightforward: his poor season doesn’t look injury-related, he’s blocking Jefferson Rojas, Emilien Pitre, and Mitch Voit, and he’s the more likely player to push back on a reduced role. If the Mets have to eat money to move him, so be it.
If not, cutting him is on the table. Either way, the expectation here is that one of those two spots opens up.
The arbitration group brings a different kind of mess. The Mets have ten arb-eligible players: Tylor Megill, Dedniel Núñez, Austin Warren, Cionel Pérez, Francisco Alvarez, Mark Vientos, Cristian Pache, Brett Baty, Cristopher Morel, and Reed Garrett.
Morel and Pache look like easy non-tenders, and Pérez seems to fit that bucket too. Vientos may not be non-tendered, but he also doesn’t look like someone who can realistically be carried on the 2027 roster, so whether it’s a trade or a non-tender, he’s probably gone.
Most of the rest are cheap enough or useful enough to keep around. Baty is the one who sits in the middle: just good enough to remain a possibility, but also expensive enough in arbitration - likely north of $2 million - to make him movable if the Mets decide they’d rather spend elsewhere.
Then come the pre-arbitration players, where the roster math gets cleaner. Nolan McLean, Christian Scott, Jonah Tong, Nate Lavender, Zac Thornton, Hayden Senger, Jared Young, Carson Benge, A.J.
Ewing, Nick Morabito, and Justin Hagenman all look safe. Tong could be a trade candidate, but not someone the Mets would move just to clear space.
Hagenman’s value as rotation depth with options helps too.
There are five more pre-arb players without options: Chayce McDermott, Tobias Myers, Robert Stock, Ronny Mauricio, and Daniel Duarte. Myers still has some usefulness and should be around when camp opens.
McDermott is the kind of arm the Mets may try to slip through waivers. The other three feel more vulnerable, with Mauricio standing out as the clearest trade candidate for a team that can actually give him runway.
That group alone creates another four roster spots.
After that, the Mets are looking at the usual churn - a cluster of arms and a couple of utility bats who have already spent time on waivers or could again. Jonathan Pintaro, Dylan Ross, Jack Weisenburger, Cameron Weston, Phillip Abner, Jefry Yan, Eric Wagaman, and Christian Cairo all fit that mold. None has a major league track record or standout enough tools to demand a spot, so the simplest assumption is that four roster spots will open through the normal shuffle while four others remain tied up in this type of depth.
That gets the roster count down to 30, which brings the focus to the prospects.
Jefferson Rojas and Jacob Reimer are easy calls. Gary Gill Hill, acquired in the Freddy Peralta trade with the Rays, also looks like a lock as a near-major league ready starter with real quality. Zach Franklin, who came over in the Huascar Brazobán trade, has been excellent enough to look like a bullpen option at the start of 2027 and is another strong bet to be added.
Beyond that quartet, the decisions get more interesting. Jack Wenninger took a step back in 2026 after his breakout 2025, with both his stuff and his results slipping in Triple-A.
The environment there may have played a part, but regression happens with pitchers like this. Even so, his short-term major league usefulness makes him more likely to be taken in Rule 5, which pushes him into the protected group.
Marco Vargas does not get the same benefit of the doubt. He hasn’t developed power, he hasn’t stayed healthy, and his contact ability has slipped as he’s climbed.
The numbers he put up in St. Lucie and Binghamton this year were driven by a .400 BABIP, and that doesn’t feel like a foundation worth protecting.
Ryan Clifford is in an even tougher spot. His season fell apart, and doing it in Triple-A’s extreme run environment only makes it look worse. The read here is blunt: he just can’t hit, and that kind of flaw doesn’t warrant protection.
Chris Suero is more entertaining than effective. He probably can’t hit, and he isn’t really a catcher either. If another team wants to take the gamble, fine, but there’s no reason for the Mets to spend a roster spot on him.
Randy Guzman has more upside than Suero, Clifford, or Vargas, but the concerns are real. He’s 21, he has serious swing-and-miss issues, he’s only appeared in eight games above Single-A, and he missed the final month with an injury. Adding him now would burn options too soon, so the safer play is to leave him exposed.
That leaves the Triple-A bullpen group: Brian Metoyer, Saul Garcia, and Ben Simon. These are exactly the kind of arms that get grabbed in Rule 5 - live fastballs, some intrigue, not much of a track record.
Metoyer stands out because he has the best breaker, though his control is the weakest and he’s the oldest of the bunch. The recommendation here is to protect Metoyer and leave Garcia and Simon exposed.
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Looking ahead to 2027, the pressure on David Stearns is starting to sharpen around the same familiar questions: where the starting pitching comes from, and how much certainty the Mets really have in veteran roster spots. The futures of Jorge Polanco and Marcus Semien remain part of that larger picture, and the broader challenge is not just identifying problems but acting on them. The Mets know they will need to keep moving, even if every move carries the risk of getting one wrong. [Read more 🡒]