Moments after Mets first baseman Pete Alonso took home the National League Rookie of the Year Award, New York general manager Brodie Van Wagenen spoke at the MLB GM meetings.
Here are the takeaways from Van Wegenen's discussion with reporters...
Latest on Zack Wheeler contract negotiations...
"We started dialogue with his camp before the trade deadline last year. We expressed interest in having him be apart of what we're doing moving forward. Obviously he earned the right to explore free agency, he's got a decision to make later this week [on the qualifying offer the Mets extended him]. We'll certainly continue to have those discussions moving forward."
"Wheeler is a good pitcher. That's why we offered him the qualifying offer, we didn't take that lightly. I think he's put himself in a position to be an attractive player. We'll continue to have dialogue."
On where the team's roster needs to improve....
"We'll be creative, we'll be open-minded to just about anything. I think we'd like to continue to have strong starting pitching. I think we'd like to improve our bullpen performance, obviously, and we'd like to improve our defense. If there was an opportunity to improve around the diamond, in particularity center field, we'd look to do that."
Center field continued...
"I think if we had improved defense in center field, it would improve our left field defense and our right field defense because it would allow Michael Conforto to stay in right field full-time, it would allow Brandon Nimmo to spend more time in left field, and so I think it gives us great stronghold in center field. But those players are very hard to identify and even harder to acquire."
Why he's confident in Edwin Diaz...
"I think the talent first and foremost is what made us so confident [to keep him]. It's very rare to have someone with his age, his high velocity, his track record of performance.... We believe that we can get him right. He has the right work ethic and the right attitude and I think we've identified some things that we're going to do better for him and we're going to try and put an environment around him to give him a chance to succeed."
On Wilson Ramos and catcher position...
"I think we have a starting catcher in Wilson Ramos (and) we were pleased with his performance, particularly in the second half of the year last year. Our starting pitchers got very comfortable throwing to him in the second half of the year. And we feel that there are very few catchers that can be an improvement on who we have. So we like what we have and we expect to go into the season with Wilson Ramos as our guy."
"Right now I think that we are in the market looking for backup options. I think Wilson did a phenomenal job staying healthy and putting himself in a position to play a lot of games last year. We'd like to have some support behind that. (Tomas) Nido did an admirable job as a backup, but we'll look to bolster that position."
On Jed Lowrie's offseason & will he be ready for spring training...
"To be determined. At this point we've continued to diagnose what Jed's issues were that kept him out this season. We'll continue to do that with the plan for him to 100 percent ready to go for spring training.
On Yoenis Cespedes' rehab & will he be ready for spring training....
"Too early to tell. It's too early to predict what tomorrow is going to be. Let alone six week, eight weeks, three months."
On how many bullpen additions could be made...
"Hard to say. We've talked about Seth Lugo's and Robert Gsellman's throwing program this offseason and how they are going to be at least prepared in a situation to start next year. If we were to add starting pitching this winter and those two players went back to the bullpen, that impacts how many pieces and how many arms we would want to add to that mix."
On Pete Alonso contract extension...
"I think the Rookie of the Year Award was just announced a few minutes ago. We're going to let him celebrate that. I think the contract extensions often start their dialogue after the first of the year, even with Jake (deGrom) last year it was preliminary discussions in December that didn't ultimately culminate into a deal until the end of the spring training. We haven't really thought that far ahead about what Pete's financial situation would be next year, other than he deserves everything he gets at this point."
On Michael Conforto being "untradeable"...
"I think some of those core guys would be very difficult for us to trade. I think that you never want to say never, but Michael is a big part of what we've done so far, his consistency has been remarkable, his ceiling as a player is something I don't think we've even seen yet, he's one of the clear leaders of our club on the field and in the clubhouse, so I can't really imagine us moving him."
Adding reliever on multi-year deal...
"If it's the right fit and it's the right player then we'll evaluate all sorts of different constructs."