With Spring Training around the corner, the 2020 season is coming soon. Near the end of what has been a busy offseason for the Mets, general manager Brodie Van Wagenen set the stage before the team heads to Port St. Lucie, Fla.
During the Town Hall portion of Saturday's Mets Fan Fest at Citi Field, Van Wagenen and new manager Luis Rojas -- introduced on Friday -- took the stage with SNY's Gary Cohen to recap the offseason and preview the spring.
Here are five takeaways from Van Wagenen's comments...
On hiring Rojas...
The Mets moved swiftly on an in-house hire by tapping Rojas, who spent a decade managing the organization's minor-league teams before initially becoming a quality control coach for the 2019 season. Van Wagenen discussed Rojas further Saturday after introducing him as the Mets' new manager Friday.
"We put a ton of value (on Rojas' experience)," Van Wagenen said. "It was a huge decision-making factor. We mentioned yesterday that Luis' in-game decision-making was something that was very attractive to him. The fact that he was a home-grown manager. And I think in our game overall, we don't do enough work to develop our own talent from a coaching staff and managers perspective. But he's a case study for how it's supposed to work, and he progressed each step of the way like our players did, and he's proven our ground and he's ready to take over on the big stage."
On 2019's second half...
The Mets made moves throughout the winter to compete in the 2020 campaign, which came after the past year's second-half surge. While New York fell just shy of the postseason, Van Wagenen firmly believes the club is in a spot to make a run.
"I think that it was a combination of those things," Van Wagenen said. "Even at the halfway point -- as Luis knows -- as a coaching staff, we brought the team together and tried to identify what went wrong in that first half and how can we make changes and improvements to it in the second half. So that process started even earlier in the offseason and it's continued, the work these guys have been doing as a coaching staff and preparation for this year. We've had detailed player plans to make sure that we can maximize the roster that we already had. And then we identified where we felt like our holes were, wanted to make sure we shored up not only the bullpen but the starting rotation, to add more quality pitchers to make sure that we hit the ground running right out of the gate."
On ownership...
There was an announcement Dec. 4 that the Mets were negotiating an agreement with Steve Cohen to increase his investment in the organization. As part of the agreement, Fred and Jeff Wilpon would remain in their roles for five years. Van Wagenen commented on that development.
"Our goals are to win now and win in the future," Van Wagenen said. "We've been very, very direct and we haven't shied away from that, from that mission statement and we won't as we go forward. The day-to-day operations of our club have been consistent in which I started, I would anticipate that being the same going forward. Jeff Wilpon, our COO, and I have a great working relationship. We collaborate with the leaders in the other front office staff and then we, obviously, work with Jeff's communication and Fred. Our collaborative decision making, I anticipate, will not change as we go forward."
On Yoenis Cespedes...
After Cespedes missed all of the 2019 season with multiple ankle fractures that resulted from an incident with a wild boar, Van Wagenen mentioned him among the Mets who the medical staff will be keeping a closer eye on to ensure he stays healthy in 2020. Since his 2016 All-Star campaign, Cespedes has slashed .282/.343/.525 with 26 home runs and 71 RBI in 119 games from 2017-19.
"Luis mentioned the medical group -- in the starting rotation, in the bullpen, on any roster, health is such a key ingredient to what the team looks like when we break from camp and Cespedes is, with his injuries in the past, he'll be somebody we have to monitor very closely," Van Wagenen said. "But if all of these guys are healthy when we break camp, we're pretty excited about the talent and the depth that we have, and we'll keep working to make sure that these guys are as healthy as possible."
On Houston's sign-stealing scandal...
The Mets washed their hands clean of any ties to the Astros' electronic sign-stealing scandal when they parted ways with Beltran, but the ripple effects of Houston's cheating have been felt throughout Major League Baseball in the past two weeks. Asked about if there were any lingering thoughts about the Astros' involvement, Van Wagenen kept the focus on the Mets for 2020.
"Major League Baseball conducted a very thorough investigation," Van Wagenen said. "They put a lot of resources into it. And I think everybody would look at what's happened over the last few years as a difficult position for the game -- it's an unfortunate position for the game. But as it relates to our role and our involvement, we're solely focused on putting our players on the field and focused on going forward. And we talked about Luis' hire yesterday -- it's all about charging ahead, we're not going to look back and we'll leave it to Major League Baseball to make their decisions as what it means to other teams and other situations. But from our perspective, we're focused on winning games in 2020.
"And what other teams do, Gary -- we can't control that," Van Wagenen later added. "What we can control is what the New York Mets do. It's been important to Luis throughout his career -- we're going to do it right, and we're going to win games the right way."