Mets mull offer to Jenrry
WITH baseball’s offseason beginning to move with the signings of Jordan Zimmermann and David Price, the Mets continued to wait it out Tuesday. With their top priority, Ben Zobrist, still deliberating over the multiple offers being thrown at him, the Mets considered their options.
One team source said that they are leaning toward offering contracts to all their arbitration-eligible players on Wednesday. The non-tender deadline in baseball is Wednesday at midnight.
The Mets are obviously going to offer contracts to first-time arbitration eligible Matt Harvey and Jeurys Familia, but it looks like they also intend to offer contracts to Addison Reed, Ruben Tejada, Josh Edgin, Carlos Torres and even Jenrry Mejia.
While the Mets executives and players were furious at Mejia for being suspended twice for PED use last season, the front office reasoned that offering him a contract was a low-risk endeavor. Mejia is serving his second suspension, 162 games, and will be ineligible for the first 63 games of 2016. Any deal the Mets agree to with him, will be prorated, meaning if Mejia can keep himself out of trouble the Mets could get a reliever with closing experience on a discounted contract.
There has been some conversation about Tejada’s future with the Mets, considering he is coming off his second broken leg in three years. There are voices within the organization who feel they need the security of Tejada’s defense at shortstop. Scouts have said that Triple-A shortstop Matt Reynolds more likely projects as a major league utility player.
With Zobrist being so heavily courted, the Mets have looked at other options and have not ruled out a possible reunion with second baseman Daniel Murphy, who turned down their $15.8 million qualifying offer. A team source said “that would be way down the road,” and right now they are looking at internal options. That would mean moving Wilmer Flores to second or promoting Dilson Herrera.
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