Mets 2025 Opening Day Roster Projection 1.0

Late last month, Allison drew up a “way too early” roster projection. That proved to be right, as the Mets have signed Pete Alonso, Ryne Stanek and Nick Madrigal since then.

Naturally, there still way be moves made, and injuries still happen, but the Mets’ roster looks pretty complete. So, with spring training officially underway today and most of the team’s move behind them, let’s project what the Mets’ Opening Day roster will look like.

Starting Lineup

1. Francisco Lindor, SS
2. Juan Soto, RF
3. Mark Vientos, 3B
4. Pete Alonso, 1B
5. Brandon Nimmo, LF
6. Jesse Winker, DH
7. Francisco Alvarez, C
8. Jeff McNeil, 2B
9. Jose Siri, CF

To be fair to Allison, she projected Pete would be on the team two weeks before he signed. Little tweaks here, outside of putting Vientos ahead of Alonso in the lineup and Jose Siri starting in center field.

Bench

10. Tyrone Taylor, OF
11. Luis Torres, C
12. Starling Marte, OF/DH
13. Nick Madrigal, INF

Madrigal will be on the Opening Day roster, shutting the door for Luisangel Acuña or Brett Baty to take the last bench spot. Carlos Mendoza said Tuesday that Baty would get reps at second and third this spring, and Acuña feels like an easy backup shortstop when the Mets need it.

Rotation

14. Sean Manaea, LHP
15. Kodai Senga, RHP
16. David Peterson, LHP
17. Frankie Montas, RHP
18. Clay Holmes, RHP
19. Paul Blackburn, RHP

All indications point toward the Mets running with a six-man rotation, which makes sense given the blend of injury history and lower innings counts present in the rotation.

From the six above, four have missed significant time due to injury (Senga, Peterson, Montas and Blackburn). The other two are the team’s ace (Manaea) who threw a career high in innings last year, and the other is a reliever transitioning to be a starter (Holmes). It’s hard to really even bank on Blackburn returning perfectly healthy following a pretty scary back injury.

For now, in V.1, we’re projecting the starting rotation to be the obvious one. But if you’re projecting others to make starts, Tylor Megill, Griffin Canning, Brandon Sproat, Blade Tidwell and others could join the mix during the season.

Bullpen

And here is where the debate will lie all spring. With all of the arms the Mets signed/brought into the organization this winter, they find themselves at a surplus of decent to great options. However, with six starters projected to start in the rotation, that leaves seven bullpen spots. Four of them are no-doubt locks, if healthy.

Locks:

20. Edwin Díaz, RHP
21. A.J. Minter, LHP
22. Ryne Stanek, RHP
23. José Buttó, RHP

Butto doesn’t have any options remaining, so he’ll start the year with the club in the bullpen. Carlos Mendoza confirmed that Tuesday.

Then, there are people who should be locks, but they have options, which are valuable for roster flexibility coming out of spring:

• Reed Garrett, RHP
• Dedniel Núñez, RHP

Then there are guys they signed to a contract before re-signing their ace, so…

• Griffin Canning, RHP

And then they have some decent options on the 40-man roster:

• Danny Young, LHP
• Huascar Brazoban, RHP
• Sean Reid-Foley, RHP
• Tyler Zuber, RHP

So, out of the seven names listed here, we need to pick three.

Garrett and Núñez should be obvious, but I think their options are too valuable. I think Núñez, given he ended the year with arm issues, may start the year slow in the minors until they need him. That frees up an easy spot for Canning, who absolutely will make the team. (It’s unlikely he’ll make it as a starter and more likely he’ll be the long man out of the bullpen.)

Then, for the final spot, I think they give Danny Young a shot until it doesn’t work. He’s also insurance for Minter, who isn’t a guarantee to come out of the spring fully ready to go after his 2024 season ended with hip surgery. So my final picks are:

24. Reed Garrett
25. Griffin Canning
26. Danny Young

Injuries happen every spring. Players get traded and cut. Players also perform really poorly! There’s no shot this is the exact 26-man roster they start with on Opening Day. But as spring gets going, this who I think the Mets break camp with. What do youn think?

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