Before these seismic events interrupted life as we know it, the trajectory for someone in Noah Syndergaard's current circumstances would have been predictable.
The talented Mets right-hander had reconstructive elbow surgery Thursday, a procedure that typically requires 12 to 15 months of recovery. Not every rehabilitation goes as planned, of course, and so while it's possible that Syndergaard could be back in the first half of 2021, there is no certainty in this, and with his free agency looming after next season, evaluators expect that the course of his return will be conservative.
The road map for the Mets would have been simple: Hope for Syndergaard's return relatively early in the rehabilitation timeline. Hope he reestablishes himself quickly to rediscover the dominance he has shown at times during his career. And hope that he either would become an important part of a rotation contending for the playoffs, or at least rebuild his trade value for a possible sell-off in July 2021 before he hits free agency.
But the longstanding baseball calculus is bound to change because of the coronavirus pandemic, and how the Mets handle Syndergaard might reflect a dramatic shift in the sport's financial landscape that now seems inevitable. As teams are forced to adjust to what could turn out to be the loss of billions of dollars for Major League Baseball this year and beyond, there will be many surprising decisions.
No team had more riding on the 2020 season than the Mets; no team had a win-now bet on this year more than the Mets, who sacrificed long-term assets in their effort to make the playoffs in 2019 or '20, a timeline that, we now know, coincided with the proposed sale of the franchise. Their rotation for this year includes Jacob deGrom, who is under a long-term deal; left-hander Steven Matz, who, like Syndergaard, will become eligible for free agency in fall 2021 now that the union and MLB have settled their service-time issues; and Marcus Stroman, Rick Porcello and Michael Wacha, all of whom will be free agents this fall.
That means that the bedrock of the Mets' 2021 rotation looks like this:
1. Jacob deGrom
2. Steven Matz
3. ?
4. ?
5. ?
Syndergaard was slated to make $9.7 million this year, and through arbitration, he'll make close to that next year, probably about $10 million. The risk in that bet will look very different if the team and the industry incur enormous financial losses this year and project to have more losses in the future.
Some club officials presume that if some or all of the 2020 season is lost, a number of clubs will look to slash payroll for 2021. Assuming that next year's schedule won't be affected, the players already working under long-term deals -- Mike Trout, Miguel Cabrera, Gerrit Cole, Giancarlo Stanton, Madison Bumgarner, etc. -- will see no cut in salaries, as their employers honor those contracts. The youngest players won't feel a big impact either because they are cheap. The Mets' Pete Alonso, for example, will gain another year of service time, moving closer to arbitration and free agency, and he'll probably be paid pretty close to his salary this year.
That means that if clubs look to cut payroll, they will likely do so among the more expensive players who don't have guaranteed contracts -- arbitration-eligible players or potential free-agent targets. "I think you'll see more non-tenders," one executive said. "The guys with four-plus or five-plus [years of] service time."
In recent winters, journeyman starting pitchers could count on getting solid one- or two-year offers in the range of $10 million annually; it's possible that if the pool of free agents grows, fed by a growing river of non-tenders by teams adjusting their payroll downward, those salary numbers will go drop through the dynamic of supply and demand.
If the pandemic hammers the baseball industry and payrolls are reduced, this is the one area of the roster where teams can affect significant change.
Which brings us back to Syndergaard. Like many teams, the Mets may well face difficult financial choices in the first winter after the pandemic. Given the state of their rotation, the Mets will need concrete options -- and Syndergaard cannot be that at the outset of the 2021 season because of the inherent uncertainty that comes with Tommy John recovery.
Under normal circumstances, keeping a dynamic $10 million pitcher would be an easy call, but the Mets won't have a solid guess on whether Syndergaard will be able to give them 80 innings or 100 or 150 until next spring. As rival officials mused over his situation this week, they wondered if the team would have to weigh moving his salary via trade -- for reduced return, of course -- or even consider a non-tender to give themselves a better chance to translate dollars into assured production.
"My guess is that they would keep him," one evaluator said, "because his performance ceiling could be higher than other available options. They've got other money coming off the books" -- Yoenis Cespedes, Jed Lowrie, maybe Wilson Ramos, and those free-agent-to-be starting pitchers -- "and maybe that'll give them the flexibility that they need."
Depending on how deep the financial hit to the franchise is, deciding what to do with Syndergaard could be an extremely difficult choice. But the Mets won't be alone in this. All teams and players will absorb a big blow from this unseen enemy, some more than others. Among those groups who figure to feel the greatest impact:
• Amateur undrafted players: Major League Baseball is filled with established players who developed from fringy draft picks into big-time contributors. The Mets loved deGrom's athleticism and used a ninth-round pick on him. The Cardinals picked Matt Carpenter in the 13th round. The Diamondbacks used their eighth-round selection in 2009 on a first baseman from Texas State University named Paul Goldschmidt. Rays center fielder Kevin Kiermaier was a 31st-round pick.
But with this year's draft reduced to as few as five rounds, and with signing bonuses for draft-eligible free agents capped at $20,000, there almost certainly will be big-league-caliber players we never see because, in the face of even more draconian pay in bonuses and salary -- in a downsized national economy -- they may choose to go into different fields. When MLB and the MLB Players Association mutually agree to reduce spending, so often it is at the expense of this group. And it will be so again.
• Veterans working under one-year deals in 2020: After putting in many years of service time, this represented the season in which these players would get their first big payday. Jake Odorizzi, the respected veteran pitcher, accepted a $17.8 million qualifying offer from the Twins, and this year was in line to about double his career pay in baseball. But a lot of that may well disappear, and after this season, Odorizzi will become part of that larger free-agent pool.
Didi Gregorius signed a one-year, $14 million deal with the Phillies, and it's uncertain whether he'll have a chance to play enough this year to answer the doubts about his defense that emerged in 2019. Edwin Encarnacion signed a one-year, $12 million contract with the White Sox; it's an open question whether, at 37, he'll get another bite at the financial pie. Dellin Betances signed a one-year, $10.5 million contract with the Mets looking to reestablish his value this year. The same is true with Kevin Gausman, who agreed to a $9 million deal with the Giants.
• Teams with tradable assets: The Cleveland Indians decided to open this season with superstar shortstop Francisco Lindor on their roster, while being open to the idea of listening to offers for him this summer. Now, if the season is delayed significantly -- or lost -- Lindor's value in the market could take a major hit. If there is no baseball in 2020, no opportunity to deal at the trade deadline, then Lindor will be only one year from free agency, rather than two, and offers for him presumably will be affected.
Under the new agreement between MLB and the union, rosters are currently frozen. Already, however, some executives speculate that whenever the freeze is lifted, teams -- particularly small-market teams -- will conduct business like recent Wall Street machinations, looking to move assets as quickly as possible. (This is exactly what happened after the labor conflict was settled in spring 1995, with the Expos dumping Larry Walker, John Wetteland and others.)
• Clubs angling for new ballparks -- the Athletics and Rays: Moving forward, a request for a publicly funded structure will look very different to state and local governments than it might have even a month ago.
The most hopeful development within baseball in these tumultuous weeks was the quiet, collaborative work between the league and the union. As recently as a week ago, some involved in the process had real doubts about whether the sides could get a deal across the finish line -- but they did, out of necessity.
It's impossible to know what condition the industry will be in whenever baseball resumes, but it stands to reason that amid concern over crowd-gathering and the reduction of the nation's disposable income, the MLB that emerges from this crisis will be very different. This is why it will continue to be important for the league and the union to engage and work together, and share the responsibility of reimagining what the sport's financial structure will be beyond the expiration date of the current labor agreement in December 2021.