Just Mets

As play begins on Tuesday, the Mets are 35-30 and 1 1/2 games ahead of the Nationals for the lead in the National League East. They’ve stayed in first place or within three games of first place the entire season.

They’ve done all of this without David Wright since April 15, without Travis d’Arnaud for most of the year, and a fragmented and constantly make-shift bullpen since the middle of spring training, and maintain a +1 run differential through their first 65 games.

Despite that remarkable and surprising success all things considered, there remains a need to augment their inconsistent offense and shore up their subpar defense if they stand any chance for a run towards the postseason.

The question is, will the Mets improve their roster in their attempt to make a run? Sandy Alderson was vague on that subject in his talk with reporters on Monday afternoon at Citi Field.

“Even if we’re not visibly making a move, we haven’t done anything – that doesn’t mean that we haven’t been assessing what our options are,” Alderson said, according to Mike Vorkunov of the Star Ledger. “That’s something we’re doing constantly.”

As he said last month, Alderson is hopeful people who are injured and on their way back can serve as reinforcements to their depleted and fatigued roster at some point down the line.

“Against that backdrop you have to think of the players you have and the ones that are coming back – and where we have some certainty of players coming back – we try to be patient,” Alderson explained. “Where there’s more uncertainty you have to be a little more aggressive in what you’re doing. Fundamentally, it’s about analyzing our players and how they’re performing and what’s available to us outside and whether we think that can improve us. Right now we think we’ve got, internally, the players to keep us competitive. If that feeling changes, something might happen.”

This past weekend, Buster Olney of ESPN wrote the perception within the industry is the Mets are unwilling to add to their payroll this summer, although that could explain why the Mets have been aggressively shopping higher priced veterans in Dillon Gee and Jon Niese, according to Andy Martino of the Daily News. But now that the Mets have designated Gee for assignment, it’s unclear if the Mets could get the necessary salary relief they might be seeking.

On Monday, Alderson said he was hopeful there might be interest in Gee on the trade market, but if he is unable to move him, they will outright him to Triple-A Las Vegas and pay him the remainder of the $5.3 million owed on the contract he signed to avoid arbitration this past winter.

In any event, while the Mets were originally expecting to be contenders in 2015, it seems as though the opportunity they have is bigger than they might have anticipated, Sure, those who are still healthy need to remain healthy, they can hope to get some reinforcements back from the disabled list, and maybe they can hold out some hope David Wright can contribute in some way this season.

But there’s no certainty in any of this, especially with Wright. And even if they were healthier, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a need to bolster the weaker parts of the club (which is glaring in some areas).

But they need to be willing and able to do that, and Alderson, per usual, offered a vague picture of his plans to improve the roster.

Or not.