Welcome to Rates and Daryls. It is Monday, March 2nd, Derek Manriper on the road in Arizona.

Eno Serra is in camp as we speak. We have three more team previews to get to today. So I have a lot of help from our great beatwriters here at the Athletic. We have the Mets, the Guardians, and the Blue Jays all on tap. We're going to start today with the Mets. And joining me is Tim Britton, one of our fantastic beatwriters covering the Mets. Tim, thank you so much for joining me.

Thanks for having me. Glad to be here. So what we've been doing is we can look at every team's position player group, trying to find the key and obvious like everyday five core players because you could mix and match at four spots. Teams have 13 position player spots. And I think the Mets have more than five everyday players. At least they should with the resources that they have in place. So there's not a lot of debate about who's really in their five. It's more like on the bottom half of the roster, who plays the most. That's what I think a lot of our listeners are wondering about. So you look at Soto, you look at Boba Chet, you look at Lindor, obviously they're max volume everyday players. Marcus Simeon, probably a max volume everyday player, health permitting.

Jorge Polanco probably fits into that bucket too. You get to the bottom half and you're like, okay, Brett Beat Beatty, like what's his role look like this year?

Mark Vientos, what does his role look like this year? So I'm just kind of curious as you look at different platooning options and you think about the defensive alignment of this team, which is taking some risks, I think, to put it mildly. Who do you see a sort of winning out on the bottom half of this roster with larger than expected roles? Yeah, I mean, I think when they signed Boba Chet to play third base, a lot of people

were wondering, what does that mean for Brett Beat Beatty, a guy who, you know, had been a top prospect for them, had kind of floundered for a couple of years for finding his rhythm, especially, you know, after May of last year, being really, I think he was their second best hitter by OPS after the All Star break last season, looked like at least an average to maybe slightly above third baseman, was able to hold his own at second base defensively when they had to put him there. So, you know, where does the Bichette move? What does that leave for Bady? And that's the talked about, well, he can still play a little bit of second when they need him. He can play some first. He can pay maybe some outfield. We haven't seen him get outfield reps yet in spring training because he's tweaked his hamstring a little bit before getting to camp.

But we have seen him at first base

already. And the way they've talked about Polanco, you know, they sign him to be a first baseman

out of Seattle. But it's not to be the first baseman for 150 games. They've already talked about

like DH is going to be a big

part of his repertoire this year. Last year he played the majority of his games at D. He started

the majority of his games at D.H for the Meriters. So I think Bady probably gets a lot of play against

right-handed, right-handed pitchers either at first base or at D.H. himself. I think between or among Beatty, Polanco, and Vientos, those are three guys who are going to occupy two spots in the lineup on a regular basis. You know, against righties, I'd expect it to be Polanco and Beatty. Against left, he's maybe Polanco and Vientos. But I think Beatty is the kind of guy who, with his versatility, you know, maybe he gets to right field eventually.

But, you know, can fill in for Semyon at second if something happens there.

Is the fill in for Bichette at third?

If anything happens there, could still be a guy who gets 400, 500 plate appearances, even if he doesn't have that set everyday role.

Yeah, the versatility does seem like it makes them a great fit because there could be injuries.

There will be injuries inevitably over the course of the season.

So I do like Beatty a lot for a nice, kind of like, yeah, big side platoon roll,

even though it might come at two or three different spots any given week.

Thinking about the defense so far, what of the early reviews been, the first few

Grafruit League games throughout camp, does it look like it's going to work at the infield

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