It’s that time of year again! The offseason is upon us, and as is tradition here at Amazin’ Avenue, we turn to our community to do something that’s always a lot of fun: the Amazin’ Avenue Offseason Plan Contest—commonly referred to as the AAOP. If you’re unfamiliar, here’s our finalist post from last season’s contest, just so you can familiarize yourself with the format and how things work.
Please note that if you haven’t signed up for a username on the site, you’ll need to do so more than 24 hours
before the contest ends, as there is a 24-hour waiting period before a new user can post on the site.
Rules and Guidelines
- Submit your entry in the Feed. The title of the post must start with “AAOP:” (no quotes) so that judges may identify your entry.
- Your entry may be composed entirely in the feed or in a Google Doc. If you compose it the Feed, we recommend using the advanced editor. If you compose it in a Google Doc, which allows for more flexibility when using images/Paintz/etc., you should include a link to the Google Doc in the body of your post in the Feed and ensure that the sharing link is set to allow anyone with the link to view it.
- To ensure there’s no post-submission editing, you must submit a PDF of your entry via JotForm at: https://form.jotform.com/253135101770143
- The use of AI for written content or generative images is strictly prohibited.
- Your entry must be submitted by Saturday, November 14th at 11:59 PM . No exceptions.
- There are no specific formatting requirements. Entries will be evaluated on readability, creativity, and realism by a panel of Amazin’ Avenue staff writers. For this year’s contest, 2027 payroll cannot exceed $330M. The $330M payroll threshold applies to all future years as well as 2027 (so you cannot grotesquely backload a bunch of contracts).
- This year, the offseason has more uncertainty than usual given that we don’t currently have a labor agreement, a situation that is not likely to resolve for a decent while. As an approximation of the new system. we will assume that the CBT penalties remain in place and roll forward with a similar increase. That means that the first luxury tax level for 2027 will be $248M for the purposes of this year’s AAOP.
- If your AAOP checks in below the third threshold ($288M), you’ll get some extra credit. If you check in over the third threshold ($308M), you may be judged more harshly. These numbers refer only to your 26-man roster salary as well as any carried salary obligations you incur through your offseason moves
- Use this link for arbitration salaries (from MLBTR’s estimates). For current and future payroll obligations, contract details, and option status, see this spreadsheet. Alternatively, Spotrac and Roster Resource have more detailed information on all players.
- League minimum salary for the 2027 season is $800,000.
- You have the power to make qualifying offers to any eligible player. The value of the qualifying offer this offseason is $23.15M. You may offer the QO to any pending free agent. Any player on the current roster you extend a QO to will accept.
- Bo Bichette will opt in to his 2027 contract.
- For a list of available free agents, use MLBTR. To get a rough idea of what contracts players are expected to receive, see FanGraphs.
- Make sure your roster is legal. That means 26 players, at least 13 of whom must be position players.
- Your AAOP begins at the start of the Mets’ offseason, so you are free to ignore any decisions the Mets have already made since the season ended.
- Make your submission as readable as possible. Use spell-check, proofread your post, and try to make it sound good. If we have to slog through reading your plan, we probably won’t like it too much.
- Same goes for making your post look good. Sprinkle in some images, tables, and of course some Paintz (MS Paint for the uninitiated). Fun aesthetics are a great way to make your plan stand out and keep the judges interested while reading it.
- Make your plan as realistic as possible. Whether the Mets might realistically execute your plan isn’t important, but the moves do need to be at least somewhat justifiable.
Deeper Roster Details
Before anything else, note that the details below are ENTIRELY OPTIONAL. If you want to do an AAOP without deeper levels of detail, that’s totally valid and your submission will not be penalized in any way. The below is meant to purely be a fun add-on for those of us who are way, way to into this (like myself).
If you’re still interested, we prepared this spreadsheet (the same linked shared previously with salary obligations) that consolidates all player information on contracts, option status, and luxury tax numbers (2027 roster tab) and provides a roster template for you to use if you choose (2027 Roster (TEMPLATE) tab). An example roster – one with basically no additions or subtractions – is provided in the 2027 Roster (EXAMPLE) tab. This will hopefully provide a starting point to get into some of the more detailed elements of roster construction, such as:
- What will the luxury tax number for the Mets be? Recall that the luxury tax for each player is not based on their 2027 salary but instead on the average annual value of the contract.
- Who can actually be optioned down for depth on the 40-man roster? The Mets have a number of players who are out of options, meaning you might have to make some tough calls on who is included on the back of your roster or passed through waivers.
- Are there any prospects you want to protect from the Rule 5 draft? A number of players in the Mets’ minor league system will be Rule 5 eligible this offseason and must be added to the 40-man roster to avoid another team potentially selecting them. Finding the roster spots to protect the players you deem most valuable – or those you deem most likely to be taken by another org – can put a further squeeze on your roster construction decisions.
All of this can get complicated, and again is ENTIRELY OPTIONAL. But, if you want to take a stab at the deeper elements of roster construction, this will hopefully provide an avenue to step in in a more guided way. Feel free to leave questions in the comments as well, which we’ll try our best to address as we’re able.
