Amazin' Avenue Offseason Plan Contest

The 2021-22 Amazin’ Avenue Offseason Plan Contest (AAOP)

Play the role of Mets GM and write up your plan to make the best possible Mets team for 2021 and beyond.

By Lukas Vlahos@lvlahos343 Nov 5, 2021, 12:00pm EDT

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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 as a FanPost. The title must begin with “AAOP:” (no quotes) so that the judges can easily find your entry.
This year, we’re giving the community two weeks to submit AAOPs. That means that the deadline for submission is Friday, November 19th at 5:00 PM EST. 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, 2021 payroll cannot exceed $250 million. The same tgoes for all future years. Without getting into arguments about what the Mets should or will spend, this will allow participants enough flexibility to do some interesting things with their AAOPs.
You have the power to make qualifying offers to any pending free agent. For our purposes, we assume that Michael Conforto would decline the QO but that anyone else will accept.
Kevin Pillar will opt out of his half of the option, but you can choose to execute the team option if you choose.
Use this spreadsheet for arbitration salaries (from MLBTR’s estimates) and future payroll obligations. Note that we are assuming a league minimum salary of $600,000.
For a list of available free agents, use MLBTR.
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. No one is coughing up a top of the rotation starter in exchange for Thomas Szapucki. Whether the Mets might realistically execute your plan isn’t important, but the moves do need to be at least somewhat justifiable.