LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- Matt Harvey missing the 2014 season recovering from Tommy John surgery inevitably changed the Mets' offseason plan, Jeff Wilpon acknowledged Tuesday afternoon.
"Sure," Wilpon said. "Matt getting hurt has taken away unquestionably a guy who looked like he was going to be our ace. It changes things a little bit. We don't need an extra pitcher if Matt is the guy there. And you might use the resources elsewhere."
As for whether it also downgraded the Mets' expectations for next season, Wilpon added: "I don't have an answer. You'd like to say no. But if he was going to be out there for 200 innings, you'd think the results would be pretty good. Taking away those 200 innings is definitely an issue."
Meanwhile, Wilpon insisted that any front-office decisions at this point are not constrained by the team's finances. If Sandy Alderson wanted to pursue Stephen Drew, Wilpon intimated, he could.
"Right now it's a baseball decision," Wilpon said, " because Sandy hasn't come to say, 'Gee, we have to go sign Stephen Drew,' or anybody else for that matter. ...
"I haven't heard him say that that's the best thing to do with our resources," Wilpon added. "He hasn't come to me and said, 'Gee, if we had X, we would go take somebody like that.' So there's still discussion on who we're looking at in a trade scenario and what else might be out there."