68 players? Here's a look at the organized chaos at Mets camp

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- Monday, it rained in Port St. Lucie. This was a problem.

“Rain is horrible,” Danny Barnes said. “It’s, like, really bad.”

It’s not that Barnes, the Mets’ strategy coach, forgot to pack his slicker. It’s just that his job is to coordinate everything that goes on at Clover Park, which can be hectic work in normal times and is currently more difficult than ever. The Mets have 68 players in camp -- a notably large number that’s transformed the spring complex into its own little city.

On any given morning, players crowd together for what pitching coach Jeremy Hefner calls “the football stretch,” before dispersing to any of nine fields. Hitters filter into the batting cage at all times of day, sometimes beginning before sunrise. Pitchers take turns throwing off a six-pack of mounds. Some of them catch rides on a small fleet of golf carts. Staff members follow all 68 around the grounds to cater to various needs -- one carrying a first-aid kid, another wearing a holstered belt stocked with electrolyte water, and so on and so forth.

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Counting players, about 150 employees are on site.

“Lotta laundry,” one clubhouse attendant said. “Everyone’s on a different program.”

When it rains, the Mets’ universe shrinks to the clubhouse, the batting cages and a pair of indoor mounds. Having 68 players cycle through such a small portion of the complex is far from ideal. Even less ideal is scheduling those rotations while simultaneously drawing up road-trip contingency plans and rejiggering workouts for affected players.

“Rain,” Barnes repeated, “is by far the worst thing.”

Welcome to Port St. Lucie, where, it turns out, 68 players is a lot of players. Four years ago, the Mets also brought 68 to camp, but that was in the shadow of COVID-19, when extras were needed to guard against disruptions. This year’s glut represents more of a general trend around baseball. The league average is 65 players, ranging from 56 in Braves camp to 73 for the Mariners. Seven teams have more campers than the Mets do.

But while 68 humans may fall within the bounds of normalcy, that doesn’t exactly make it routine. Consider the needs of a group this large. According to staff estimates, the Mets go through at least 30 cases of electrolyte water per day and up to 60 pounds of beef in a single meal. They eat around 540 eggs per day -- about three and a half per person, for those doing the math.

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Over the course of Spring Training, the Mets will use more than 1,300 baseballs on the field and 240 gallons of laundry detergent off it. In the home clubhouse, every locker but two is occupied. The coaching room overflows in similar fashion, with 16 Minor League staffers temporarily joining their big league peers. When the entire contingent met before the first day of full-squad workouts, the conference room was so full that employees had to stand against three of its four walls.

So why, exactly, are there so many Mets? For starters, Steve Cohen’s riches give them an advantage in Minor League free agency, allowing the club to lure veterans with slightly larger contract offers than they might see elsewhere. Most of those players won’t impact the organization in significant ways. But if a single Jose Iglesias type emerges, the investment will have been worth it.

Secondly, many of the Mets’ top prospects are already in the upper Minors, resulting in more camp invites than usual for those who have yet to reach the Majors. Thirdly, teams like the Mets have begun shying away from using regulars in early Grapefruit League games, given their modern understanding of proper training methods. If the Brandon Nimmos and Starling Martes of the world aren’t playing in February, somebody else has to.

Teams have also begun to focus on roster construction outside the traditional bounds of 26- and 40-man groupings. These days, clubs tend to use 60-plus MLB players per season. The Mets want to spend Spring Training getting familiar with as many of their potential contributors as possible.

“It’s the measure of a team that truly wants to win,” reliever Kevin Herget said of all the folks around him.

But “what it does logistically,” president of baseball operations David Stearns quipped, “is it makes Danny Barnes’ life really tough.”

Ultimately, 42 of the 68 players here won’t make the team. In the interim, Barnes will continue scheduling them where they need to be.

Typically, Barnes arrives at Clover Park by 5:30 a.m. ET. When there’s a road game, he rides shotgun so he can work in the car on the way back to Port St. Lucie. Even so, Barnes still tends to have more paperwork in the evening.

Finally, by 6 or 6:30 p.m., he feels prepped and ready for the coming day. Some days promise to be more hectic than others.

Like Tuesday, for example. Don’t look now, but there’s more rain in the forecast.