It’s finally here. No not the start of the regular season, the end of our offseason grades. Priorities, people.
Moves we graded
We broke down the eight major moves the Mets made this offseason while also consolidating the bevvy or smaller additions:
- Traded Brandon Nimmo to the Rangers: A
- Signed Devin Williams: A
- Signed Jorge Polanco: B+ – adjusted down to a B
- Signed Luke Weaver: B+
- Traded Jeff McNeil to the A’s: B
- Signed Bo Bichette: C-
- Traded for Luis Robert: A+
- Traded for Freddy Peralta: A
- A ton of minor moves: A
By and large, these grades stand up in the broader context of the offseason, with the exception of the Jorge Polanco signing. Up front, we should clearly state that this was still a solid move; Polanco is a very nice hitter who should adapt to 1B without issue and offers
some degree of defensive flexibility at second and third. Even if he winds up being the primary DH (with Brett Baty seeing more time at first), that’s a totally fine outcome given both of their ability to flex around the diamond.
That said, Ryan O’Hearn signed for a good bit less money in Pittsburgh (2 years, $29M versus 2 years, $40M for Polanco) nearly a month after Polanco joined the Mets. Polanco is the better player in a vacuum (better hitter, defensive flex, a bit more platoon neutral) but it seems the Mets may have overpaid by a hair here. Not catastrophic, but we’ll tweak things down a half-grade to keep ourselves honest.
Goals and outcomes
The Mets wanted to improve their defense. They got rid of an aging corner outfielder with chronic foot problems (Brandon Nimmo), added a plus center fielder (Luis Robert), are slated to play their CF-capable top prospect in a corner spot (Carson Benge), added an elite defender at second (Marcus Semien), and replaced one of the worst defenders in baseball at first (Pete Alonso – more on him in a moment) with some combination of Brett Baty and Jorge Polanco, two guys who project to be at least average and likely above at the position. Check.
As a result of those moves, the Mets needed to fill in a bit of an offensive hole. Well they brought in Bo Bichette to upgrade offensively at third, replaced Tyrone Taylor’s 70 wRC+ in center with Robert, added a replacement bat at 1B that doesn’t project to be all that much worse than Alonso offensively in 2026. That’s another check.
On the pitching side of things, the Mets needed to add a front-of-the-rotation option. Freddy Peralta is not what some would call a true ace, the sort of arm there are only 3 – 5 of at any given time. He’s also not what most would consider a workhorse, having never topped 200 or even 180 innings in a season. He is, however, one of the 10-15 best arms in baseball, and has been for the better part of the past half-decade. Peralta is set to sit atop the Mets rotation, may very well extend before we make it to June, and didn’t cost anything the Mets couldn’t afford to part with. Once again, check.
More broadly, this roster, clubhouse, and coaching staff needed a shakeup. Though 2024 was a lot of fun, the track record of the core entering the offseason was one mostly of failure and disappointment, rife with clubhouse disruptions, a culture that never seemed to jive, and downright inept coaching. Well a good chunk of that legacy core is gone, and nearly the entire coaching staff is new. Time will tell if the clubhouse is indeed a happier place in the wake of those changes, but the new coaches do seem to already be paying dividends. Consider this one checked too.
The Elephant Polar Bear not in the room
We’ve discussed (and generally assigned favorable grades to) most of the changes to the core, but Pete Alonso’s departure in free agency bears (*rimshot*) a dedicated discussion. Yes, Alonso was a fan favorite, arguably the best power hitter in franchise history. He also had the second-best season of his career in 2025, hitting 38 homers and posting a 141 wRC+ as a central piece of the Met lineup. At 31, he’s not even that old – past his prime certainly, but hardly a fossil.
Consider his defense though, which has been visually catastrophic (and contributed to multiple pitcher injuries over the last year). Consider also Alonso’s sprint speed, which cratered to 25.3 feet-per-second (8th percentile in baseball) and is often a great indicator of overall athletic decline. Consider his bat tracking metrics, which show consistent bat speed but also capture a growing tendency to catch the ball deeper in the zone, another potential sign of offensive skill degradation and not a trend you want to see in an aging power hitter.
That all a bit too new age for you? That’s fair, how about some player comparisons instead. Per Baseball Reference, Alonso’s most similar players through age-30 and a brief description of their subsequent career are as follows:
- Matt Olson – had a nice age-31 season in 2025
- Chris Davis – yikes
- Richie Sexson – posted a 117 wRC+ in his age-31 season and was never a league average hitter afterwards, out of the league at 33
- Mark McGwire – one of the best hitters of all time with a significant caveat
- Cecil Fielder – never posted a line more than 10% better than league average after age-30 and was out of the league at 34
We could keep going, but I think you get the point. Corner bats of this archetype are generally not a good investment. If Alonso’s bat slips even a little – a likely outcome given historical comps and one even expected by ZiPS three-year projections – his value tanks given the lack of ancillary skills. In this context it’s easy to understand why the Mets never even made Alonso an offer before he signed a 5-year, $155M deal with Baltimore.
A shorter section about Edwin Diaz
Edwin Diaz’s departure is the other component of the offseason we have not touched on since he signed with the Dodgers for 3-years and $69M (with some deferrals worked in). We did touch on the comparison between Diaz and Williams when looking at the latter’s deal, with the key points boiling down as follows:
- Williams’ poor 2025 was largely the product of poor luck
- Over a larger body of work, the gap between Diaz and Williams is not significant
- Diaz has shown more warning signs in terms of stuff and velocity slippage over the past two seasons despite the difference in top-line results
Now, Diaz didn’t wind up signing the 5-year, 9-figure deal he was reportedly looking for, but he did get a good deal more money than Williams. I’d make the somewhat tenuous argument that I’d prefer Williams in a vacuum to Diaz at this point, but let’s presume for the moment that you prefer Diaz. Do you still prefer him over Williams for ~$5M extra per year? Do you still prefer Diaz at higher cost over Williams AND the compensatory picks the Mets will receive for letting Diaz walk after declining a qualifying offer? It’s a pretty clear calculus ultimately.
Diaz of course, also played a role in his own departure, as he reportedly did not give the Mets a chance to counter the Dodgers’ offer. Not coming back to the wealthiest individual owner in the sport – one who previously gave you a well above market contract and has been willing to get in biding wars before – is a pretty strong indicator that a player is set on leaving. Ultimately I think the Mets made out well here, avoiding a more onerous financial commitment, backfilling with a nearly equivalent player, and snagging some extra draft picks for their trouble.
Conclusion
No offseason is perfect, and this past offseason for the Mets was no exception. The Bo Bichette signing sticks out as a particularly risky move given the contract structure, though it’s not all that out of line with other deals around the league. For on-field value alone, it also seems like the Mets should’ve been able to do better in dumping Jeff McNeil, though their are likely off-field factors at play here. Another established bullpen arm might’ve helped as well, or at least someone better than Luis Garcia (a signing so small and uninteresting that we didn’t even cover it anywhere else).
All that said, I can’t help but be extremely impressed by the outcome of this offseason. The Mets achieved all of the major goals we’d have realistically set out for them in October. In parallel, they not just weathered multiple headline departures, but look better for having done so. The rotation runs 9-men deep with more on the way; the back-end of the bullpen should be quite strong; the position player group should be strong on both sides of ball and offers more flexibility than this roster has had a long while. It’s difficult to find any holes, frankly.
The Dodgers remain the class of baseball, but if you set aside an especially rosy projection for the Mariners, no other team in baseball is more than a half win better than the Mets per PECOTA’s projected standings as of this writing. I’d also comfortably take the over on their current 89.4 win projection on the basis of continued pitching breakouts and better playing time optimization (something that projection systems don’t account for well, leading to underestimates for deep rosters). It’s a testament to the front office that they transformed a roster that failed so thoroughly in 2025 into one that sparks so much optimism and did so without mortgaging the future via trades or long-term contracts.
So flawless? No. Really really good? Absolutely. This offseason receives an A-.
