The Mets are already staring down a busy offseason, and a few familiar names may not make it to Opening Day 2027. After a year that fell well short of expectations, New York has a new core taking shape - but there are also several players whose grip on roster spots looks awfully shaky.
Marcus Semien sits near the top of that group after a brutal first year in New York. His production cratered on both sides of the ball, and the numbers tell the story.
In 139 games, he hit .215 with 15 home runs, posted a 74 wRC+, and finished with the second-worst OPS among qualified players at .619. The defense slipped just as badly.
One year after winning a Gold Glove at second base, Semien turned into one of the league’s worst defenders there, putting up -9 OAA. His -0.4 fWAR underscored how little he gave the Mets overall.
New York still owes him $56 million over the next two seasons, but moving that deal could be tough. If no trade materializes, the Mets may have to DFA him.
They could keep him around as a bench bat, but with his bat, defense and speed all trending down, that’s a hard sell when Brett Baty and top prospect Jefferson Rojas are options at second.
Mark Vientos is another name whose future feels murky. After breaking out in 2024 with 27 homers in 111 games, he hasn’t built on that momentum over the last two seasons.
This year, he hit .212/.258/.394 with 13 home runs and a 78 wRC+ in 87 games. Moving from third base to first didn’t fix the defensive problems either, as he finished at -10 OAA.
Vientos is under contract for two more seasons and is heading into his first year of arbitration eligibility. The Mets could keep him as a power bat off the bench, but a non-tender or trade looks more likely than that kind of role.
Bo Bichette’s situation is different because the decision may be his. He has the first of two opt-outs to weigh this winter, and reports have pointed in different directions on what he plans to do.
After a slow start through the first month-plus, Bichette settled in and looked much more like himself. He finished at .259/.311/.389 with 18 home runs and a 96 wRC+.
If he opts in, the Mets would owe him $42 million for 2027. That is a huge number for a player coming off a down year by his standards.
Still, he’ll turn 29 next year, so the window to land a long-term deal is narrowing, which could push him toward opting out.
Ronny Mauricio is in a tougher spot because the roster math may simply not work in his favor. He’s out of minor league options, and that alone puts his future in New York in doubt.
He managed just 13 hits in 59 major-league at-bats this season. His best chance came in 2023, when he finally reached the majors and flashed the talent that once made him the Mets’ top prospect.
But that progress was halted when he tore his ACL while playing in the Dominican Winter League that offseason. With no obvious role and no easy way to send him back down, the Mets may have to choose between a trade or a non-tender.
Kodai Senga might be the hardest player on the list to pin down. He’s entering the final year of his five-year, $75 million contract, and his future may depend on how the Mets want to use him.
His run as a starter this season went sideways fast: in eight starts, he went 0-7 with a 9.66 ERA. Since moving into the closer role, though, he’s looked far sharper, going 8-for-9 in save chances and showing better command.
The Mets would like to keep him in the bullpen, but Senga has made it clear he wants to return to the rotation. If that divide can’t be bridged, a trade could be the cleanest answer.
Huascar Myers is also in a tricky spot after an uneven season that never really settled into a clear role. Acquired from the Milwaukee Brewers along with Freddy Peralta before the season, he was expected to matter either as a starter or a reliever.
The Mets opened with him in the bullpen, where he pitched well early and kept his ERA under 3.00 through April while giving them length. But when the rotation needed help, they sent him to Triple-A Syracuse to stretch him out.
Instead of coming back quickly, he struggled badly and spent most of the second half in the minors. By season’s end, his ERA had climbed to 5.64.
He’s out of minor league options, and with the Mets needing bullpen help this winter, he may get passed by Austin Warren and Nate Lavender.
In Other News...
Mets Trade Deadline Debate Just Took A Surprising Turn
The summer trade deadline once looked like it might define the Mets postseason outlook from afar, with several familiar names landing elsewhere and immediately being tied to October expectations. Instead, the playoff picture has thinned quickly for those new clubs, and the impact from a number of those Mets-dealt players has been limited or nonexistent, changing the way those moves are being judged in hindsight.
Only Freddy Peralta of the Tampa Bay Rays remains active in the postseason mix, while others such as Clay Holmes, Tyrone Taylor and David Peterson have barely surfaced in playoff action. For the Mets, that shift matters because deadline deals are always measured by more than return value in July, and this one is now being viewed through a very different October lens. [Read more 🡒]
One Of The Strangest Mets Pitching Feats Still Stands Alone
Rob Gardners afternoon on Oct. 2, 1965, still sits in a class of its own in Mets history. In a 0-0 tie against the Phillies, the left-hander kept going deep into extra innings and wound up throwing 15 innings, a workload that became one of the strangest official pitching lines in the franchises early years.
The game itself was replayed the next day and did not count in the standings, but Gardners individual numbers from that day still do. More than six decades later, his 15-inning outing remains the Mets record, untouched by every starter and reliever who has followed. [Read more 🡒]
Mets History Has One No-Hit Pattern Fans Will Want To Argue Over
The Mets have lived through their share of pitching misery over the years, but one strange wrinkle stands out in the clubs no-hit history: four of the eight no-hitters thrown against them came during doubleheader games. It is the sort of odd footnote that baseball history produces once in a while, and for a franchise that has seen everything from heartbreak to rare moments of perfection, it adds another layer to a long-running ledger of tough afternoons and memorable pitching performances.
Jim Bunnings perfect game in 1964 and Max Scherzers no-hitter in 2015 sit near the top of that list for very different reasons, and the outcomes around those games were not always the same from one side of a twin bill to the next. Some of those Mets doubleheader no-hit games ended in losses, others in wins, which is part of what makes the pattern worth arguing about. It is not just a trivia quirk, either - it is a reminder that with this team, even the most brutal history often comes with a twist. [Read more 🡒]