Tylor Megill’s road back is already creating a Mets problem that won’t wait until Opening Day.
The right-hander missed all of the 2026 season after Tommy John surgery, and the Mets still kept him in the fold by tendering him a deal last offseason. That move bought them time, but it also set up a tricky 2027 decision because Megill’s service time will now be past five years, which means he can reject a minor league assignment.
That matters because the Mets may not be done with him. They paid him $2.5 million last year to rehab, and they clearly had some intention of keeping him around.
Megill went on the injured list with one minor league option left, but that option is now gone. Once he hit five years of service time while on the IL, he crossed into the territory where the Mets can’t simply send him down without his consent.
Megill’s career has always lived somewhere in the middle. He burst through the minors in 2021, but the big-league version has been uneven, with a lifetime 4.46 ERA.
Over the last two seasons, though, he settled in a bit. In 2024 and 2025, he effectively gave the Mets one full season’s worth of work: 29 starts, one relief appearance, a 9-10 record, and a 4.00 ERA.
The strikeouts have been there, too. Across those two years, Megill posted an 11.1 K/9 rate, with his walk rate ticking up but not enough to become a major alarm bell. The result was a 100 ERA+ over that span, which leaves him looking like a league-average arm more than anything else.
That’s part of why the Mets may have a real conversation on their hands. They wouldn’t DFA Megill right away, not after how promising he has looked at times.
But there’s also been some natural speculation about whether his brother’s success in relief could push the Mets to try him in a bullpen role. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t.
The David Stearns-led Mets have placed a premium on starting pitching depth, and taking Megill out of that mix would change what he brings for the whole season.
There’s also the roster wrinkle. Megill is expected to go back on the IL once it opens again so the 40-man spot can be freed up.
Since the IL isn’t available until spring training, the Mets would have to keep him on the roster through the offseason if they want to hold onto him. That becomes less of a headache with the lockout looming, because there may be months with no player movement.
The real issue comes once baseball starts moving again.
The Mets have already shown they want to keep Megill in the picture. You don’t pay a player $2.5 million to sit on the sidelines unless you believe there’s a path back.
But all they can really count on is a handshake understanding. Contractually, nothing forces Megill to accept a minor league assignment.
His status for 2027 is still murky because he never even began a rehab assignment in 2026. Reed Garrett is in a similar injury-recovery lane, but he does have a minor league assignment available, and as a reliever coming back from a major injury, the transition would be expected to be smoother.
For Megill, the possible outcomes are fairly clear. A trade seems unlikely for a pitcher coming off Tommy John surgery.
The Mets could non-tender him and try to bring him back on a minor league deal, but that would favor the club far more than the player. That route also seems unlikely.
Megill will want to stack as much service time as possible so he can reach free agency, and he’s trending toward that after the 2027 season. Agreeing to a minor league assignment could complicate that, even if he would still be arbitration eligible in 2028 if he falls short of free agency.
Most players want the freedom to choose.
So the Mets are left with a familiar kind of depth question: useful, but not essential in the same way he once was. A long rehab assignment, once he’s ready, may be the safest path.
If he’s good, the Mets have another arm. If it goes sideways, maybe he’d rather stay in Syracuse.
Nobody wants to head into free agency on a bad note.
At some point, the Mets and Megill need the same plan. They’ll have to be honest about his role, and he’ll have to be willing to live with it when the time comes.
The Mets also have to decide whether the $2.5 million they spent on him in 2026 is worth roughly the same investment in 2027, knowing it could go to waste quickly. They already paid Drew Smith $1 million in 2025 to sit out the year and then didn’t pick up his $2 million option for 2026.
Eventually, teams have to decide when to keep reinvesting in the same player.
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