Free agency opens Monday night, and the Mets already have one obvious area that could use help: second base. That’s what made John Jastremski’s recent suggestion worth a closer look. He floated Gleyber Torres as a possible short-term answer in Queens, arguing that the fit could work both offensively and defensively compared with Marcus Semien.
There’s a clear appeal to the idea. Torres has already played in the New York market with the Yankees, and that matters in a way that goes beyond comfort level. It also lines up with a trend the Mets have leaned into since David Stearns took over as President of Baseball Operations late in 2023, with the club adding former Yankees to the roster.
But the case for Torres is built around a very specific version of the Mets’ offseason, and that’s where things get complicated. Torres is coming off a difficult 2026 season in which he hit .260 with eight home runs and 38 RBIs while playing only 96 games because of injury. Jastremski’s angle is that Torres might be willing to take a one-year prove-it deal to rebuild his value, which would make him a logical target if the Mets want a real upgrade at second.
The problem is that the roster math doesn’t seem to line up. At his postseason press conference, Stearns didn’t sound interested in shopping outside the organization for help at second base. He pointed to the young prospects close to contributing and said he was pleased with Brett Baty’s finish to the season.
That matters because the Mets don’t appear eager to move on from Semien and absorb the remaining two years of his contract. A bad contract swap would only push the salary issue further down the road, and Stearns seems intent on avoiding that kind of move. There’s also the possibility that better health could bring more out of Semien in 2027.
Roster space is another obstacle. The Mets may only have room for two new additions to their 13-man position player group this offseason, and they already have other needs to address, including first base and a right-handed-hitting outfielder. Bringing in Torres on top of Semien would crowd the position instead of solving it.
Then there’s the prospect pipeline. The Mets have several young infielders nearing big-league opportunities, including Mitch Voit, Jefferson Rojas, and Emilien Pitre. Signing Torres would likely block that path, and Stearns has made it clear he wants to create lanes for young players to get major league reps.
If the Mets choose to platoon Baty and Semien, they could get by at second base without spending free-agent money on Torres. That would leave Stearns more flexibility to use resources elsewhere.
The cleanest version of the Torres idea only works if the Mets decide to cut ties with Semien. Without that move, the fit gets messy fast.
On paper, Torres makes sense. In practice, the Mets don’t look set up to make it happen.
In Other News...
Mets Offseason Activity Is Picking Up Faster Than Fans Expected
The Mets offseason started to take shape a little earlier than some fans probably expected, with the club making a handful of small but notable moves as the calendar turns toward winter. New York claimed Jack Anderson and Pierson Ohl off waivers and added Christian Cairo on a one-year major league contract, the kind of roster housekeeping that often signals a front office getting busy before the bigger decisions arrive.
There was also a bit of good news on the player-development side, with Carson Benge named a finalist for the National League Rookie of the Year Award. And for fans already looking ahead to next season, the team moved up the single-game ticket sale date to November 12, another sign that the offseason is picking up steam even as the rest of Major League Baseball sorts through award finalists and roster churn across the league. [Read more 🡒]
Mets Rumored Free Agent Fits Come With One Big Problem
The Mets are already being sized up for the 2027 offseason, and the early free-agent chatter is less about splash and more about fit. Names like Ty France, Adrian Morejon and Jake Bauers have surfaced as possible targets, but each one comes with a different version of the same issue: the roster picture, the money picture and the teams actual needs do not line up neatly.
For a club that is always under pressure to add talent, that creates a familiar kind of offseason frustration. The speculation is easy enough to generate, but the path from rumor to signing is much harder to map when the Mets have to balance what they want with what they can realistically afford and where the roster can actually absorb another piece. [Read more 🡒]
Mets Mourn A Franchise Icon From Their First Golden Era
Jerry Koosman, one of the defining figures from the Mets first golden era, has died at 83, closing the book on a career that helped shape the franchises identity. A Hall of Famer in team history and a cornerstone of the 1969 World Series champions, Koosman spent 12 seasons in New York and left behind the kind of rsum that still carries weight whenever the Mets talk about their roots.
His place in club lore was already secure long before the team retired his No. 36 in 2021, making him just the third player in franchise history to receive that honor. Koosmans 140 wins and 3.07 ERA speak to the consistency he brought over a long run in Queens, and his passing is a reminder of how much of the Mets earliest success was built on players whose impact still echoes through the organization. [Read more 🡒]