The Mets’ July picture has changed fast, and Tyrone Taylor is one of the biggest reasons why.
Juan Soto’s month has been the headline act, with 4 home runs and 13 RBI to pace New York in July. But that run is on pause for now.
His return is expected to take at least 4-6 weeks and could stretch longer, leaving the Mets to keep sorting through their roster while giving Jorge Polanco the chance to get more at-bats. That part matters, too.
Luis Robert Jr. has also been part of the conversation, especially with an outfield spot available. Since coming off the injured list, he has homered once in each series, and those two blasts are his only hits in July.
The .133 average around them tells the story. For Robert, the selling point remains what teams think he can still become: health, power, and defense.
But Taylor is the one really forcing the issue.
A 2-run double on Saturday kept his hot stretch rolling, and he’s now homered 4 times in July to match Soto for the team lead. Even with irregular playing time, Taylor is slashing .345/.424/.897 this month. For a player headed for free agency, that kind of surge changes the conversation quickly.
There’s a lot teams can like here. Taylor brings defense, speed, and enough pop to matter when he’s right.
He’s also affordable and, by all accounts, the kind of teammate clubs want around. He’s not the answer to everything, and nobody should be pretending he is.
But as a platoon piece or fourth outfielder, he fits plenty of contenders.
That’s why his name has already been tied to trade ideas. Earlier in July, one possible deal sent him to the Milwaukee Brewers for a pair of younger prospects, in a framework not unlike the Mets’ 2022 Tyler Naquin move.
Another mock deal had him going to the Seattle Mariners for a late-blooming pitcher, though that idea looks less appealing now than it did then. Those are the kinds of returns the Mets could be looking at: either help that arrives later or a player who is closer to MLB-ready.
The bigger point is simple. There’s no real reason for Taylor to still be on the roster by August 4. He’s not a qualifying offer candidate, and with an affordable contract, moving him should be the front office’s job to solve.
Teams around the league know this version of Taylor probably isn’t the one they’d get over the long haul. Still, after the slow start, he’s shown enough to make someone interested. He’s the sort of player you want when you need a lefty bat option, a bench upgrade, or a useful piece in the outfield mix.
Pitchers like Clay Holmes and Freddy Peralta may be getting the loudest buzz in trade talk, but Taylor has become the quieter name with real momentum. And that’s often how a deadline sleeper turns into the guy everyone remembers.
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For the Mets, the comparison is hard to ignore because the names ahead of Okamoto on their wish list have not delivered the way anyone expected. Kyle Tucker and Bo Bichette were the big swings, the kind of targets that can shape an entire winter, but both have underwhelmed relative to their reputations and price tags, leaving another rival success story to sharpen the sense that the safer, less glamorous path might have been the better one. [Read more 🡒]