Should the Mets add a former Yankee position player (no, not that one) to their 2025 squad?
When it comes to the Mets’ pursuit of offense this winter, most of the attention has been placed on how David Stearns and company will fill the holes in the outfield—with Juan Soto understandably being the primary prize of free agency—and at first base—the primary question being whether the Mets will bring Pete Alonso back and what they will do if they don’t. However, one additional area in which the team could potentially look for an upgrade is at second base. Jeff McNeil is coming off his second-straight middling season, as the former batting champ put up a 97 wRC+ and 1.3 fWAR in 129 games. He did rebound quite a bit in the second half—putting up a 156 wRC+ in 40 games after the All-Star break before his regular season ended due to a wrist injury—but whether that represents a reason to be optimistic about his outlook moving forward is an open question. Meanwhile, the Mets did get an unexpected boost from Jose Iglesias’s magical year, but the “OMG” sensation is a free agent, and even if the team does bring him back, expecting him to repeat a 137 wRC+ (which he accrued with a .382 BABIP) would probably be unwise.
Stearns has already publicly stated that he’d be comfortable with McNeil being the everyday second baseman next season—and indeed, that may end up being the likeliest outcome—but he also raised the possibility that he could be flexed elsewhere depending on what other moves the team might make this offseason. Given that he raised the possibility, it seems worthwhile to consider some of the second basemen available on the open market in case the Mets will see any of them as worth bringing on-board to try to improve the team’s production and flexibility. In looking at the free agent options, one name stands out—longtime Yankee infielder Gleyber Torres.
Torres is certainly a player that Mets manager Carlos Mendoza—having been with the Yankees for several years before coming across town—is familiar with. The soon-to-be 28-year-old has alternated between shortstop and second base since starting his major league career in 2018, but he has played almost exclusively at second over the past few years. He has generally graded out as a below-average fielder at both positions—as evidenced by his -7 OAA at second base last year—so generally, his path to being a productive major league player has been through his bat.
And indeed, he has proven himself to be a strong offensive player for most of his career. He has hit 20+ homers four times—with his high mark coming in 2019 (likely thanks in large part to the juiced balls that year) at 38 bombs—and has had a wRC+ above 100 in all but one of his years in the majors. At his best, Torres has been a player with a level of power that is unusual for a second baseman, and adding a player like that would go a long way towards raising a team’s overall offensive capabilities.
However, Torres is hitting free agency after one of his more disappointing seasons. His 15 homers were his lowest amount since 2021—a season in which he played in 27 fewer games than he did this year—and his 104 wRC+ was the second-lowest of his career. Being just a slightly above-average offensive player is not really enough for him to overcome his defensive limitations, and thus his fWAR total (1.7 in 154 games) represents a slightly below-average player—which led to him entering free agency without a qualifying offer attached to him.
The combination of Torres’s youth, offensive ceiling, and the relatively cheap price he can likely be had at does make him a potentially appealing option for a team that thinks he will be able to rebound at the plate next year. So how likely is that outcome? His 2024 season certainly saw him do much less damage with the bat than he’s done in the past, but the question is whether that was the result of a degradation of skills (something which one would not necessarily expect for a previously good player who’s still on the better side of 30).
Here’s a screenshot of some of the underlying batting data for Torres over the past several years, courtesy of Baseball Prospectus’s Robert Orr’s free app. The numbers here are percentiles relative to the rest of the league.
https://therealestmuto.shinyapps.io/Damage/
Broadly speaking, those numbers tell us two things: 1) Torres did indeed hit the ball less hard relative to the rest of the league in 2024 compared to past seasons, and 2) a lot of the other numbers there that tell us about his swing decisions and his ability to make contact with the ball don’t necessarily point to him being noticeably worse in comparison to his past seasons. Some front office might consider #2 and take that to mean that #1 does not necessarily suggest he’s incapable of reverting back to his previous levels of offensive production.
If you do think he’s capable of returning to his 20-30 home run, 110-120 wRC+ offensive output, that would be an enticing player to add on a short-term deal. MLB Trade Rumors recently predicted that he would sign for two years and $36 million—though I would also consider the possibility that Torres might value the opportunity to hit free agency again soon to try to aim for a bigger long-term contract, so perhaps he would welcome the opportunity to sign for one year (or alternatively, a deal with multiple years but an opt-out after one) to try to rebuild his value. A team that signed him to such a deal could also potentially reap the benefits of giving him a qualifying offer if he does rebound and then opt out in pursuit of a larger deal—making his signing potentially beneficial on numerous levels.
Still, signing Torres would not be without risk. While we can certainly point to some of Torres’s underlying data to suggest that his less-than-stellar damage rate in 2024 might not be a long-term concern, the fact remains that the weaker contact he made this year will be a mark against him until he definitively proves it shouldn’t be. His aforementioned defensive limitations does mean that if he doesn’t rebound with the bat, the Mets would likely be stuck with the same kind of slightly below average production at second base that McNeil has already given them over the past few years. There would also perhaps be some concern about Torres moving to a less hitter-friendly ballpark. According to Baseball Savant, of the 145 home runs that he has hit over the course of his major league career (including in the postseason), only 128 of them would have been gone at Citi Field—which suggests that the ballpark might not be the best one for him to play his home games at if he wants to rebound offensively next year.
So all of this essentially comes down to the following question: does the potential higher offensive ceiling of Torres justify signing him and shifting McNeil to more of a utility role? Or do the concerns about him mean that the Mets should just stick with what they’ve already got and not take the risk of signing someone who could just be another slightly below-average second baseman? David Stearns and company should be looking at all potential avenues to improve the team’s offense, so Torres is certainly a player they should at least discuss. Nevertheless, the fact remains that he should be a distant second on the list of former Yankees the Mets should have their eyes on.