While he probably isn’t the best fit for the 2025 Mets, he could help if the team fails to sign other outfielders.
Should the Mets see Juan Soto sign elsewhere despite their efforts to prioritize his signing this offseason, the team would likely still see the outfield as a place to bring in some help in free agency. As Brian Salvatore wrote the other day, Anthony Santander is an option to give the Mets some power in right field, assuming the team remains open to upgrading the position from the incumbent Starling Marte.
That line of thought brings us to a familiar name in Michael Conforto. Having spent the first seven years of his major league career with the Mets, Conforto signed with the Giants after hitting free agency for the first time following the 2021 season. He wound up missing the 2022 season entirely because of shoulder surgery and returned to the field the following year. But he struggled, finishing with a .239/.334/.384 line with 15 home runs and a 99 wRC+, the worst single-season mark of his big league career.
This year, though, Conforto bounced back a bit, as he hit .237/.309/.450 with 20 home runs and a 112 wRC+. Both FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference had him at 1.3 WAR on the season. That isn’t super exciting by any means, but for the sake of comparison, Conforto’s 105 wRC+ since the beginning of the 2023 season is markedly better than Marte’s 90 wRC+ over the same span.
Defensively, Conforto didn’t excel in his time with the Giants, where it’s worth noting that he split his time almost evenly between left field and right field this year. If the Mets don’t end up landing Soto to be their everyday right fielder, you’d hope that they make a bit bigger of a move to upgrade the position than this, but Conforto would be an option for a capable bat with some pop still left in his bat entering his age-32 season.