by For the Mets and other teams still in contention Juan Soto draw, their offseason will be shaped in large part by the team Soto chooses.
If he signs with the Mets, their search for entry-level outfielders will almost certainly be over.
If he chooses another team, the Mets — with Brandon Nimmo entrenched in left field and Tyrone Taylor And Jose Siri should split time in center field – will need to find a right fielder.
When it comes to this potential search, two players you won’t find on this list are Antoine Santander And Teoscar Hernández. Santander has a career OBP of .307, is coming off a huge year that appears to be an outlier, and will likely be vastly overpaid. Meanwhile, Hernandez appears destined to return to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Here are who the top five targets for the Mets’ free outfielders should be…
5. Randal Grichuk
It’s possible the Mets are just keeping a spot warm for a while, with Dr.Gilbert an option to make his big league debut during the first half of the 2025 season – either in his natural center field or right field.
And if the Mets envision Gilbert arriving quickly, signing someone like Grichuk — who was a part-time player in 2024 and can adequately handle all three outfield spots — could make sense.
Grichuk hit .291/.348/.528 in 279 plate appearances in 106 games for the Arizona Diamondbacks last season, crushing lefties (.914 OPS) while more than holding his own against righties (.801 OPS).
4. Michael Conforto
The Mets reportedly expressed interest in Conforto around the trade deadline last season, and a reunion with the homegrown left-handed hitter could make sense for 2025.
Conforto was solid last season for the San Francisco Giants, hitting .237/.309/.450 with a 116 OPS+, which is a solid improvement over his literal league average offensive performance in 2023 (100 OPS+ ).
He knows the market, knows a handful of Mets players from his time in Queens and could easily slide into right field.
3. Tyler O’Neill
O’Neill could be a high-risk, high-reward option if the Mets don’t land Soto.
Since establishing himself as a starter in 2021, O’Neill has had two seasons (2021 and 2024) where his offensive production was at the All-Star level and two others (2022 and 2023) where it was below the average.
He has tremendous power, having hit 31 home runs for the Boston Red Sox last season in just 113 games with a .241/.336/.511 average. But with all that power comes a ton of strikeouts, as he fanned 159 times in those 113 games.
2.Jesse Winker
Winker was a very dynamic guy after being acquired last summer and had tremendous success for the Mets in the regular season and postseason.
His overall regular season numbers in New York were disappointing, as he hit just .243/.318/.365 with three home runs and five doubles in 129 plate appearances in 44 games.
However, Winker seemed to fit in well in the clubhouse, was a power hitter during his eight-year career (118 OPS+) and can almost certainly be had on a relatively inexpensive one-year deal.
1. Juan Soto
Soto is not only the best player on the free agent market, but also one of the best players to ever hit the free agent market.
Add in the fact that he just turned 26, is coming off a monster season, and is a proven playoff player and you have someone whose contract could eclipse 14 years and $600 million. dollars.
Fortunately for the Mets, they are in an incredibly strong position in terms of being able to make this kind of offer to Soto and will have no problem building a dangerous team around him for years to come if he does. ‘accepted.
