On Friday, the New York Mets announced that they signed Matt Adams to a minor league deal with an invite to Spring Training.

Most minor league deals don’t grab much attention, but the left-handed hitter’s addition was somewhat noteworthy given the fact that the Mets had been discussing trades involving Dominic Smith throughout the offseason, largely with the intent of moving a bad contract such as Jed Lowrie’s.

Speculation around Twitter swirled if this was just another minor league signing or a precursor to a Smith trade.

According to Jon Heyman of MLB Network, the move was made as a means to create more depth at first base and that the Mets are not actively involved in any sort of Smith trade talks.

However, given that Adams is now the third option on the depth chart behind Pete Alonso and Smith, it’s certainly questionable why Adams would even want to sign with the Mets.

It’s certainly possible that the market for Adams simply wasn’t working in his favor and he just chose to join New York.

But, most players that sign minor league deals tend to choose teams that give them legitimate chances to make the team out of Spring Training which, as currently constructed, the Mets don’t appear to.

Adams, 31, would probably have better options than the Mets’ situation, at least on the surface, given that he’s only a year removed from being an above-average offensive player (107 wRC+) and has hit 20 home runs in three consecutive seasons despite receiving less than 400 plate appearances in each one.

This could be a means of creating competition for Smith in Spring Training too, but given that he was pretty good in 2019 (133 wRC+), it wouldn’t make much sense to bring in Adams just for that purpose.

It is unclear, at the moment, whether or not Adams’ deal contains an opt-out clause, which might end up being the most telling sign about why this move was made.

If it doesn’t contain an opt-out or the date of his opt-out isn’t until the middle of the season, then this would probably just be classified as a true minor league signing.

On the other hand, if the opt-out is before the end of Spring Training, it likely means Adams is under the impression that he has a legitimate chance of making the Opening Day roster.

It’s hard to see how all three of Alonso, Smith, and Adams could make the team so the only way the latter could make the team is if one of the other two sustains an injury or if Smith is not on the team.

This situation is certainly something to monitor in Spring Training.