As the Mets enter the offseason with a shiny new president of baseball operations in David Stearns, they also find themselves with more questions than answers. Who will round out the rotation? Will they extend Pete Alonso or trade him? However, a question that’s been lingering since David Wright retired is who will finally take the mantle at the hot corner.
Third base has felt like a constant rotating position ever since 2016, when Wright went down with injury. They’ve had plugs, players whose position was not normally third. They tried everything. In 2023 alone they had half a dozen players play at least one game there. When the Mets drafted Brett Baty in 2019, they believed they found their next David Wright. Things haven’t gone exactly according to plan though.
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In his short tenure with the Mets, Baty’s bat has never come quite alive. He’s hitting a career .210/.272/.325 and there have been serious questions regarding his glove at third. The Mets were so confident in him they traded away Eduardo Escobar a month before the trade deadline to get Baty more reps there.
Like many have already questioned and speculated, the Mets are faced with a tough choice this offseason: do they pursue someone via free agency or trade for help at third or do they look in-house once more? With that in mind, MMO challenged two of their writers to make a case for looking outside the organization and looking internally.
PATRICK GLYNN
If the Mets are looking for a stop-gap at third base, I can’t get mad at trying to sign someone like Matt Chapman or Justin Turner, though the former is probably looking for a long-term deal.
But the future at this position is Brett Baty—at least until he isn’t. He played pretty poorly at the plate in 2023, and his defense was up and down all year. But he’s also only going to be 24 next year. His action plan is pretty clear heading into the summer: he needs to lift the ball more. I doubt his walk rate, which sits below 5 percent in over 400 MLB plate appearances, will remain that low. Give Baty some time in David Stearns’ new player development system.
But maybe Baty doesn’t get the started third base job next year. At worst, there’s some combination of Ronny Mauricio and Jeff McNeil (or, gulp, Mark Vientos) who can provide good at bats and a decent glove at third. If there’s money spent on the lineup, it should be for corner outfield spots.
ALLISON WAXMAN
Have I been one of Brett Baty’s biggest proponents since his call up? Yes. Was I one of the fans who begged the Mets on Twitter to call him up while he was mashing in Syracuse? Yes. But have I also been the person saying that maybe the Mets need to stop playing musical chairs at third for a little and find some stability? Yes.
For me, the one bright spot of the 2023 Mets was the Baby Mets. However, if David Stearns and Steve Cohen stay true to their word and plan to put out a competitive team next year and make a go at it, I think they need a true third baseman. Does that come in the form of Matt Chapman? Maybe. I don’t know. But I think it’s somebody who has proven themselves and is brought in to play this specific position.
Uncertainty, as we’ve seen, doesn’t lead to anywhere good. Baty and company can learn from whoever this mysterious new third baseman is and use it as a growing experience. No Met player playing at the hot corner this year had a WAR over 1.3. That’s not even really bench player quality.
Steve Cohen has the money to make a significant upgrade at third base. He was willing to do it for Carlos Correa, and the options this offseason won’t cost as much. It’s time to look elsewhere and bring stability back to third for a while.
