Reese Kaplan -- Once Again Please Answer "Who's on first?"

The Mets are about to begin the off season with a great many questions needing answers but one of them that stands out prominently flashing itself like a 1980s Studio 54 dance floor is what to do with the unresolved vacancy at first base. 

To refresh your memory, there once was a guy named Pete Alonso who the Mets made no effort to sign when his contract expired and he took his league leading run production down the NJ turnpike to Maryland where he helped transform the perennial loser Orioles into a team that finished with a record three games under .500.  While that metric won’t get you into October baseball, it surely eclipses the eleven games worse tallied by the hometown NL team in the Eastern Division.

Now the ill conceived solution to this problem was a not quite half the price infielder named Jorge Polanco who would move to an untested position at first base to make up for the poor defense Alonso left behind.  Well, it must have been those justifications between price tag and run prevention because offensive output surely was not comparable. 

How different was it?  Well, in his best ever year all the way back in 2021 Polanco tallied career bests with 33 HRs and 98 RBIs to go along with 11 SBs and a .269 batting average.  Those numbers are very nice for a middle infielder and not awful for a first baseman, but unfortunately it was the exception and not the rule.  Since then he has tallied seasons of 104 games played, followed by 80, 118, 138 and then with the Mets just 37.  His best offensive production was likely in 2025 in Seattle where he slugged just 26 HRs and drove in a mere 78.

Fast forward to the upcoming 2027 season and you’re again left wondering how to compensate for this multi faceted negative output that finished the 2026 season with a -1.4 WAR.  Look at that number again.  It means he was well worse than an average professional baseball player.  For that he was paid $17 million of Steve Cohen’s money and will get a $6 million raise to $23 million for the upcoming year. Ugh and double ugh!

Since accountability for bad planning and roster construction does not ever seem to be in the cards at Citifield you have to wonder what are the alternatives to consider?  We’ve already considered Japanese import Teruaki Sato who posts terrific numbers for the Hanshin Tigers but who is unproven in MLB and would command a hefty price.  

Then there are holdovers like Mark Vientos and Brett Baty who have shown that the previous generation of Baby Mets has run its course.  Surprising pickup Jared Young posted a .266 average with 9 HRs and 39 RBIs in a half season of work but whose record demonstrates it was likely an outlier for his AAAA career.  

Ryan Clifford is in developmental ball while Billy Amick needs to improve his consistency.  In house isn’t much better than a career year from the disabled Polanco.

Free agent options are not really that encouraging either.  I have some fellow Mets fan friends who advocate trying yet another Yankee castoff in Paul Goldschmidt but since his MVP year of 2022 when he hit .317 with 35 HRs and 115 RBIs for the St. Louis Cardinals he’s demonstrating why he’s at the tail end of an impressive but unremarkable last few years.  In the two years in the Bronx he averaged 14 HRs and 48 RBIs per season.  Turning 39 it’s not exactly probable he will find the fountain of youth for the 2027 season.

After that it gets even worse with Alec Bohm, Nathaniel Lowe, Jake Bauers, Rhys Hoskins, Ty France and old Met Dom Smith heading up the list of lackluster alternatives.  Given the shallow level of analysis often demonstrated by David Stearns expect Bauers, a three year Milwaukee Brewer, to get serious thought.  

In his best ever year in 2026 he did deliver a .266 average to go along with 26 HRs and 86 RBIs, but it was his first ever full season as a starter and it came at age 30.  He won’t cost much but the question remains can he replicate that output or was it straight out of the blue. 

Trades may be the way to go if Sato is deemed too risky or too expensive.