Reese Kaplan -- For the Mets DH Means "Doesn't Hit"

Back in 2022 the National League caught up to the American League and adopted the use of the designated hitter instead of watching pitchers attempt to bunt or flail helplessly at professionally thrown pitches.  I’m not going to debate the pros and cons of that decision, but instead will take a look at how our favorite franchise has embraced it in the attempt to win ballgames.

For that initial DH season the Mets opted to use a platoon combination of J.D. Davis and Dom Smith to man this newly created role.  The best laid plans, of course, don’t always work out as expected and for the pre trade deadline period the Mets notched a combined total of just 4 HRs and a less than whopping 24 RBIs.  Eventually Davis was sent packing and Smith got to feast on the best food Syracuse had to offer.

In their place was midseason portly thumper Daniel Vogelbach from the Pittsburgh Pirates for a minor league reliever named Colin Holderman.  Considering the run production missing from the DH role, a guy who in 2019 hit 30 HRs for the Mariners kind of seemed like a potentially good fit to bolster the lackluster offense from the DH.

During his first season as a Met he did manage to hit 6 HRs and drive in 35 for the remainder of the season and while it was far from perfect, it seemed like they might be onto something.  Holderman is still playing (unlike Vogelbach) and this year for Cleveland has a 2.39 ERA. 

Unfortunately it never got any better.  In 2023 he got more ABs but still only produced 13 HRs and 48 RBIs in more than 300 ABs in that role.  He was not the guy giving the Mets what they needed out of the DH position and he was sent packing after being non tendered when the season ended. 

In 2024 the club took a last minute home run swing by inking still unsigned DH extraordinaire J.D. Martinez.  He got a late start to preseason and thus a late start to his regular work in that role.  While he was not the routine embarrassment the Mets had seen in the past, he never measured up to his regular season metrics.  For his 2024 salary of $12 million at age 36 he contributed an improved 16 HRs and 69 RBIs over 120 games but that was only slightly better than half of what he’d done the previous season.  He retired after the 2024 year came to a close.

From there it got even worse.  In 2025 the Mets rotated behind the unholy trio of Starling Marte, Mark Vientos and Jesse Winker, again not delivering cleanup level hitting from the three of them combined.  In 2026 it’s been an even larger slate of rotating DH candidates that included Mark Vientos, Jared Young, Francisco Alvarez, Jorge Polanco, Juan Soto and Luis Robert.  Obviously they’ve gone backwards.

So that brings us to planning for the 2027 season.  Assuming they non-tender Robert and dump Vientos, it would leave perpetually injured Polanco who has a $20 million deal as the primary DH to preserve his fragile health.  Other than David Stearns, no one else is happy with this plan. 

For a point of comparison the Mets once extended at contract worth $10 million for end-of-his-baseball-life infielder Jed Lowrie who contributed 7 ABs for the entire 2019 season.  Instead of learning from this mistake, the club doubled down on both annual compensation and number of years of commitment when decided Polanco was the right guy to fortify the offense (though originally the plan was to play him at 1B instead of at DH). 

It would appear that the Mets might have to look outside the organization for another DH option if they still feel Polanco has a future at 1B.  There are always hitters available but just because they are on the open market in free agency doesn’t guarantee they will perform as they have done historically. 

The available free agents (some of which have mutual options with their current teams) include Miguel Andujar, Josh Bell, Marcell Ozuna, Joc Pederson, Jorge Soler, George Springer, Eugenio Suarez and Seiya Suzuki.  There has also been some mention of Japanese slugger Teruaki Sato being posted as a foreign free agent, too.

Internally it is possible to use Jared Young if Polanco gets 1B.  After that the choices are either too far down in the minors or not deemed ready for prime time like Ryan Clifford.