{"id":387803,"date":"2026-01-02T23:24:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T23:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/387803\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T23:24:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T23:24:10","slug":"mets-have-checked-in-on-kyle-tucker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/387803\/","title":{"rendered":"Mets Have Checked In On Kyle Tucker"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to Jon Heyman of the New York Post<\/a>, the Mets have \u201cchecked in\u201d on free agent outfielder Kyle Tucker<\/a>. The four-time All-Star and two-time Silver Slugger winner is MLBTR\u2019s top free agent<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Much speculation has linked Tucker to the Mets this offseason, and it isn\u2019t difficult to see why. According to RosterResource<\/a>, Steve Cohen\u2019s club ran payrolls of $346MM, $336MM, and $340MM in 2023, \u201924, and \u201925, respectively. Currently, their projected payroll for 2026 sits at just $294MM. That means president of baseball operations David Stearns should have at least $40 million left to spend. He\u2019s already made some additions, namely, signing Jorge Polanco<\/a>, Devin Williams<\/a>, and Luke Weaver<\/a>, and trading for Marcus Semien<\/a>. However, considering all the players the Mets have lost or dealt away, including Pete Alonso<\/a>, Edwin D\u00edaz<\/a>, Brandon Nimmo<\/a>, and Jeff McNeil<\/a>, and considering how they missed the playoffs in such heartbreaking fashion last September, Stearns has more work to do. Surely, he didn\u2019t sign Juan Soto<\/a> to a record-smashing contract<\/a> last season just to sit on his hands a year later.<\/p>\n

If Stearns wants to make a big splash, there\u2019s no better way to do so than by signing the top free agent on the market. The Mets are reportedly<\/a> hesitant to sign a starting pitcher to a long-term contract this winter. What\u2019s more, Heyman notes that Tucker\u2019s presumably high asking price is why Cody Bellinger<\/a> remains their preferred outfield target. That said, it would be foolish to count the Mets of all teams out of the Tucker sweepstakes for financial reasons. They could give him the 11-year, $400MM contract MLBTR predicted at the beginning of the offseason ($36.4MM AAV), and their payroll would still be lower than it\u2019s been in any of the past three seasons.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, the Mets have a clear opening for Tucker in their lineup after parting with Nimmo. Right now, RosterResource has Carson Benge<\/a> penciled in as New York\u2019s starting left fielder. Benge is a consensus top-100 prospect, and it\u2019s apparent how highly the Mets value him. He is thought to be all but untouchable in trade talks<\/a> this winter, and Stearns has previously suggested<\/a> he\u2019ll have an opportunity to make the big league roster out of spring training. Yet, Benge is only 22 and completely unproven at the MLB level. It\u2019s hard to think that a team with World Series aspirations would let him get in the way of its signing a proven star like Tucker \u2013 especially since the Mets have already been connected<\/a> to Bellinger. To that point, the Mets are thought to prefer to add a right-handed bat<\/a> to their lineup, but their interest in the lefty-batting Bellinger suggests handedness won\u2019t be a dealbreaker. Benge, for what it\u2019s worth, also bats from the left-hand side. Besides, Tucker\u2019s career numbers against southpaw pitching (133 wRC+, .842 OPS) are almost as impressive as his numbers with the platoon advantage (141 wRC+, .877 OPS). There\u2019s no good reason why his left-handedness should get in the way of a deal.<\/p>\n

Back in November, MLBTR\u2019s Steve Adams<\/a> listed the Mets as a \u201clikely suitor\u201d for Tucker\u2019s services. Two weeks ago, nearly 20,000 MLBTR readers voted<\/a> on where they thought Tucker would sign, and the Mets received the third-most support (15.23%), just ahead of the Yankees (10.09%) and trailing only the Blue Jays (40.22%) and Dodgers (15.55%). So, it didn\u2019t come as any surprise on Thursday afternoon when Heyman confirmed that the Mets have indeed expressed at least some degree of interest. They join the Yankees<\/a>, Blue Jays<\/a>, and Orioles<\/a> as teams with reported interest in the star outfielder, although Baltimore was linked to him before signing Alonso<\/a>. Other teams that could be good fits include the Dodgers and Giants; Heyman notes that \u201call big-market teams\u201d have checked in on Tucker, although the Yankees and Mets are the only ones he mentions by name.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"According to Jon Heyman of the New York Post, the Mets have \u201cchecked in\u201d on free agent outfielder…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387804,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,16051,591,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-387803","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-kyle-tucker","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}