{"id":681017,"date":"2026-05-19T15:13:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T15:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/681017\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T15:13:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T15:13:12","slug":"mets-to-designate-austin-slater-for-assignment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/681017\/","title":{"rendered":"Mets To Designate Austin Slater For Assignment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Mets are expected to designate outfielder <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/slateau01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-05-19_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Austin Slater<\/a> for assignment, reports <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/JonHeyman\/status\/2056689022932603293?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow\">Jon Heyman of the New York Post<\/a>. The veteran latched on with New York in late April after getting DFAed by the Marlins. The team has yet to announce the move.<\/p>\n<p>Slater took the spot of another well-traveled outfielder, joining the club when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/p\/phamth01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-05-19_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Tommy Pham<\/a> was designated for assignment. The Mets were Slater\u2019s third team in a little over a month. He opted out of a minor league deal with the Tigers before signing with the Marlins. After a dozen games in Miami, the outfielder lasted just nine games in New York.<\/p>\n<p>A platoon bat for much of his career, Slater has just four plate appearances against right-handed pitching this season. He picked up two hits in those chances. The veteran scuffled against lefties, posting a .444 OPS with a bloated 33.3% strikeout rate.<\/p>\n<p>Slater\u2019s skillset is somewhat duplicative of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/t\/tayloty01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-05-19_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Tyrone Taylor<\/a>\u2018s contributions, and he doesn\u2019t offer the same defensive ability. With <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/e\/ewingaj01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-05-19_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">A.J. Ewing<\/a> emerging as an everyday option in the outfield, the Mets didn\u2019t need two right-handed bench outfielders. Slater will now head back through the DFA process. If the Mets don\u2019t find a trade partner, and no club claims him, the veteran can forego a minor league assignment and choose free agency. That\u2019s how he landed with the Mets after departing the Marlins.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Photo courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mets are expected to designate outfielder Austin Slater for assignment, reports Jon Heyman of the New York&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":681018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,30409,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-681017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-austin-slater","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681017","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=681017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/681018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=681017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=681017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=681017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}