{"id":630866,"date":"2026-04-27T00:48:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T00:48:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/630866\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T00:48:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T00:48:24","slug":"mets-sign-austin-slater-designate-tommy-pham-for-assignment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/630866\/","title":{"rendered":"Mets Sign Austin Slater, Designate Tommy Pham For Assignment"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Mets have agreed to sign outfielder Austin Slater<\/a>, The Athletic\u2019s Will Sammon<\/a> reports.\u00a0 Slater\u2019s signing comes shortly after news broke that\u00a0outfielder Tommy Pham<\/a> was designated for assignment, as per Mike Puma of the New York Post<\/a>.\u00a0 It can assumed that Slater will take Pham\u2019s spot on the active roster and 40-man roster, though New York still has only 39 players on the 40-man even with Slater\u2019s arrival.<\/p>\n

Slater is now on his third team in a little over a month\u2019s time.\u00a0 The Tigers signed Slater to a minor league contract over the offseason, and after Slater triggered the first mandatory opt-out clause in that contract at the end of camp, Detroit released the veteran rather than add him to the Opening Day roster.\u00a0 Slater then quickly landed with the Marlins on a one-year, $1MM guarantee, but was designated for assignment after 12 games.<\/p>\n

It was just earlier today that Slater cleared waivers and he elected to become a free agent.\u00a0 Because he has more than five years of MLB service time, Slater can keep the remainder of that $1MM salary, so the Mets might just be paying him a prorated big league minimum salary (which is subtracted from the $1MM total, with the Marlins covering the rest).<\/p>\n

Slater hit only .174\/.286\/.174 over his 28 PA in a Miami uniform, though that is still better than Pham\u2019s numbers in a similarly small sample size with the Mets.\u00a0 Assuming that the DFA will end Pham\u2019s tenure in Queens, Pham will conclude his nine-game stint with zero hits and just a single walk over 14 plate appearances.<\/p>\n

New York signed Pham to a minor league contract right at the start of the season and then selected him to the active roster on April 13.\u00a0 His long stay in free agency meant that the veteran didn\u2019t get any sort of traditional Spring Training, though he got some ramp-up time in the Mets\u2019 extended spring camp and five games of single-A ball with the team\u2019s St. Lucie affiliate.\u00a0 While 14 PA isn\u2019t a huge sample, it is safe to wonder if Pham simply wasn\u2019t yet ready to face big league pitching, notwithstanding the fact that Pham has plenty of experience as a 13-year MLB veteran.<\/p>\n

The selection to New York\u2019s roster locked in a prorated $2.25MM salary for Pham in 2026.\u00a0 Another team would absorb the remainder of that salary if Pham is claimed off waivers, but the likelier scenario is that Pham goes unclaimed, leaving the Mets on the hook for the remaining money no matter what the next step is in Pham\u2019s career.<\/p>\n

He has more than enough MLB service time to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency, though it\u2019s possible Pham might accept an outright just to get more playing time in the Mets\u2019 farm system, with a handshake agreement in place to recall Pham once he is fully ramped up.\u00a0 However, the Slater signing probably means Pham\u2019s time in New York is over, and he\u2019ll be released if he isn\u2019t claimed.\u00a0 A new team could then sign Pham to a contract and only owe him a minimum salary, which is subtracted from the Mets\u2019 $2.25MM figure.<\/p>\n

Pham and Slater are both right-handed hitting outfielders, and Slater has more of a reputation as a lefty-masher even though his numbers against southpaws have been average to mediocre over the last three seasons.\u00a0 Pham has also not been particularly productive since 2023 (a season that included his first stint with the Mets), as he hit .246\/.317\/.369 over 927 PA with the White Sox, Cardinals, Royals, and Pirates in 2024-25.<\/p>\n

With 10 different teams on his big league resume, Pham might well land with team #11 in relatively short order, or perhaps revisit another of his former organizations.\u00a0 Slater spent his entire Major League career with the Giants before the team dealt him to the Reds in July 2024, and Slater has since also become a journeyman who has now played for six different clubs at the MLB level.<\/p>\n

Slater should slide right into Pham\u2019s role as the complement to the left-handed hitting Carson Benge<\/a>, who has yet to get going at the plate in his rookie season.\u00a0 Benge\u2019s struggles are just one drop in the bucket of calamity that has been the 2026 Mets\u2019 season, as the team has sunk to a 9-19 record (tied with the Phillies for the worst in baseball) after being swept by Colorado in today\u2019s doubleheader.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mets have agreed to sign outfielder Austin Slater, The Athletic\u2019s Will Sammon reports.\u00a0 Slater\u2019s signing comes shortly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":630867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[24781,49,48,462,82,28429],"class_list":["post-630866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-austin-slater","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-tommy-pham"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}