{"id":129229,"date":"2026-01-11T14:27:29","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T14:27:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/129229\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T14:27:29","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T14:27:29","slug":"former-ny-mets-player-meant-to-replace-jose-iglesias-signs-with-the-la-angels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/129229\/","title":{"rendered":"Former NY Mets player meant to replace Jose Iglesias signs with the LA Angels"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5m\">If you\u2019re going to replace Jose Iglesias from the 2024 New York Mets, you\u2019re going to either need to teach someone how to sing or have Bad Bunny learn how to hit a curveball. The Mets went with the former option, choosing to find a ballplayer who might have a music career in the future rather than the other way around.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5p\">Iglesias was the most popular player on the 2024 team because of the life he injected into a seemingly dead ball club. Replace him? The Mets tried.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5s\">Nick Madrigal signed a contract with the Mets last offseason to become their infield utility man. An unsuccessful first-round draft pick who had become more of a light-hitting backup infielder who\u2019d be useful in the right circumstances, we never got to see what he could give the Mets. In his first spring training game, Madrigal broke his shoulder. We never saw him again.<\/p>\n<p>Nick Madrigal\u2019s new contract puts a lot less pressure on him than what the Mets were asking for<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5y\">Madrigal was bound to wind up somewhere and it\u2019ll be the Los Angeles Angels. They won\u2019t ask him to replace a fan favorite. He\u2019s merely <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlbtraderumors.com\/2026\/01\/angels-to-sign-nick-madrigal-to-minor-league-deal.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">on a minor league deal<\/a> with an opportunity to fight his way back to the big leagues.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"61\">Lifetime numbers for Madrigal in the big leagues are actually promising, slashing .274\/.323\/.344. We can see a distinctive strength and weakness. The OBP is barely below the slugging percentage. He puts the bat on the ball, averaging only 48 strikeouts per 162 games. The fourth overall pick from the 2018 draft, however, has only logged 285 total games and never more than 92 in a season.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"64\">His big league experience includes time with both Chicago teams, originally drafted by the White Sox. In retrospect, this wasn\u2019t such a bad move by the Mets. Who could have seen a spring training injury happening in such a fluke manner?<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"67\">The absence of Madrigal last year didn\u2019t really do much to change the outlook of the Mets. It made Luisangel Acuna a lock for the roster, but his strong start to the season didn\u2019t extend for too long. Ronny Mauricio took on a regular bench role for the Mets as well, but even he seemed to not quite fit into the gig meant for Madrigal.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6a\">For better or probably worse, the structure of last year\u2019s Mets team was different from 2024. They did have a preferred defensive alignment at the end of games. Among their issues in 2025, the absence of a beloved infielder wasn\u2019t one of them. More so, it\u2019s that lack of clutch hitting Iglesias brought them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you\u2019re going to replace Jose Iglesias from the 2024 New York Mets, you\u2019re going to either need&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":["post-129229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}