{"id":598272,"date":"2026-04-21T21:05:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T21:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/598272\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T21:05:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T21:05:08","slug":"mets-planning-to-reinstate-juan-soto-wednesday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/598272\/","title":{"rendered":"Mets Planning To Reinstate Juan Soto Wednesday"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Mets are planning to reinstate Juan Soto<\/a> from the injured list on Wednesday, reports Jon Heyman of The New York Post<\/a>. He has been on the 10-day IL for a little over two weeks but will now return without a rehab assignment.<\/p>\n

Soto, of course, is one of the best hitters in the league. He put up a huge .355\/.412\/.516 line in the club\u2019s first eight games. A strain in his right calf put him out of action and sent him to the IL. Soto\u2019s absence almost perfectly aligns with the club\u2019s season going into a tailspin. The Mets won their first game with Soto on the IL, increasing their record to 7-4. They have since dropped 11 straight contests, dropping them to 7-15. That\u2019s the worst record in the National League and only half a game better than the Royals for worst in the majors.<\/p>\n

Ideally, Soto\u2019s return will help the Mets to get back in the win column before the season slips away. They still have lots of time to make up ground but they\u2019ve already put themselves in a hole. FanGraphs<\/a> still gives the Mets a 41.4% chance of making the postseason, which doesn\u2019t seem too bad in the current context, but that\u2019s basically half of the 80.4% chance they had to begin the campaign.<\/p>\n

The outfield has been a particular weak spot for the club since Soto landed on the shelf. The club has received a collective .232\/.305\/.322 line from their outfielders since Soto\u2019s IL placement. That line translates to an 83 wRC+, indicating the group has been 17% below average, with only seven clubs below them in that category.<\/p>\n

The Mets had planned on having Carson Benge<\/a> in right, Luis Robert Jr.<\/a> in center and Soto in left as their primary alignment. Robert is playing well but Benge has a .143\/.229\/.206 line on the year. That\u2019s partially due to a rough .182 batting average on balls in play but his struggles have unfortunately coincided with Soto\u2019s absence. Brett Baty<\/a> has been largely bumped to the outfield by the Mets\u2019 offseason infield additions but he has a .200\/.206\/.277 line this year. Tyrone Taylor<\/a> is hitting .214\/.241\/.357. Tommy Pham<\/a> is hitless in eight plate appearances.<\/p>\n

Due to both Soto and Jorge Polanco<\/a> being on the IL, MJ Melendez<\/a> has picked up some playing time in the designated hitter spot. He has a .357\/.438\/.714 line but in a tiny sample of 16 plate appearances. That\u2019s been helped by a massive .800 BABIP and has come despite him striking out eight times, half of his plate appearances. He won\u2019t sustain this kind of production, especially since he\u2019s a .216\/.298\/.391 hitter in almost 1700 career plate appearances.<\/p>\n

The Mets will have to remove someone from the active roster when Soto is officially reinstated. They are currently carrying three catchers, so optioning Hayden Senger<\/a> is probably the easiest solution. Recalling Senger for Polanco a few days ago may have been about giving the club the option of using Francisco Alvarez<\/a> in the DH spot when he was getting a day off from catching, but they have been riding the hot hand of Melendez instead.<\/p>\n

Optioning Benge is another option, since he is struggling so much. But as mentioned, some of that is due to poor batted ball luck, so the Mets might keep him around and hope his luck changes. Melendez also has options but the Mets might let him keep going until the hot streak ends. Designating Pham for assignment would be another possibility, since he\u2019s not playing much and hasn\u2019t hit when given the chance.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Robert Edwards, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mets are planning to reinstate Juan Soto from the injured list on Wednesday, reports Jon Heyman of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[7842,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-598272","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-juan-soto","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}