The Mets have released veteran infielder Joey Wendle, tweets Mike Puma of the New York Post. He was designated for assignment last week.
The 34-year-old Wendle signed a one-year, $2MM deal with the Mets in free agency. President of baseball operations David Stearns was hoping to bring aboard a low-cost bench piece who could provide quality defense at multiple spots and bounce back with the bat after a rough showing with the Marlins in 2022-23. That didn’t prove to be the case. Wendle, after batting a combined .238/.274/.335 in his two seasons in Miami, gave the Mets a .222/.243/.250 slash (45 wRC+) in sparse playing time. The team only gave him 37 plate appearances over the course of 18 games.
At his best with the Rays, Wendle offered outstanding defensive versatility and a slightly better than league-average bat. From 2018-21, he slashed .274/.330/.414 (105 wRC+) while bouncing between second base, third base, shortstop and the outfield corners. He graded well at all of those positions, though his marks at second base were particularly strong.
Now that he’s once again a free agent, Wendle will be able to sign with any club. He’ll only be owed the prorated league minimum for any time spent on the active roster with a new team. The Mets will remain on the hook for the rest of this year’s $2MM salary, although any money he earns with another club will be subtracted from what the Mets owe him through season’s end. With three straight seasons of below-average offense, Wendle might have to settle for a minor league pact, but his versatility and broader track record should lead to some interest on that sort of contract.
Why did they even hire him in the first place? What a waste of money.
At the time, he seemed like a slightly better version of Guillorme
@bill M was thinking the same thing sounds like a angel. Might be better than tucker as well.
This signing was a notable Stearns error
The very second it was signed…in November for guaranteed money and a guaranteed roster spot…when he was expected to be unsigned until February and expected to be signed to a MiLB deal with an invite to Spring Training.
Craig Breslow on line 1, Joey…
And Chris Getz is on Line 2.
If there is one thing the White Sox love, it is sub-.100 ISO “versatile” position players.
I don’t know what’s worse right now, being a White Sox fan or Red Sox fan. Tip of the cap to any White Sox fans still hanging in there…
Not even close Greenie…
2 million flushed for a bench piece that played 18 games. Pretty low impact regardless. Stearns added a lot of depth, something prior regimes failed to understand the need for, and some has worked out quitw well. Some have been joey wendle/houser, but that’s baseball.
Maybe 4 million with luxury tax……
He not only didn’t hit, his defense was atrocious, and he missed a crucial bunt too
Former Tampa position players are almost always overrated. Tampa is really effective at shielding a lot of their players from anything they’re not good at, so in the long run they end up looking far better than they really are.
True, and the Rays also have a lot of time to try prospects out at different positions while they’re held back in the minors for service time manipulation (Caminero currently being tried out at 2B for the heck of it)….
All of you bashing Stearns for this move don’t know what the goal was. Joey Wendle was out of work with no prospects of anyone signing him to guaranteed money – certainly not before guys like him would’ve been desperate to sign any deal in February for any money and hopeful for a Spring Invite like it was expected for Wendle. And with the holidays coming, it was going to be hard times in the Wendle home. So, Stearns stepped in for some reason, and made sure that Wendle got more money than he deserved, and was signed in November to guaranteed money and a guarantedd MLB spot. Stearns wanted to help Wendle and his family out for the holidays.
Did you all really think this was a baseball move for the betterment of the team? Commend Stearns for doing a good deed. He’ll at least get good karma points for doing it. Stearns will now never be confused with Ebenezer Scrooge.
I know you sure aren’t good for baseball if you care more about your rivals then your own team or should i say one city.
@TheBlackSheep
So, you’re reaction is this when I clearly put up a post in good humor?
So you think all the people bashing Stearns for this are good for baseball? Were you one of the Mets fans that were bashing Stearns like a week ot two after he took over?
You know what is humorous? The fact you only seem to do this to anything related the Mets or anything New York related and based on your name alone is all the proof I need and not only that do you speak on the behalf of all Marlins fans then? How absurd you are no wonder why you been banned. I never see you talk about anything more then the Mets are you sure your not a fan?
I’ve never seen your screen name before, so I’m not sure how you can say what you always see about me…unless you too were previously banned or you’re one of those certain fairweather Mets fans that pop in when you feel things are good, and you forgot your previous screen name. Who are you because you’ve not been here before from what I’ve seen.
Good because i rarely use this site and for a good reason i have a life and you pretty much live on here and love stirring up trouble. I’m kind of surprised that you didn’t know anyone with or without an account can view comments since you pretty much never stop talking about the Mets kinda sad you love to talk about them more then some of their own fans lol.
I have never heard of that name before the fact you don’t think I am new really goes to show how much you live on this site at least I am not some arrogant senile old Florida fan that has to stick my nose in every thing New York related cause you have a very soft and fragile ego. I’m glad I get show my friends and co workers how funny some people on these sites are. Tell me are in a home or do you some how leech off your loved ones?
Are you taking a creative writing course?
@MetsSchmets
Did you like it? I hope you did. I have one planned in the event that Pete Alonso is no longer in NY despite people saying that he’ll sign out of loyalty and love for NY…with those people ignoring that Pete has been living his entire life somewhere else.
Tampa sucks. You suck. Pete hates you and Tampa. Busch Gardens sucks. Nobody gives a crap about your toilet city with mosquitoes and sewage. He’s going to wherever he gets the most money like 99999/100000 professional athletes. Man, you’re sad.
Pete hates Tampa?
I wonder why that’s his home. Please enlighten us primitive minds as to why a guy would live somewhere he hates.
And funny how you now switch to what I said before about him taking the money wherever he get’s it. Like I said, if Tampa could pay him, he’d be suiting up for his hometown team. Your Mets better hope none of the nearby teams like the Rangers, Astros or Braves offer up some money his way, because he won’t be in NY after that.
He lives in NY stupid
That’s where he was born stupid. I’m sure he’d rather play for the Durham Bulls then live in Tampa. I was just there visiting a nephew, it’s a trailer trash lagoon.
@MetsSchmets
Again, get your facts right.
Pete was born in Tampa. He also went to Jesuit High School and Henry B. Plant High School – both in Tampa. And then went to nearby University of Florida in nearby Gainesville…just a 2-hour drive away from his high school and neighborhood.
As for your visit there, maybe your family lives in a trailer park and that’s all you were able to see and probably all you were able to afford to see, but that’s you. Tampa is a major metropolitan area, and everyone on this board that has been there has gotten a good realization about you in your statement – you’re either just trolling or you’re trailer trash that couldn’t afford to see anything else when you were in Tampa.
Keep talking stupid. You’re doing a bang up job at exposing yourself for what you are.
Wrong. Pete hates Tampa and just tweeted it with a
“PS banndmarlinsfanbase is a dork with a skinny wiener”. Even he gets it. Tampa is like a 1992 Toyota Camry that smells of potpourri and Newports in a strip club parking lot in a swamp. Pass.
Tampa is literally a sewer. NY and LA and Albuquerque are all utopia’s in comparison. You have no idea because you’ve literally never left Tampa. You think you understand NY because you watched every episode of Friends
I don’t live in Tampa. I live in South Florida…you know…where the Marlins are.
Well, like I said. You better hope your Mets get Pete signed. Things will really get fun for you if he doesn’t.
Literally everything you write is lacking in critical thinking. I want Pete traded you lizard
But but but, you said he will sign with the Mets because of loyalty. I guess you’re seeing the writing on the wall with your latest two comments on the topic.
It sure took long enough.
So what’s to debate now? Or are you just lonely?
BRO you’re an absolute jerk off. I said he goes where the money is. You’re a god damn troll..
You said it long after you orginally were stating that he would sign with the Mets because of loyalty…or are you now starting to use some selective amnesia?
Everyone is hard on Wendle yet look at what the Red Sox put out at short last year. Give Wendle consistent playing time and his production has to look better. I’m not saying he’s great or was worth the $2m when he signed but he is a proven marginal player.
Give Wendle more consistent playing time and his production has to look better you say?
Hmmm…See 2022 and 2023 Wendle with the Marlins. He was given a starting job and stunk.
He’s a nice guy and good teammate, but Wendle is done. He’s been done for at least a year.
“Proven marginal players” are exactly what Craig Breslow is looking for….
No but it was what Chaim Bloom found. While I’m on record thinking he should have been given this last year, his marginal “finds” were either incompetence or due to Henry’s budget control.
He WAS a proven payer. Now he’s a washed up and empty shell of his former self.
ATL on the line, too. Insurance policy if Riley has a longer recovery time.
career is coming to a close for this guy. I always liked wendle as a player, unfortunate that he has regressed so much
Probably over 7 billion people who would love $2 million to do nothing
Us Met fans didn’t want fan favorite cult icon Luis Guillorme. We wanted Joey Wendle. How did that turn out
It’s nice he got paid based on his reputation. He earned it. The Mets doubled the ante and placed a bet a little more than double the league minimum. It didn’t work out. Sometimes it does. Brandon Belt last year, but also last year the Cubs placed a two year 14 million dollar bet on Trey Mancini, who could no longer punch above his middle weight, but who would have been a fan favorite if he could’ve. He looked good in a Cubs uniform. Instead, inspirational story and all, he was cut, and also pretty quick. But his reputation got him paid. Mancini got real money from another team in 2023 for how good he was for the Orioles in 2019.
Flushing $ 2 MM ( for Steve Cohen $ 4 MM after luxury tax ) for Joey Wendle what were they thinking? He can’t hit, field or even lay down a bunt. Lol Mets
What is even more Lol Mets is they now have no backup MI on their roster along with a 3B Baty who can’t hit and another 3B who is a DH in Vientos.
C and 2B are looking like black holes now and their SS $ 341 MM man is hitting below the Mendoza line,
What an expensive disaster.
The Mets are still “in it” Lindor will start knocking the cover off the ball once they’re “out of it” like last season. WTF is he doing batting lead off? Is this a pressure tactic to make him take some walks to get on base?
On the plus side their SP options should be coming back around with guys returning from injury.
Rational_Mets_Fan,
Been watching the Mets since 1967 so I know winning Mets baseball. I have watched more Baseball than anyone so I know winning baseball.
The Mets announced goal at the outset was to be competitive for the 3rd WC which is the rebranded Wilpon goal of playing meaningful September baseball to sell tickets through the summer and pocket some $. The Mets have uinderperformed this low bar and will be out of it by Memorial Day at the one-third mark. Steve Cohen will be unable to sell tickets through the summer and fans will stay away and tune out. I know I will.
“I saw this Bud Harrelson play therefore my overblown opinions are valid! The fact that he Mets signed Joey Wendle means they’re the Wilpon’s. I’m gonna ‘tune’ out like I’ve been threatening to do since March but still comment on every. roster. move. they. make.”
-BOBROCK
MetsSchmets,
I did in fact watch Bud Harrelson play with the ’69 WS Champs Mets and the ’73 WS Mets and he was fiery battling with Pete Rose in the NLCS that year. He was defensively solid and great at situational hitting and bunting. RIP Bud Harrelson and Tug McGraw!
Mr. Smiles the $ 341 MM SS of course would just hug Pete Rose and take a bow after a defensive play after going 0 – 4 and batting .193 LOL
RIP Tom Seaver, Rusty Staub, Gil Hodges, & Yogi Berra!
Long live Willie Mays!
Lol you’re the best Bob! If baseball ever regresses half a century of evolution you’d be a great team executive !!!!!
Joey’s a really nice guy. Always has been and I wish him and his family the best.
I really think Stearns has built as good of a roster he could with the goal of getting back under the pricy luxury tax for next year. Like the Wilpon years I spend more time looking at minor league box scores to see how the farm is progressing. Unlike them however, I believe we have an owner that is not going to make big decisions on the whims of the overzealous fan base. My expectations have always been they’d be selling the one year contracts at the deadline and buying more prospects like last year. Unlike last year they have better players to sell with cheaper contracts to pay up so hopefully they get some young arms to go with the bats.