Mets center fielder Jose Siri was diagnosed with a fractured left tibia, manager Carlos Mendoza told reporters following tonight’s win over Minnesota (relayed by Newsday’s Tim Healey). He’ll go on the 10-day injured list tomorrow and is surely in line for a lengthy absence.
Siri suffered the injury on Saturday when he fouled a ball off his leg (video via SNY). He came out of the game and was replaced by Tyrone Taylor. Siri remained day-to-day when initial testing suggested it may be a shin contusion, but today’s follow-up imaging diagnosed the fracture. The IL placement will represent the Mets’ first in-season roster move aside from the DFA trade of Alexander Canario. New York has carried the same 26-man active roster since Opening Day.
It had been a frustrating start for Siri even before the injury. The righty-hitting outfielder collected just one hit in his first 20 at-bats. He has drawn four walks and stolen a couple bases, but he’d punched out eight times over 24 plate appearances. Siri’s glove is much more his calling card. He’s coming off a .187/.255/.366 showing over a career-high 130 games as a member of the Rays. The Mets acquired him in an offseason trade despite those numbers because he’s one of the best defensive center fielders in the game.
Siri and Taylor have each started eight games apiece. The latter should now be in line for more or less everyday center field work. Taylor is out to a frigid start in his own right. An 0-4 showing tonight dropped his season slash to .158/.179/.211 across 39 plate appearances. He has struck out nine times and has yet to take a walk. Taylor managed a league average .248/.299/.401 showing over 345 trips to the dish in his first season as a Met.
Brandon Nimmo started 22 games in center field as recently as last season. He has played exclusively left field this year. The Mets could kick him back over to center on occasion if they want Starling Marte to draw in left to push Taylor out of the lineup. Luisangel Acuña also logged over 250 Triple-A innings in center field last season. The Mets have only used him in the middle infield at the major league level, but he’s athletic enough to potentially get some reps in center if Taylor continues to struggle.
Ouch. That doesn’t seem like it will mend overnight!
It took about 3 months for Kyle Tucker to heal last year from a similar injury. Even during his time in Houston, Sirius was a relatively light hitter. You could always see the talent is there. Hope he heals fasts metsfanatics!
Tucker didn’t fracture his leg. He just bruised it real bad. Fracture might be a bit longer.
Towards the end of last year is when the Astros finally came clear on the issue.
Mets need to be on the phone with Boston for Rafaela.
They just extended him and he’s a perfect utility guy. Why would they trade him?
Because they have elite young talent at 2nd with Campbell, elite young talent coming at short with Mayer, and an elite outfielder that they need to make room for in Anthony. Utility in all he is the odd man out.
The thing is, Rafaela is a mediocre-at-best bat with a quality glove that can play multiple spots. He’s best served in that exact role, which Boston paid him for. I don’t think that for the prospect cost, he is enough of an improvement on Taylor. Plus in an ideal world, Jett Williams is on the way. It’s also quite early and they went to the NLCS with Taylor and Harrison Bader last year. I wouldn’t be jumping to that yet.
Don’t let the NY press gaslight you on these prospects. Jett Williams is probably two years away right now. I know its small sample. But he put up bad numbers in AA last year, and mediocre numbers so far this year. Its early, but he’s not exactly bulldozing through that level.
And Williams isn’t really playing that much CF. 33 games total in his 172-game minor league career, and has yet to play there at all this season.
Lol nobody is being gaslit here my man.
His numbers were bad last year because he was hurt the whole year, hence the 121 PAs. You can pretty safely flush that stuff. Prospect development isn’t linear, anyway.
As for this year, he’s played 8 games at AA, and his numbers are perfectly fine for a 21-year old at Binghamton in April after missing almost an entire season of development. Seems like a normal path for a guy who might make the team next year. “In an ideal world, Jett Williams is on the way” still stands and includes all of your caveats.
He’s not playing short any time soon in the bigs barring a long-term Lindor injury, and even then it’d likely be Acuña’s job first. There’s no reason to move him off short in full any time soon But, his best path to a major league job comes at center, maaaaybe second.
And none of what you said changes the reality that he is almost certainly more than a year away from making a useful contribution in the majors. And more than a year does not qualify as “on the way’.
The issue here is that your “almost certainly” has the “almost” doing a lot of the work. It’s a particularly flimsy claim.
It’s not 1995 anymore. If Williams hits to his projected potential, his developmental path will speed up. He’s in AA now. He could be in the big leagues by June the way guys go now. He could also not be on the team until next year.
You’ve created an unreasonably narrow definition of “on the way” as a framework to serve a bad point. The whole context is that Rafaela just signed an eight-year extension. So even if we don’t see Jett Williams in the big leagues until September 2026, the same point stands.
He might never play a major league game. “In an ideal world, he’s on the way” still stands as absolutely true. Improve your reading comprehension skills.
You are speaking to your own misperceptions, and not reality…. “The way guys go now”….? It is a very small handful of of guys who successfully move from AA to the majors in under a year, and they are projected superstars, typically among the top few prospects in the majors.
“.If Williams hits to his projected potential..” Please. Cite me which legitimate scouting or analytical projection – not press report – has him moving that quickly.
You are bad at reading and worse at writing. I’m sorry you are not very bright.
Massive overreaction.
It’s not an overreaction. They need a center fielder regardless if Siri didn’t get hurt. Taylor and Siri are not the answer.
It’s a massive overreaction. The Mets were content in the offseason to go defense-first in CF and chose to get Siri to split time with Taylor to keep both fresh. Now they’ll just play Taylor more and bring up someone from AAA to play every few days. There’s literally no reason to trade away whatever it would take to get Rafaela when they have prospects in the minors who figure to play CF in the near future.
That was the plane in the offseason. I didn’t like it then either. Neither one of them has performed well and it’s not panning out. You can have all the defense you want but you need at least some offense. Some times you need to know when to pivot off a plane that isn’t working. They can’t call up another outfielder unless that person can play some infield. Having 6 outfielders and one back up infielder is just praying that bad luck doesn’t happen and limits in game strategy.
I don’t disagree with you but Rafaela is a massive overreaction. A) he would cost prospects, B) he’s signed to an 8 year deal and the Mets have other players in the minors who figure to be in the mix for CF in the next year or so, C) Rafaela also has offensive issues of his own, and D) Siri will probably be back in 6-8 weeks. No reason to take a big swing right now.
@ Mets Era Taylor performed rather well last season. You’ve got a guy who typically puts up a league-average OPs+ and WAR over every 150 games he plays. He’s just off to a low start this year. Maybe he’s still a little behind in his conditioning because of his November surgeries.
Re Mets prospects in the CF mix in the next year or so… meh, not so much. The Mets press has overstated how good Gilbert’s CF
Gilbert’s CF defense is actually not regarded as starting-caliber. Some of the projections on him say starting corner, and the others all say 4th OF, depending on how his HR power develops.
Williams has only played 33 games in CF so far, and none this year. So how high are the Mets really on that idea?
At least his batting average on the IL should be close to his BA on the active roster. Should also have a better ops+
He’s had 20 ABs
To be far his 1100 previous ABs haven’t been much better.
Hey Siri…
Siri – can you use ai & stat cast and recommend Siri’s replacement?
Siri – why you asking me? I’m Alexa.
Hey Siri, are you friends with Alexa?
“I’m a big fan of good listeners and helpful beings.”
This is the first time Siri got it right.
A 9 wRC+ so far this season and 0 OAA? Yeah, it’s just addition by subtraction for the Mets at this point.
Sucks for Siri. Speed and great D. Heal up – that’s most important. However he’s as bad or worse than advertised at bat.
They can bring up Azocar until they figure out a more stable option/solution. Azocar is out of options but if they didn’t get get him for situations like these then???
Guys like Drew Gilbert and Jett Williams, although maybe promoted to the big club this season, are not ready yet. Unless they really believe Acuna can do it, Azocar is it.
My son would be so excited if that happened. We just caught a couple Syracuse games at Lehigh valley and he was really excited about Azocar. Got a couple balls from him and a bunch of autographs. Dude has a really good looking sig
The Mets also have another respectable #7/8 OFer who can handle CF in Gilberto Celestino, currently .302/.375/.419 at Syracuse, always a solid bet to take a walk, .371 OBP in 785 AAA PA.
It’d be interesting to see if he can put up a .250/350/350 line in regular time in MLB.
As for Azocar, he was ungodly bad in 2024 and Celestino’s outhitting him in Syracuse.. It’s too bad the Mets couldn’t hang on to Canario, with a 1.080 OPS and 0 strikeouts in his last 11 PA / 5 games after two awful games to start the season. .
Celestino is the best outfield option at Syracuse.
C’mon, Jack. Are we really citing 11 PA as a relevant indicator of anything? And who would you release to make room for Canario, and what would your back-up plan be if Canario does flop?
@geofft I’m happy to grant that 11 PA is a very thin reed, but pointing to Canario improving on the on stat most likely to impair his prospects seems reasonable, namely his K-rate which, along with BB-rates, stabilize extremely quickly as true talent indicators.
It also seems inargurable for the moment that it’s unfortunate the Mets didn’t find a way to keep him in the fold, given Marte’s disastrous season to date, given Marte’s lack of upside, and given Canario’s significant upside—on top of his straightfoward value as a +3 corner OFer.
In addition the Mets have created another problem for themselves by carrying what was always going to be at best a minimally acceptable platoon at DH, a platoon not only with no upside but one that featured players who can no longer play the outfield—whereas Canario can not only play the corners well, he can still play CF at around -3 to -5 OAA, probably about McNeil’s level, a better CFer than Pete is at 1B or Vientos is at 3B or Baty at 2B.
The lack of backup OFers means doing to Nimmo what the Wilpons did to him: Sending him out there even when he’s dragging, even when he’s hurt, ev en when he should regularly be pulled from games in the 5th, 6th, 7th innings to reduce the strain on bad feet—you’re far more likely to be able to do that without hurting the club when you have Canario instead of Marte on the bench.
I would have dealt or cut Marte once Canario was available and presumably passed the short job interview. I never wanted Marte on the team. He’s the ‘safe,’ replacement level choice overwhelmingly likely to bring nothing to the team.
And if not Canario, then someone else. Marte’s slot was the easiest to upgrade significantly, and inexpensively at that since we’re talking short-side platoonmates who only need to be good enough to play a corner.. Cheers,
They need to be calling up an infilelder. The team was over loaded with outfielders.
@Cohen’s_Wallet You called it. Fwiw it looks like McNeil made a sliding catch in CF today for St. Lucie. Three games in, three singles, two BB, and looking respectable in the OF. Don’t know how long Squirrel’s rehab’s going to be, but Azocar won’t have long to impress.
My bet would be Celestino. He is off to a good start for Syracuse and it would also be fitting for him to get the call up in Minnesota.
It’s funny that the article describes Siri’s season as “frustrating.” From my Mets fan POV, Siri has been exactly what he was supposed to be. He’s played great defense, and the runs he’s scored have been in exciting and dramatic fashion. I’m sad to see him get hurt. The solution in his absence is definitely not playing Marte in the field, nor should they move Nimmo to center. I’d prefer to see Drew Gilbert get called up from Syracuse.
@FrankS3 Drew’s currently rehabbing in single A and isn’t ready for MLB action yet, but the point’s well taken.
Still, with the rocky showings of every young minor leaguer in the matter of coming up now, figure Celestino or Azocar (or even Billy McKinney) gets the call rather than Stearns starting the clock on the iffy proposition of someone like Gilbert or reaching down to AA for someone like Jett, who has plenty of work to do.
Acuna can also handle CF, so the Mets can bring up an IFer instead of an OFer if that means bringing up the best available player. Defense has often been subpar at three infield positions, and moving Acuna to the OF won’t help that, so I’m guessing the hot-fielding IFer who was right behind Madrigal on the depth chart will get serious consideration.
No he hasn’t. He has one hit.
I’m amazed he’s in the show. Seen better in beer leagues.
It’ll be McNeil and Francisco
Alvarez with Senga going down. They have three options for center and apparently hitting isn’t a priority for them at this position so Taylor gets the lions share.
I’m gunna assume you mean Senger
Oh my yes lol
Alvarez is currently limping along in A ball at St. Lucie building up strength while hitting a punchless .100.
It’s going to be a little while. He has yet to play on consecutive days. At least he’s taken a couple of unintentional walks.
Looks like mauricio is being called up in the end,probably acuna getting some centerfield reps
Mauricio won’t get his first rehab start until this afternoon, and even then it’s only in extended spring training, and only at DH. It’s going to be a while for Ronny.
Don’t scare us by saying Senga.
@JackStrawb: “Alvarez is currently limping along in A ball at St. Lucie building up strength while hitting a punchless .100.”
Jack has me blocked so I’ll mention it here in case anyone thinks he has a clue: Alvarez has played in three games. That “punchless .100” is completely meaningless. Much more meaningful is that Alvarez has played all nine innings in his three games. He’ll be up by the end of the week if not sooner. “It’s going to be a little while” is laughable.
He’s playing in AA today with McNeil. They both will be activated to start the home series against the Cardinals.
Yep, I fully expect that as well.
With McNeil coming back soon and Acuña heating up, now is the time to move Acuña to CF on a regular basis.
McNeil replaces Baty, and Acuña keeps his roster spot as backup SS.
That would still leave an open roster spot.
Yes I’m intrigued by Acuna in center.
He hasn’t played good there yet. Not saying he won’t but I think Jett is destined long term for center.
I know Acuna has played center in the minors. Did you read he didn’t played the position well? I hadn’t heard that.
He made three errors in 99 attempts.
I appreciate the data but that in itself may not tell the whole story. I’m curious how he looked overall and the circumstances of the errors. I wonder what the scouts saw. I agree he is a 2nd basemen long term and not a centerfielder but I wonder if he can play it for now.
He needs more reps before you throw him out there in mlb games.
Maybe, maybe not. Playing defense is not like hitting. The ballparks might be bigger, but typically defense is going to translate wherever you play. I don’t think it’ll be the end of the world to put him out there a game and see how he does.
I like Acuña at 2nd. I would rather Nimmo take a few games in center and McNeil play left when giving Taylor some time off.
I think they can survive with Nimmo in center from time to time, but I think it would be hard to do for an extended period of time. That would certainly answer their problems if he could do it. I just don’t know if defensively he can handle it that much anymore. And unfortunately, Marte and Winker are almost unplayable in the outfield at this point.
Some kinda miracle mets are 1st pl
Siri tyrone baty vientos total zeros
Soto slow start
Pitching shaky
Diaz a disaster
Pete (the guy nobody wanted & everyone said was useless garbage) & BP holding tm together
Pitching is far from shaky
Chandler is a loser with a skinny wiener
I don’t want to know how you know that
Your mom told me
They have the best starting ERA and the best bullpen ERA in baseball. What do you define as shaky?
Jared Young will get the call up and sit until He is replaced by McNeil. Nimmo and Acuna are the backup CFs. Baty will go down when Alvarez is ready and Senger stays until Siri is back
I’m not sure they’ll carry 3 catchers and the DH spot is already full. Senger is first to go and Baty is your back-up infielder. I think we are stuck with him for a while still.
On another note, I think Baty isn’t cut out for NY. He’d probably thrive in Cinci/Pitt/KC etc…
@Grey matter Looks like you’re right, though I really wish you weren’t.
Every Mets fan is painfully aware this is Baty’s 4th go-round at the major league level, and while it’s a small sample in 2025 he’s been worse than ever.
He looks completely lost. 36 PA, 15K, zero BB, and an OPS+ of 3 (three). Wow..
I was hoping the Mets would stick with him exclusively at 3B, where the hitting standard is low enough that even with average defense and an OPS around .670 (an OPS+ of 90-92) he’d be a 2-WAR player making the minimum, with room to improve.
Even that modest a performance seems completely out of reach. How much longer can the Mets stay with Baty, given they’re playing with half a lineup?
You can have any of the Phillies center fielder you want. I’ll even throw in a box of practice balls.
This is a good thing for the Mets. No amount of defense will ever make that offensive output acceptable. Not in the MLB.