The Mets have interest in free agent Cody Bellinger, reports Jon Heyman of The New York Post. Heyman also downplays the possibility of the Dodgers making a strong run at free agent Edwin Díaz, which he suggests could be good for the Mets.
Bellinger would fit well with the Mets, given the current roster makeup. Center field was a big hole in 2025. Jose Siri spent most of the season on the injured list. He was outrighted off the roster in September and later became a free agent. Tyrone Taylor’s performance was lacking. The club tried to address the situation by acquiring Cedric Mullins at the deadline but he struggled to the end of the season and then became a free agent.
There is the possibility of an internal solution to the problem. Taylor is still on the roster. President of baseball operations David Stearns also tells Joel Sherman of The New York Post that Carson Benge will have a chance to make the team out of camp next year.
Benge was the club’s first-round pick, taken 19th overall, in the 2024 draft. In 2025, he hit his way through High-A and Double-A. In 416 plate appearances across those two levels, he drew a walk in 14.2% of them while only striking out at a 17.5% clip. He produced a .308/.413/.513 line and 174 wRC+. He got bumped up to Triple-A in mid-August. He slashed just .178/.272/.311 at that level but in a tiny sample of 103 plate appearances with a .188 batting average on balls in play.
Ideally, he would have some Triple-A success before cracking the majors but it seems the Mets aren’t dimming his stock based on that fluky end to a strong season. He played all three outfield spots but the Mets have Juan Soto and Brandon Nimmo in the corners. If March rolls around and Benge is the best center field option, perhaps he will get the job. They likely can’t bank on that, however. Benge is still fairly inexperienced and won’t be eligible for the Rule 5 draft until after the 2027 season, so they don’t need to put him on the 40-man until he earns it.
Signing Bellinger would give them a strong Plan A. Bellinger hasn’t been an everyday center fielder for a few years but the plan would presumably be for him to move off that position whenever Benge forces the issue. Even if that doesn’t happen by Opening Day 2026, it could happen during the campaign. Bellinger could then move to a corner, with the designated hitter spot used in a rotation between himself, Soto and Nimmo. It’s also possible that Bellinger could end up at first base, depending on what happens with Pete Alonso.
Bellinger is heading to free agency for the third time but he should have far more earning power than in the first two trips. He was non-tendered by the Dodgers after 2022, his second straight dismal season on the heels of a shoulder injury. He secured a one-year, $17.5MM deal with the Cubs and bounced back with a strong season before heading to free agency for a second time. His market wasn’t strong, seemingly due to the memories of his poor 2021 and 2022 seasons still being fresh. He returned to the Cubs on a three-year, $80MM deal with opt-outs after each season.
His 2024 wasn’t quite as strong as his 2023 campaign, so he decided to skip his first opt-out chance. He was traded to the Yankees and then had a really strong performance in 2025. He hit 29 home runs, slashed .272/.334/.480 for a 125 wRC+ and got strong grades for his glovework, playing all three outfield spots and a bit of first. There were some flags under there, as he seemingly benefited from the short porch at Yankee Stadium. He had a 152 wRC+ at home and 97 on the road. Still, he made the easy decision to walk away from his $25MM salary in 2026, taking the $5MM buyout instead.
MLBTR predicted Bellinger to secure a five-year, $140MM deal this time. The Mets are one of the top-spending clubs in the league and could certainly make that happen if they wanted to, though Bellinger will have interest elsewhere, including from the Yankees.
At the end of the season, Stearns spoke of a desire to improve the Mets’ run prevention, per Tim Britton of The Athletic. Perhaps that would suggest Bellinger would be a better fit than bringing back Alonso, as the Polar Bear is not a great defender. Rostering both is theoretically possible but a bit clunky, as it closes off the possibility of Bellinger moving to first once Benge takes over center.
Turning to Díaz, he is the top reliever available this winter. The last time he was headed to free agency, the Mets signed him before he got there. It was a five-year, $102MM pact with an opt-out after three seasons. A major knee injury wiped out 2023 for Díaz but he bounced back in the two subsequent seasons. He just posted a 1.63 earned run average. His 38% strikeout rate wasn’t quite as gaudy as his 50% mark in 2022 but it was still very good. He triggered his opt out and is now a free agent for the first time.
Any club would be interested in adding him but he’s likely going to command another hefty deal. That puts clubs like the Dodgers in play, though Heyman’s suggestion that they aren’t likely to be aggressive with Díaz could help the Mets. That doesn’t mean he will be cheap, however. Ken Rosenthal and Will Sammon of The Athletic reports that Díaz is looking to get roughly the same deal he got last time.
That’s a bit of a tall ask. Díaz is still quite good but he’s turning 32 in March. As mentioned, his strikeout rate is still very strong but not quite as insane as it was a few years ago. MLBTR predicted him for $82MM over four years this time, roughly the same average annual value as his last deal but on a shorter term since he’s now three years older. Time will tell if he can match his previous pact but it should be a notable deal either way.
The Mets issued him a qualifying offer, which he will decline. The Mets presumably want to bring Díaz back but Stearns has generally opted for shorter-term commitments to pitchers since he took over the front office. If he lets Díaz sign elsewhere, it would hurt the bullpen but the Mets would receive a compensatory draft pick.
Photo courtesy of Kevin Sousa, Imagn Images
The Mets sure love those Yankees.
Not as much as the Yankees loving the Mets.
Who expects Bellinger to leave the Bronx? Not me. Any interest though would increase the cost back to the Yankees, which could impact other moves.
Juan Soto would like to join the conversation.
Completely different situation, padam. Bellinger is getting older and outfield defense will decline. If the Mets want him to replace Alonso at first it’s a different story. That said, his bat plays much better at Yankee Stadium.
He’d likely be replacing Alonso at first if it happens.
… but it’s not gonna happen.
deweybelongsinthehall: First, every outfielder, including Soto, is getting older and the defense will decline with age.
Second, Yankee Stadium is such a ridiculously small bandbox that almost any hitter’s bat would play better there than in most other parks. Aaron Judge is evidentiary Exhibit A.
Keep walking, Mets. tlThat’s our guy.
-this NYY fan at least
Mets can have Grisham or Weaver another guy to convert into a starter.
Grisham is probably going to take the QO. He’s not getting $22 mil anywhere else.
Heard today on FAN that he was unlikely to accept it. It surprised me big time.
He doesn’t need to. He can take a lower AAV for more years.
Yes, that’s what was mentioned on the radio but that’s a player not willing to bet on himself after the career year he had.
Money is fine, but I think he’s going to take a 3 year deal elsewhere for lower AAV for stability.
Yes he could. But what is his market going to be? Are teams going to judge him in this past year? Or are they going to take into account his whole career? If they are taking his whole career into the equation, he may get more by accepting the QA in the long run. He’s never been much of a hitter, not till 2025 anyway. If it’s my team, I’m not giving him a 3 year deal based on last year.
Many teams need the CF defense, so that’s the calling card. His offense this year is the gravy.
Well yeah. But that is going to have an effect on his value, and what he gets in a 3 year deal. He may be better off taking the QA in the long run. If it’s 36 over 3 years, or 22 for 1, with the opportunity to put together another season like this one, and get even more for those 2 years, I’m taking the 22 for 1. I think once he sees what his market is over the next week, he may very well take it. 22 mil is 4x what he made last year, and more money than he has made in his entire career to this point. And then consider who the interested teams are. Would you want to play for a small market team, or the Yankees? There is a good chance he accepts the QA, IMO.
He may, no doubt. It could go either way depending on how he feels about his ability to do it again and what’s more important to him: Stability for a few years or quick cash.
He’s been with the Yankees for 2 years already. Stability may be staying in NY for 1 more year.
No, they aren’t.
Mets, Yankees, Scott Boras, Jon Heyman. Tis the effing season I guess.
This. And since the Dodgers, Cubs, and Red Sox are probably not in Boras needs a big spending team to play against the Yankees. Eventually you’ll hear the Phillies too if Schwarber or Tucker start to appear unlikely
Bellinger’s greatest value is his flexibility in terms of playing RF, CF or 1B.
His greatest weakness is his variability from year to year.
Bellinger has been pretty good to great aside from his last 3 year’s in LA, two of which were marred by injury. 🙂
And his second year in Chicago. Over 9 years, having 4 subpar seasons is concerning. That said I think he would perform at his best if he continues hitting in Yankee Stadium.
Absolutely the Mets should pursue Bellinger and I’m not sure why more ink hasn’t been spilled on this previously. Benge is at this point an excellent prospect but no more than that. Highly optimistic to think Benge is going to force his way onto the club with a big spring showing like Alonso did in 2019.
He very likely would not perform as well for the Mets. Yankee Stadium really benefited him.
Would either or both the quote from the article “ He had a 152 wRC+ at home and 97 on the road.” or the predicted price 5/140 give you pause?
Not enough people are mentioning how much Yankee Stadium helped him. The Mets getting him and him reverting to his Mr. Hyde version would be crushing for them.
True, 5 years hard to swallow. I’d take my chances on the home/away split. There no doubt he’d contribute far more to the offense than what the Mets currently have.
I don’t think that Bellinger is a good fit for the Mets at that price, even though they can afford it. Besides, he’s a Yankee Stadium hitter, and I don’t think that he’ll do as well in Citi Field. It seems like Stearns is willing to give Benge a chance to win a roster spot in spring training, let’s see what he can do with the opportunity. Worst case scenario they can pick up Bader again on a short term contract to play CF until Benge is ready.
Unless Diaz and Alonso insist upon longer than 4 year deals, I think that they’ll both be back.
Agree with most of what you’re saying. I was thinking Bader might be a good 1 year option with Benge taking over in 27. Word is that Bader is looking for multiple years. I don’t think he’s worth it.
Diaz has to be the priority. I’m not so sure about Alonso being back.
Most of his career Bader has been another version of Tyrone Taylor. They can’t go another year with an offensive hole in centerfield. You say “until Benge is ready”…he’s a prospect. Might as well say “when Acuna is ready” or “when Mauricio is ready”. They may or may not ever be ready.
Man, the Mets sure whiffed hard on CF last year…Siri, Taylor, and Mullins were all putrid. I suppose that was one position where they want to scrimp and save, yet CF is very important in the grand scheme of things. I think it’s too bad that Nimmo aged himself out of CF so quickly, I believe Mets envisioned him there for awhile after signing his big deal.
Yes, he gave raves when he was out there, at first for the first year or two. I guess he lost his speed.
*he got raves *at least for the first year or two
Seems odd to sign Alonso if Bellinger, a year younger and with a much higher ceiling and far better defense, is available for 5/140m to play 1B, spell Nimmo in LF, and not embarrass himself in CF.
Even Alonso at 4/110m isn’t worth it over Bellinger. Not when Alonso took out the ERA leader in June, nearly did the same to McLean, and spent the last 5 months of the season doing his best Dave Kingman impression.
Would love to see this happen. Would’ve been my top target on the field because he can cover two spots very well that the team needs and ultimately play one of them (1B) when Benge is ready to take it over in CF. Good D and can run which fits in well.
Heeeeeeey-yeah.. Its the heyman special!
I would love to see Bellinger on the Mets, but most likely he is staying on the other side of town
Time to move on from the one dimensional Alonso and grab Belli..
Yea, who needs 125 rbis?
And I’m sure 40 homers is pretty easy to duplicate as well
There really aren’t that many players who excel on both sides of the ball. Just sign him. He’s a team type of guy and I’d bet he wouldn’t make noise if you play him as a DH some of the time. Sign Bellinger!
I agree the versatility and great CF defense are needed, but those splits away from Yankee Stadium scare me
The Mets passed on him in the draft for LJ Mazzilli . Trying to right a wrong.
Large quantities of cash heals all wounds…
I keep telling Uncle Steve you can’t take it with you. He’s 70 and I hope he reads my posts.
Let’s run through the Mets checklist.
High bench press? Check
Best years are behind him? Check
High chance of injury? Check
Doesn’t solve any of the real problems facing the team? Check
Perfect fit, bring him in.
Hmmm. Center field is not a real problem for the Mets?
It sure is, but Bellinger doesn’t solve it. He’s a negative defender in CF. Especially CFs that aren’t Yankee stadium (a smaller outfield)
That’s why he’d be playing 1B
And then we are back to Bellinger not solving any of the Mets problems. Which doesn’t necessarily make him a bad signing. But every signing can’t be like this. And the Mets keep doing signings like this. Then they end the offseason with the real problems unsolved.
If anyone notices, Stearns is speaking in codes and throwing out “dog whistles” and they all say that Pete Alonso is not coming back, at least as a first baseman. He is very clever. After Alonso stated he would opt out, Stearns focused on “Run Prevention”. This was a dig on Alonso. he wasn’t talking about Soto, who is signed and had one of the best seasons any Mets has ever had and he wasn’t talking about Nimmo, who is a fan favorite and the perfect role model to promote. Stearns is a numbers guy and he can see through the numbers. Yes, Pete had 38 home runs and drove in 126, but he sees inside those numbers and what they tell him is that Alonso is one of those guys who gets his number in small streaks. In 13 games, 3/31, 4/8, , 4/28, 5/2, 6/4, 6/8, 6/21, 7/5, 7/25, 8/2, 8/12,8/23,8/29 and 9/19 the Mets won 10-4, 10-5, 19-5, 9-3, 13-5, 11-4, 12-6 and 8-1, 12-6, 13-5, 9-2, 19-9 and 19-9, In those 13 games Alonso hit 11 home runs, drove in 32 and scored 22. He batted .441, 26-59. That’s 29% of his home runs, 25% of his RBI’s and 25% of his runs scored. In the 33 games Alonso hit a home run, he drove in 80 and batted over .400. In the other 129 games, Alonso drove in 46 and batted around .230. These are the numbers that Stearns sees. Alonso pads his numbers in blowouts and is average the rest of the time. Alonso had streaks of 8,16,13,9,10 and 9 games where he did not hit a home run. These are not the numbers of a cleanup hitter who wants a massive deal.
So chopping out his best 13 games and he still had 27 HR and hit .255 in 149 games. Seems pretty good to me. I’m not going to address your point about removing every single game where he hit a HR from his stats because that is silly. You can make that argument against literally any hitter in baseball. Alonso led the league in doubles, too. Should we remove every game where he hit a double and calculate his stats? To what end?
Alonso had a great offensive season in 2025. His issue is defense, specifically his range and arm. If you’re going to make an argument against Pete getting a long term deal, start there. Twisting his offensive numbers into a pretzel to prove a point ain’t it.
That’s a good way of putting it, “twisting his offensive numbers into a pretzel”.
I just posted the games where the Mets by more than five runs. Go to the “game logs” part of Alonso’s MLB page. You will see all the individual games that Pete played. Yes, 27 homers and .255 are good, but look pop the 33 games where Alonso hit a home run. In the other 129 games Alonso drove in 46 and batted around .230. Look at the 40 games where Pete hit .178, 28-156, with 5 home runs and 18 RBI’s from June 10th to July 31st. That’s a quarter of the season. It would come out to 20 homers and 72 RBI’s. Those aren’t the numbers of a guy who wants a 7 year deal. I saw every at bat that Alonso took. During the first month, he was doing what Soto does every game. Pete was on pace for 100 walks and a .300 average. The problem was that Alonso wasn’t hitting home runs. That’s not a good look for a one dimensional slugger, so Alonso went back to chasing pitches and his numbers collapsed.
I’m not twisting anything. Alonso’s 40 games sample from June 10th to the end of July is enough of a red flag for Stearns. That’s 156 at bats. .178, 29-156, with 5 home runs and 18 Rbi’s. Those are not cleanup hitter numbers for a guy who wants a 7 year deal.
We all know he’s streaky and he’s not getting 7 years. If I were in Cohen’s shoes, I’d try for 4 but max at 5.
So he’s streaky? So are plenty of other players, particularly Lindor. Looks like you’ve grabbed his 13 best games and illustrate that these account for a sizeable percentage of his output. But isn’t that to be expected? Is this so unusual? It’s an interesting subject. If you take, for example, Judge’s 13 best games, does his production in those games account for a smaller percentage of his output for the season than Alonso’s?
A 40 game span is not streaky. Batting .178, 28-156 is not streaky. Hitting 5 home runs and driving in 18 in 40 games is not streaky. That’s a red flag.
“In the 33 games Alonso hit a home run, he drove in 80 and batted over .400. In the other 129 games, Alonso drove in 46 and batted around .230.”
Just for fun, I did this exercise with Aaron Judge. In the 45 games Judge hit a home run, he drove in 83 and batted over .400. In the other 107 games, Judge drove in 28 and batted around .250. Judge is a fraud!
Thanks for doing the work. We can sum it up: “A player’s best games are his best games”!
50% of the time it works everytime
Please don’t compare Judge to Alonso. it’s like comparing a fine Merlot to a bottle of “Cisco”.
That wasn’t the point. Of course Judge is a much better ballplayer.
When he hit his HRs in those games they werent all blowouts yet. Go back and look at the score when the HRs were hit. They definitely werent all stat padders.
Correct. If you demonstrate that Alonso hit a lot of his homers in blow-outs, most of the time it was his homers that made it a blow out.
Go check the “Game Logs” on the MLB baseball site and look at Alonso’s page. Also look at the Mets schedule and the dates I provided. If you look at the box scores, Alonso wasn’t a factor in those games.
Not much you can do when someone believes those numbers are representative or predictive.
The likely question is whether Bellinger would be interested in the Mets…..according to the article, he’d be baby sitting CF until or if the Mets prospect shows he’s ready…..it’s been awhile since Belly has roamed CF on a regular basis and while his defense is upper tier, moving around the outfield as well a 1st base is more suited to his skillset both defensively and offensively as well…..doubt the Dodgers as they will sign Tucker, and the Yankees would pursue him with vigor…..
Better than Mullins, if not welp kinda did not see that coming. Always liked to see beli in Mets uni
Bellinger is another LH hitter in a Mets lineup that is short on RHed bats especially if Alonso doesn’t return. Bellinger is just too perfect in pinstripes. I expect a return to the Bronx.
Signing him by himself doesn’t make any sense at least you get rid of Nimo. 3 lefties in the OF no good. Now, him and Alonzo is a different ball game to sptit the lineup. Get those 2, trade for Alcántara, sign Valdez, let Diaz go and with those 20 millions get 2 relieves. Get rid of McNeil and Senga and use that money for bullen help. Also give 2 base to Mauricio, trade Vientos and Acuña for some pitching…like Alcántara or Lopez…
Whoa! Mauricio might flop. Most of his at bats he looked like a deer in the headlights, swinging at stuff a mile off the plate. Don’t think you’d get much pitching by trading Acuna and Vientos. Letting Diaz go? Yikes! I don’t expect you’d get much value from trading Senga, better keep him and see if he can rebound.
Bellinger stays with the Yankees. He’s going to make bank regardless and he HAS to see how much that park benefits him.