The New York Mets didn’t just lose three players this winter. They lost the outline of who they’ve been for the last half-decade.
Brandon Nimmo is in Texas after the Marcus Semien trade. Edwin Diaz took the trumpets to Los Angeles. Pete Alonso just put on an Orioles jersey. Now the Mets are trying to convince everyone — including themselves — that signing Jorge Polanco to a two-year, $40 million deal is part of a plan, not a scramble.
On paper, Polanco fits the version of the Mets that David Stearns keeps talking about.
He hit.265/.326/.495 with 26 homers and an.821 OPS for the Seattle Mariners in 2025, with a 132 wRC+ and a 45.8 percent hard-hit rate that back up the production as real, not a one-year blip. He was a middle-of-the-order bat on a division winner and one of the better value plays on the market.
But the fit is where this really gets interesting.
The Mets didn’t trade for Semien to move him around the infield. He goes back to second base, where the glove still plays. That means Polanco, a career second baseman with a little third sprinkled in, is being asked to learn first base and carry a big chunk of Alonso’s offensive load at the same time. The Mets are betting that an experienced infielder can fake it there and that even average defense will be an upgrade over Alonso.
The cost of that bet is identity.
Nimmo and Alonso were on-base anchors and faces of the franchise. Diaz was the ninth-inning soundtrack. In two weeks, the Mets turned all of that into Semien at second, Polanco at first and DH, and Devin Williams closing games instead of Diaz.
This is hoping Polanco’s 2025 looks like the start of a late-career run, not the peak of it.
The Mets still have to add another bat and an outfielder, and sell this as a retool rather than a reset. For now, though, the story of their offseason is simple: they didn’t just replace players, they replaced the version of themselves that fans thought they were watching grow.
