Prospect News: Never Met A Pricier Maybe or Bichette, Please

I couldn’t stop circling the same thought Friday in the aftershock of Kyle Tucker to Los Angeles then Bo Bichette to New York: these Mets look like the worst team you could put together while spending $336 million. Their ace is Nolan McLean: a prospect I really like but also an inexperienced rookie. All rookies lack experience, but McLean was a two-way player until just a few years ago. Again, no shade, it’s just weird to spend $336 million on a baseball team and have mostly question marks on the pitching staff. 

Sean Manaea threw 60.2 innings with a 5.64 ERA in 2025. 

David Peterson was steady: 4.22 ERA in 168.2 innings. 

Kodai Senga bounced back with a 3.02 ERA in 113.1 innings. 

Clay Holmes (3.53 ERA) added 102.2 innings above his typical total of 63.

These guys are fine. Solid pitchers, all. But do you have a playoff starter here? McLean, I guess. And Jonah Tong if he comes along. Nobody you bought though. Pretty cheap rotation for the second biggest spender. 

The lineup looks better but thins out in a hurry.

1. SS Lindor

2. RF Soto 

3. 3B Bichette 

4. 1B Polanco

5. 2B Semien

6. DH Baty

7. C Alvarez 

8. LF Benge 

9. CF Taylor 

This lineup puts Vientos on the bench, but I suspect he’ll step in for Baty against lefties at the least. 

I don’t understand why they had to have Polanco and Semien for a combined $43 million. Semien is 35 and was below league average (89 wRC+) with the bat in 2025 after being just average (101 wRC+) in 2024. He’s under contract through 2028. 

Polanco will turn 33 on July 5 and is under contract through 2027 at $20 million per year. He bounced back in Seattle a year after posting a 93 wRC+ in his first season there and did his part to get Cal Raleigh pitches to hit with a 132 wRC+ and 26 home runs in 138 games. Added bonus: he’s a switch hitter and combines nicely with Lindor to create balance no matter who they’re facing. I like the player. I’m just surprised he was their solution to losing Pete Alonso before they’d actually lost Pete Alonso, who looks newly affordable at five years for $155 million compared to Bo Bichette at three years for $126 million. Is Bo Bichette a better defensive third baseman than Jorge Polanco? Probably, yeah. But they already had a third baseman in Brett Baty, who is, developmentally speaking, perhaps their most important hitter this season. If he makes a leap, so does this lineup, and he was already 11 percent better than league average at 25. By adding Semien and Bichette and saying the latter will play third base, they have pushed Baty into something of a no man’s land. He’s a talented defender who will have to compete for reps at designated hitter or move to the outfield. I’ll bet he could play left, and maybe that’s his path. 

What I see in their build is that their President of Baseball Operations David Stearns came over from Milwaukee, where the Brewers build their island of misfit toys on shifting sands season after season and still wash underwhelming organizations in the National League Central. He’s used to trading away guys like closer Edwin Diaz and locking in the Pete Alonso type players early on a discount or letting them walk if necessary. In this case, he could’ve just opened the checkbook for both guys and had a better Mets team today and heading into 2027. As is, they’ll depend on Devin Williams through 2028 at $15 million per season (not accounting for deferrals) when Edwin Diaz was just $6 million more expensive per year for the same length. One factor that’s hard to measure is that Diaz seemed to be especially pleased to be signing with Los Angeles and giving himself a chance at a World Series title. Maybe there wasn’t really a number the Mets could say. I doubt that though. Especially if they’d said a bigger number earlier. 

The way I remember the past, it took Dodgers PoBO Andrew Friedman a few years to figure this out in his own right. He had to learn how to blend the cost-cutting brilliance he’d experienced in Tampa with the endless bank account of Los Angeles. For a couple examples from my neck of the woods, he traded a young Yordan Alvarez for RHP Josh Fields and Oneil Cruz for LHP Tony Watson. Now he knows he should just buy those kinds of pieces. Well, now he just buys every piece, but he also resists trading away anyone with megastar upside. We all make mistakes and learn as we go. 

Circling back to Stearns, he could call his old club and hammer something out for Freddy Peralta, which feels like enough to finish strong in a strange off-season. Unclear what the Brewers would want. 

Can’t imagine a deal would involve OF Carson Benge, who could tie the whole room together if he hits early and holds down the center field job. That would allow Tyrone Taylor to shift back into a part-time role to maximize his skillset and open up a corner spot to a field of contenders including Baty, Vientos, Ronny Mauricio, Jett Williams, Ryan Clifford, Nick Morabito and Luisangel Acuña. 

The uncomfortable truth = this is likely the best path to one day compete with the Dodgers. By which I mean the Mets might be leaving a little room to develop young players while paying for (mostly) depth-piece veterans to create that develop-while-contending runway. That also means they might be too far behind to use every roster spot to compete with Los Angeles right now – a difficult thought considering the amount of money they’re paying just to purchase the chance to pretend to contend. That’s not how I feel, by the way. You can’t pretend to contend. It’s the kind of thing you fake until you make, like pretty much every other human thing. The season is long, and the Mets have good development processes in place. They’ve got plenty of time to make changes now and throughout the year. I’m just intrigued by how bland they look on paper . . . despite spending all that paper.

Thanks for reading!