The 2025 New York Mets had one of the worst collapses in professional sports history, going from the league’s best team by record in June to losing 55 of their final 93 games and missing the playoffs completely.
New York has a lot to accomplish this offseason before they get back to being playoff contenders, but they have already made an abundance of roster moves thus far to address their “run prevention” focus.
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While defense and pitching should be at forefront of their plans moving forward, the offense has taken a massive hit (no pun intended) after losing star slugger Pete Alonso to the Baltimore Orioles.
Alonso signed a five-year, $155 million contract with the O’s, shocking many in the baseball world who thought Alonso would return to New York or sign with the Boston Red Sox.
Many of the big-name bats are still available, like outfielder Kyle Tucker, third baseman Alex Bregman and outfielder Cody Bellinger. But could the Mets be in play for a shortstop even though they have star Francisco Lindor? ESPN’s David Schoenfield says not to sleep on the Mets as a player in the Bo Bichette sweepstakes.
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“Bichette’s age — he’s entering his age-28 season — makes him the kind of free agent who might be more attractive to Stearns, although the Mets have their double-play combo set with Francisco Lindor and Semien,” Schoenfield wrote Wednesday. “But what about Bichette moving to third? His range at shortstop is subpar anyway, and that was before the knee injury in September. Executives love his high-contact rate that should translate well to October baseball — and he would make for a terrific No. 3 hitter behind Lindor and Soto. Baty would then become trade bait for pitching or outfield help. Don’t sleep on this one.”
Schoenfield mentions that Bichette would make for a perfect addition to protect Lindor and Juan Soto, and that’s exactly why I could see the Mets pursuing Bichette. Bichette has stated that he would be open to playing second base for a team and he played the position well during the World Series, but he would have to shift to third base due to the Marcus Semien trade.
Whether he would be willing to do so or if the experiment would work is unknown, but the Mets need to address the loss of Alonso’s offensive production. Semien and infielder Jorge Polanco won’t be enough to match Alonso’s 42 home run, 114 RBI average.
