00:00Joel Sherman, three things after the Mets got on the board with a free agent hitter, Jorge Polanco, two years at $40 million.
00:11Let's start here for number one.
00:15Nothing is going to make Mets fans by itself, or the majority of Mets fans by itself, feel like better and that this is a replacement.
00:24If you're expecting a pure replacement, say for Pete Alonso, that's probably not coming.
00:28I suspect if there's big things to do in the marketplace, especially trade-wise, if Tarek Skubal really gets traded or Mason Miller really gets traded, the Mets with Steve Cohen's money and a strong farm system will be right there.
00:44But I think you have to look at this as, the word I used in a column I wrote on this, as a mosaic offseason for the Mets, where David Stearns is attempting to do several things by doing tiles.
00:56Think of Polanco as a tile. He's trying to not do long-term contracts.
01:02He didn't want to do it with Alonso. He got out on Nemo because he knows he's got Soto and Lindor long-term.
01:08He doesn't want to lock up too many guys and have them all age out on him.
01:12They paid a bit of a premium annually, $20 million a year on average, to get Polanco for just the two years for his age 32 and 33 season.
01:21They wanted to kind of like make their clubhouse a little better.
01:26Polanco is known as a quiet guy, but also a great teammate is his reputation and a guy who loves to play baseball.
01:34If you believe the injury to his knee was mended with surgery after the 2024 season.
01:42He really held off having the surgery for a while.
01:46He followed it with his best offensive year.
01:49It's an offensive year that looks a lot like Brandon Nimmo's, not Pete Alonso's in like slash line, 26 homers compared to 25 for Nimmo.
01:58But he's a very good offensive player.
02:01And I'll go to number two.
02:03The one thing that came up a lot in his postseason, right after the season press conference for David Stearns,
02:11and he's kind of taken some jobs on it, is the words run prevention.
02:16Polanco, the Mets are planning to play Polanco at first base a lot.
02:19There's going to be DH.
02:20There's going to be second base.
02:21There's going to be third base.
02:23But Polanco has literally not played one professional innings, major leagues or minor leagues, at first base.
02:29Now, the Mets believe because he's an infielder, he's going to be able to do it.
02:32But they probably are saying something about what they truly feel Pete Alonso's defensive skills are if they think Polanco will be an improvement upon that, right?
02:42Because he's never done it.
02:46The Mets think he can do it.
02:48It will be fascinating if he does.
02:51Number three.
02:53The Mets were very, very bad against lefty pitching last year.
02:56They had nine guys take more than 100 plate appearances against lefties.
03:02No one was better than the 786 OPS of Juan Soto.
03:07The best by a right-hand hitter was Vientos at 730.
03:10Alonso was in the low 700s.
03:12Polanco was in the very high 800s.
03:14One of the best in baseball.
03:16Hit 305 against lefties last year.
03:19But I'll leave with this.
03:20It can't be the only move against lefties.
03:23And it can't be the only move for the offense.
03:25They still need at least one and probably two outfielders.
03:30Even if you like Carson Bench.
03:32They probably need another right-handed bat.
03:35Even if you think that Francisco Alvarez is going to get better.
03:39They need another infield bat who can play first base.
03:42Even if you think Brett Beatty at third base kind of broke out last season and is good.
03:48I think David Stearns believes in giving all of those guys chances to try to make the lineup.
03:52But to solve the loss of Alonso in particular and Nimmo with the length of a lineup and not particular guy.
03:59So again, what I would leave you with is thinking of it as a mosaic.
04:03Polanco is a tile.
04:05But the Mets are still a lot of tiles short so far this offseason.
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