1 player reminding the NY Mets he's a much bigger roster nuisance than Francisco Lindor

Have yourself a day and shut the noise down for an afternoon, Francisco Lindor. A triple shy of the cycle on Sunday against the Philadelphia Phillies, he reminded every New York Mets fan who he is.

Trade speculation about Lindor has been one of the more surprising twists of the season. One of the latest reports suggests he’ll be around for the remainder of 2026 with a stronger possibility of getting dealt in the offseason.

The Mets don’t appear finished with him for a variety of reasons. First, it’s hard to move a contract like that. Secondly, he was the MVP runner-up only two seasons ago. Any trade they could possibly make with Lindor would have to be for financial relief’s sake and even then they’d be paying big bucks regardless.

Some of those same elements apply to another Mets player on an expensive albeit shorter deal. While the team needs to have faith in Lindor, they’re getting a constant reminder as to why another one of their players just doesn’t fit.

Jorge Polanco, what are you doing on the Mets roster?

Jorge Polanco can’t do anything to salvage year one of his Mets deal. The damage has been done. He played the first two games of the season at his new position, first base, before nagging injuries relegated him to day-to-day status as the DH. He opened the second half as the DH, going hitless in 4 tries.

A lingering injury to Juan Soto sustained on Thursday put the Mets in a spot where if they wanted their star slugger to play he’d need to be the DH. On Saturday and Sunday, Polanco sat out both games. Unable to play the field and with only a .169/.229/.260 performance this season, he’s a constant reminder of how ill-fitting he always was for this team.

Keeping the DH spot open for others has its obvious benefits. The Mets hadn’t really gone down that road in previous years. Since the DH became a thing in the National League, they’ve rotated through players before settling on questionable platoons. We had Daniel Vogelbach and Darin Ruf at the end of 2022. In 2023, the plan was for it to be Vogelbach along with a mix of Tommy Pham and others. The 2024 season began with DJ Stewart before J.D. Martinez was ready. Things didn’t really change much in 2025 with Starling Marte becoming the DH due to his declining defensive skills.

This year’s DH spot has been more open with Soto leading the team at 30 games in this role. MJ Melendez follows him with 23 and Polanco at 17. The fact that Polanco, with only 20 games played total, is third shows how much the Mets have been able to switch around who gets the half-day.

Trading Polanco, battered and performing badly with a bloated contract, is an offseason decision. What could end up as a bad contract swap rather than a dump, it’s only unlikely to happen because the injury excuse exists. We’ll surely get an after-season quote about how the injury was to blame even though Polanco already had a history of getting hurt and we should have seen this coming.

It’s quite possible by the end of the 2027 season the Mets have multiple $20+ million players buried on the depth chart. Marcus Semien has two more years after this one and isn’t playing like a starter. Sean Manaea has been better yet remains a fifth starter at best on a good team.

Under $20 million yet problematic are Kodai Senga who is the most likely to just get cut as well as Devin Williams who could pitch his way into becoming one of the league’s most expensive set up men.

Lindor isn’t even close to the team’s biggest problem especially when we ask the question of who’d replace him. Polanco, on the other hand, can’t even get onto the field as more than a DH who can’t perform.

If the Polanco signing has to be compared to anything else the team has done, it’s probably Frankie Montas. Only slightly more understandable, it just didn’t make enough sense and happened way too early in the offseason to justify.

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