5 NY Mets free agents still without a job as spring training approaches

3) Jesse Winker

What’s going on with Jesse Winker? We asked ourselves this for much of 2025. He was on the IL early, returned briefly, and we never saw him again. An exciting player who became a fan favorite in 2024 after years of playing the villain, he seems bound to get a cheap contract for a non-contending team to be a DH option.

It’s kind of already what Winker was when the Mets re-signed him after the 2024 season. The only difference was he had a clutch postseason and the team felt the need to roll him and Marte out as a platoon at the DH spot to start the year. It was a bit circumstantial. The Mets still had Marte and to negate some of his at-bats against righties, a lefty partner seemed to make sense.

There’s no telling if Winker would have eventually started to hit. A .229 batting average and one home run in his 81 Mets plate appearances in 2025, he gets an incomplete grade. Appearing a bit broken at only 32-years-old, he has had one good and complete season in his last four tries.

Could Winker possibly even end up on a minor league deal? Retire way too early? Sit it out and sign mid-season?

Declining defense to go with some questionable offense and even health concerns, no one has rushed out to sign Winker this winter. Will he have a job before spring training begins? He definitely seems like someone’s late offseason push to say they did something different.