NY Mets officially cut costs in CF, is Jose Siri better than Harrison Bader?

Harrison Bader finally has a new home, inking a deal with the Minnesota Twins with a mutual option for a second season. He’ll have a guaranteed salary of $6.25 million this year with up to $2 million in bonuses. It’s not quite at the $10.5 million the New York Mets paid him last year on a deal that felt like an overpay in an oversaturated free agent market of defensively skilled center fielders with questionable bats such as Kevin Kiermaier and Michael A. Taylor. Both of them performed far worse than Bader did for the Mets even if he was relegated to bench duties by the end.

Meanwhile, the Mets move forward with Bader long out of their plans. A November trade with the Tampa Bay Rays for Jose Siri quickly signaled they were moving on. Siri will make $2.4 million this season in his first arbitration-eligible campaign.

At about a third of the price or more less, the Mets have a chance to have a major bargain on their hands. It all depends if Siri can outperform Bader where it matters most.

The Mets are in a better situation with Jose Siri at a lower cost for similar production

Siri is unpredictable in a lot of ways. Smashing 25 home runs in just 364 trips to the plate in 2023 made him an intriguing power-hitting center fielder with great defensive skill and excitement. However, to come back in 2024 and only hit 18 long balls with his OPS dropping from .761 to .620 shows he’s no sure thing to repeat such good things.

Without a doubt an exciting player, Siri is prone to striking out a ton. For every game he plays the hero, he’ll be absent from contributing anything at all at the plate for a significant time. The Mets know what they’ve gotten themselves into with Siri. The key is getting the most from him and knowing when it’s possibly time to cut bait.

ZiPS projections for Siri are actually quite favorable with a projected 2.1 fWAR this coming year. The same projections have Bader at 1.7 fWAR. Siri will hit only .215 versus Bader at .237. However, the OPS is projected to be higher at .677 in comparison to Bader at .656.

Siri was an elite-level defensive player last year, worth 16 OAA, ranking him in a tie for fourth among all qualified players—Francisco Lindor finished with the same number. Bader was still among the best, finishing with 10 OAA, ranking him 29th in the league. Again, we seem to have a draw.

Tie-breakers can come down to a matter of preference. Bader managed to stay healthy for the Mets last year but he isn’t beyond his reputation of being injury-prone. While his resume is far thicker than Siri’s at the big league level, Siri actually being able to put together something similar to his 2023 campaign brings far more intrigue. Bader is what he is. Siri is more of a lottery ticket that if you win you get a nice cash price. If you lose, the quarter you used to scratch it off snaps in half and it’s laundry day. Ask the lady at the counter to break a $5? Not after that incident with the socks.

The Mets are certainly taking a gamble on Siri, but with the smaller financial commitment, it’ll be easier to justify pulling the hook on him early if things don’t work out. Several years of control put him in the same boat as teammate Tyrone Taylor who impressed us all last year with his ability to overtake Bader on the depth chart.

Bader was always going to get a higher salary in free agency from someone in comparison to Siri’s total. In a few short weeks, the race between whether it was the right decision or not begins. Siri with proven 20+ home run potential even with all of his faults offensively was the right direction to go, as painful as it’ll be at times and as much as we’ll all shout about it.