Former Mets player projects an Opening Day lineup with a major improbability

There’s the dream New York Mets lineup. There’s the backup plan for the Mets lineup. And then there’s what Nelson Figueroa put together. The former Mets player was on PIX11 discussing what a potential Mets lineup could look like for the coming year.

He checked off a lot of the boxes. Juan Soto is hitting second. Pete Alonso is back and in the number four hole. He even boldly declared Luisangel Acuna will be the starting second baseman.

What’s so unrealistic? Let’s see if you can spot it.

A return to center field isn’t in the card for Mets outfielder Brandon Nimmo

Brandon Nimmo isn’t going to play a lot of center field this coming year. It was more possible only a few weeks ago the Mets could inch him back toward the position a little more with the departure of Harrison Bader. However, after a year where he made only 22 starts in center field, his lowest since 2017, it feels implausible for him to go from being the team’s everyday left fielder to center field again.

The occasional start for Nimmo in center field will happen. However, the scenario Figueroa laid out includes Tyler O’Neill signing with the Mets to be their left fielder. This would cause Nimmo to be the everyday center fielder and relegate Tyrone Taylor and Jose Siri to the bench exclusively.

O’Neill isn’t a horrific backup plan if the Mets miss out on Soto. The two could even exist together in a scenario where Starling Marte is no longer on the team. All three together seems like overkill, especially when it means Nimmo is stuck in a position where his abilities have faded after a short period looking like he could win a Gold Glove.

Nimmo has actually now logged significantly more time as a center fielder in the big leagues than either of the corner outfield spots. Early on in his career, criticism of his defense was a common occurrence among the critics. It was in 2021 when he started to show he could defend the spot. An errorless 2022 campaign was followed up by a league leading 4 at the position in 2023. Errors aren’t everything for an outfielder. He just didn’t look as smooth or quick. Left field fits him much better.

Given the propensity of David Stearns to favor defense, this projected lineup seems like a no-go. It fails to account for the possibility of Drew Gilbert having an impact at some point this year as well. More of a minor consideration, the Mets are probably more in the market to add one more outfielder and not two.