6 once beloved former NY Mets players still without a job as spring training nears

2) Mark Canha

How can you not still love Mark Canha? He wasn’t the greatest Mets player. His performance even suggested a part-time role, or at least a little more time on the bench, was appropriate. What made Canha beloved was his personality. He was fun, honest, and quietly one of the more important chemistry guys on the 2022 team.

Canha, like Scherzer, would end up as a 2023 trade deadline casualty. Following a solid 2022 season with the Mets, Canha didn’t hit quite as well in 2023. He ended up with the Milwaukee Brewers somehow driving in 4 more runs in 100 fewer plate appearances. He spent last year with the Detroit Tigers to start things off and magically would finish with the San Francisco Giants. Amazingly, the team that traded him away would make the playoffs and the team he’d finish with didn’t.

Canha had a strange finish to the year. While he batted .288/.376/.329, he didn’t hit a single home run. He had 3 doubles in his 85 plate appearances and continued to play mostly first base. Mets fans knew him best as a left fielder and even a guy they could throw out into center field.

Limited at this stage of his career, there isn’t much of a market for a first baseman/corner outfielder without pop left in his bat. It could be a while before anyone calls him for a major league deal, if at all.