NY Mets free agent encore after signing Juan Soto is a depth piece we hope to never see

How can you get too shriveled up with anger at the thought of a roster addition that was purely for depth purposes? The joke of the New York Mets following up the Juan Soto signing with Monday’s addition of Jared Young ran through all of our minds. It’s equivalent to Bruce Springsteen performing Born in the USA and then ripping into some B-side he just wrote.

Fans are intelligent enough to understand the circumstances with Young. Signed to a split contract where he’ll make one salary in the minors versus another for any time spent in the majors, David Stearns has added a depth piece to the 40-man roster we hope we’ll never see.

It’s nothing personal against Young. As versatile as he has been in the past, he’s way down the depth chart of who we’d like to see at a variety of positions.

Where does Jared Young fit into the Mets roster plans for 2025?

If Young is on the Opening Day roster, something is massively amiss. The team is already well-loaded with outfield options. Anticipation of Drew Gilbert making his MLB debut as well as signings of Hector Olivares and Rafael Ortega give them a separate pair of depth pieces to turn to in case of injury.

Young does have one thing going for him. Two remaining minor league options will have him as a more immediate choice for the Mets to summon to the big leagues. Teams are always better off saving their non-optional players for when they know the player they’re replacing will be gone for a significant amount of time.

A lefty hitter, Young has been a very good hitter in Triple-A and continued to produce well in his brief team in the KBO last year. He hit .326/.420/.660 in 169 plate appearances in Korea. With the St. Louis Cardinals’ Triple-A squad, he produced his second straight season of note at Triple-A. He batted 285/.411/.506 with 11 home runs in 286 plate appearances. A year prior, with the Chicago Cubs in Triple-A, Young hit .310/.417/.577 with 21 home runs in 376 chances.

Young continued to show versatility last year with appearances at both corner infield spots as well as the corner outfield positions. Mostly a first baseman in his professional career, there’s some Luke Ritter in him. At 29, we can’t really expect a whole lot. A month like DJ Stewart gave us in August of 2023? We can only hope not. Because if there’s any situation where Young is on the Mets roster for a prolonged period of time, the team is probably sputtering.