Intriguing MLB trade candidate might be the Brett Baty alternative the NY Mets need

Mark Feinsand of MLB.com shared a list of 11 intriguing offseason trade candidates for the upcoming winter. Mark Vientos was the one New York Mets player to crack it. Others include a mix of hot trade deadline rumors as well as speculative fits who are either nearing free agency or becoming too expensive.

A couple of them do feel like offseason Mets targets. Logan Gilbert of the Seattle Mariners always seems to come up in conversation when thinking of ways for the Mets to improve their rotation. Shane McLanahan would be another starting pitcher we’d have to think they’d have interest in.

Along with those names, there’s another who made the list who could be a match for the Mets. So much uncertainty with Bo Bichette, matching up with the Chicago Cubs on a trade for Matt Shaw seems like the exact type of move David Stearns would make. Shaw had his job reduced this season from starting third baseman in 2025 to utility player who barely played the hot corner. The signing of Alex Bregman made him a lot less needed. For the Mets, they’d be adding a young right-handed hitter with upside.

Matt Shaw looks like he fits the type of player the Mets could seek this offseason

After 124 games at third base last season, Shaw has moved to playing more right field than anywhere else in 2026. We’re going to judge him as a third baseman because that’s the position he’d compete with alongside Brett Baty and maybe even as a backup to Bichette if he was to remain in New York.

Shaw had -1 OAA in 2025, but was worth 1.4 dWAR. If nothing else, this tells us he’s around average at worst.

Shaw does other things well. He’s in the 91st percentile in sprint speed. While just a .229/.303/.428 hitter in the majors, this is a 24-year-old who has cut down on his K%, improved his BB%, and gone from a poor 29.2% hard-hit rate up to 36.3%.

In a lot of ways, Shaw is the right-handed Brett Baty. Practically two full years younger and with more team control, the big bonus of adding him is he has proven more as a defender at multiple positions than Baty has. A year of the two competing or maybe even sharing third base duties in a platoon seems plausible. Shaw has a .816 OPS against left-handed pitchers in his career. Baty is only at .703 this year against righties.

Baty’s handedness doesn’t quite match well enough for the Mets as the only player he’d ever take playing time away from because of splits is second baseman Marcus Semien. Shaw, on the other hand, could be an option in right field (he has played the position well this year) over Carson Benge or on a day when A.J. Ewing takes a seat and Benge moves into center field. 

Trading for Shaw might, at best, be a minor upgrade over Baty. Feinsand suggests the Cubs could seek pitching in exchange for him. The Mets have several young arms to potentially deal this winter. Due to a Rule 5 Draft roster crunch facing the Mets, they’ll need to make more subtractions than they may like.

Adding Shaw would test the rumors of political strife in the Mets locker room. Called out by Gary Cohen for missing a Cubs game late last season to attend a memorial service for Charlie Kirk, it's the kind of Mets transaction that'll have layers going beyond the stats.

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