NY Mets Monday Morning GM: Outfield duo is not guilty of any false advertisement

David Stearns loves defense up the middle. It’s one of the reasons why he traded for Tyrone Taylor last offseason and signed Harrison Bader to a one-year deal worth $10.5 million. Each had their moments with the New York Mets in 2024 until Bader’s offense dried up. The plan wasn’t much different for this season. Taylor returned via arbitration and to replace Bader the Mets chose to trade for Jose Siri.

Thoughts heading into this season were much different. Bader was the clear number one choice to play center field for the Mets last year. This time, it was a little closer to call. Taylor and Siri do a lot of the same things with the latter doing them at greater extremes.

So far, we’ve seen both extremes. All combined together, it has been surface level negative.

The Mets have gotten exactly what they asked for out of their center fielders

Siri’s 1 for 20 start is unpredictably odd. The 8 strikeouts shocks nobody through those first 24 plate appearances. It’s actually an improved pace of 33% of strike three calls against him per chance.

Taylor’s struggles have been mostly masked in part because of Siri’s season-long slump and several other Mets regulars failing to do their part. He’s 6 for 34 with only one run scored and a single RBI. It’s better than Siri but not by a lot. At least Siri has had big moments on the base paths where his speed led to a run. Taylor has been more fifth outfielder than fourth. Semantics, he’s well behind where he was last season when the Mets ended up throwing him into a more regular role with the ball club.

This isn’t an ongoing “issue” for the Mets because each has done as advertised. Neither center fielder was actually meant to put together an All-Star caliber campaign. Siri is too free with the bat and there are going to be moments where he runs himself into trouble rather than the Mets to victory. Taylor overachieved in a lot of ways last season with the Mets. Hitting over .240 is no guarantee.

Urgency to find a solution hasn’t happened yet simply because this is a pair of would-be number nine hitters if the Mets were all healthy. But because there’s no Francisco Alvarez or Jeff McNeil, the absence of offense and more from these two is a lot more noticeable.

Complaining about either’s performance so far is kind of like whining to the person behind the counter at the Dippin’ Dots ice cream stall at Six Flags Great Adventure that your ice cream is “too bally.” A true story and moment where I personally first heard of the term “false advertisement” many moons ago somewhere near The Great American Scream Machine, Stearns should have accepted from the start that this could be the potential outcome.

The Mets are winning games. What these two do well may never fully show up in the stats. You’ll just have to pay attention to heads up (or in some cases, heads down) base-running and marvelous defensive plays to save a game.