NY Mets Monday Morning GM: The way too early MJ Melendez question

No one seriously believed MJ Melendez would give the New York Mets anything more than a few scarce home runs mid-year and possibly a game in June we’d reference as “The MJ Melendez Game” in 10 years when he randomly has 5 RBI against a random team. If you thought the Melendez addition was anything but something temporary, limited, and unmemorable, you’re probably mistaken.

Melendez spent most of last year in the minors with the Kansas City Royals. Hitting just .083 and appearing to be a declining slugger, he has been this year’s fan-favorite “who woulda thunk?” addition of the winter.

11 for 34 to begin his Mets tenure, the ball club is in a situation with him where we have to start wondering a question about his future.

Is MJ Melendez someone who’ll stay around with the Mets beyond 2026?

The 11 for 34 includes 3 doubles and a pair of home runs. Both were pretty significant in a time when the Mets needed runs and no one else was doing much. He has managed to strike out 13 times already, living up to his reputation as a hard-swinger who’ll miss often.

The early .324/.394/.588 slash line still can’t be denied. And while the Mets tried to avoid using him on defense and continue to remove him when a lefty reliever is on the mound, he’s doing things to make the Mets second-guess some of those choices including this catch in Sunday’s win.

As amazing of a start as it has been, we need to view Melendez realistically. There’s enough of a sample to understand he has limitations. In a lot of ways, it’s feeling like Melendez is the new version of DJ Stewart, a player who won our hearts in the tail end of 2023 and became more than a flash in the pan with the ball club because the Mets actually chose to keep him around for the following year and in a significant role as a regular DH.

It’s premature to think about where Melendez can belong in the 2027 Mets lineup with one exception: they’ll need to decide his first fate in another 3 months. Yes, the trade deadline is a long way into the future, but with the Mets with a hurdle to climb in order to become buyers or a club that’ll stand pat, capitalizing on his success (if it continues) is one of those hotly-contested topics we’ll have in the coming months.

Although signed as a free agent, Melendez is arbitration eligible for two more years. A remaining minor league option that would get used up with one more demotion this year, it would be both practical to keep around or capitalize on a big year even if he falls back down to earth by the time we get to the end of July/early August. The trade deadline this year is on August 3. With that in mind, the choice is simple.

The Mets should ride MJ Melendez’s success for as long as they can, overlooking any trade opportunity

Melendez is the anti-David Stearns type of player we believed he was attracted to. Run prevention isn’t his modus operandi. We haven’t seen Stearns undergo any sort of sell-off for the Mets so it’s only a guess as to how far he’d go. Is it just the impending free agents or does someone like Melendez, who could stick around, end up dealt for someone’s 25th ranked prospect?

The Mets probably never had plans of Melendez being more than a one-year player. As a corner outfielder, it doesn't line up well for him to have any sort of a significant role with one exception: DH platoon.

Stearns has regularly had a lefty/righty platoon at the DH spot with last year’s planned Starling Marte-Jesse Winker duo going haywire early. That was, in part, done due to the circumstances of Marte’s decline on offense and Stearns inheriting him. 

It’s going to get complicated with Melendez if he continues to play well and the Mets don’t. The smart move is to keep him around and open up your market in the offseason should you have any regrets. Save the trade deadline moves for the ones you’re sure about. Let the offseason be the time when you move on from the ones you wish you had already even if it comes at what feels like a loss. And if you end up in a situation where the fans say “you should have traded him when you had the chance” it’s only a minor foul as opposed to snatching someone away and getting rid of him too early.

The far bigger regret should be to lose something you had than the failure to gain a chance to ripping open a mystery box. Only 27-years-old, something is clicking right now for Melendez. Hold it. The Mets rarely have finds like this on the offensive side.

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