Two extremes of what the NY Mets trade for Jose Siri can offer them

New York Mets fans were mostly delighted to see the team acquire Jose Siri. A simple swap of Eric Orze for the veteran outfielder shored up their outfield for the coming season. Siri is not without his faults. Aside from an inability to be in the same room as most Apple products, he’s a boom or bust type of hitter with an intense strikeout rate to go with his power.

A lifetime .210/.266/.408 hitter, he popped 18 home runs last year after a more impressive showing of 25 the season before as a member of the Tampa Bay Rays. He has a career strikeout rate of 35.8% which is quite insane for sustainable big league success. Last year was an especially frustrating one featuring 170 strikeouts in only 448 plate appearances. He also hit just .187/.255/.366.

Mets fans see him added to the roster and envision something close to a repeat of what we got from Tyrone Taylor this past year. A faulty player himself, yet not to the same extremes, Taylor is the high watermark of what we can hope to get from Siri. Then there’s a different outfielder acquired from the Milwaukee Brewers in the past that might more resemble the low of what Siri has to offer. Who else still feels the aches of Keon Broxton?

Will Jose Siri be more Tyrone Taylor or Keon Broxton for the Mets?

Taylor’s 2024 performance is fresh in our minds. Numbers barely do justice for how he was so admirably able to take over the bulk of innings as the team’s center fielder. As preferred as it would have been for Brandon Nimmo to be their Harrison Bader alternative, a foot injury limited him in the latter part of the season. He could not be trusted to play the caliber of center field demanded.

Broxton came to the Mets ahead of the 2019 season with his own history of hitting with some power, playing a steady center field, and hitting for a low average. When the Mets acquired him for three prospects, he was a lifetime .222/.314/.422 hitter. The relationship didn’t last long. Broxton publicly voiced his displeasure with the lack of playing time. He was cut by the team after hitting .143/.208/.163 in 53 plate appearances.

Disregarding the trades, with the Broxton one looking immediately to be the worst with it being a swap of three players for one, we can see similarities between these three. If a lab created outfielders for MLB benches, these three would have been produced there. Of course, the factories aren’t FDA approved. Skirting around OSHA laws gave each the shortcomings they had in their games upon joining the Mets.

Siri’s exact role with the Mets is undefined for the time being. A speedster off the bench who’ll end every game in center field? An occasional home run after a lengthy streak of striking out in his handful of plate appearances? 

It’s a low hanging ceiling for what Siri can offer the Mets. Taylor is where he bumps his head. Broxton is an example of what Siri’s tenure could look like if he’s sleeping with the dogs on the ground.