NY Mets and Yankees are sending the same signal to Cody Bellinger

Cody Bellinger is a popular free agent but there seems to be a hesitation from every suitor to actually do a deal. Recent New York Mets rumors have connected them to one of the far cheaper alternatives, Austin Hays.

Very different from Bellinger in terms of what he can fully offer, signing Hays instead of Bellinger provides the Mets with a lot more long and short-term roster flexibility. Bellinger could cost about 5x more than Hays and for many more years.

They aren’t the only ones hoping to land Hays. The New York Yankees are also using him as a scare tactic to get Bellinger to bend.

The Mets and Yankees are both using the same free agent to scare Cody Bellinger to lowering his demands

Bellinger is in a whole different class than Hays. He’s more of a fallback plan to whoever wants but doesn’t land Kyle Tucker. This offseason’s top free agent has yet to sign and with the down year he had with the Chicago Cubs, no one is rushing to give him the $400 million deal he was once bound to receive.

There’s a logjam at the moment with the offseason. Tucker will presumably have to sign before Bellinger. It’s sounding like Hays, a B or C-tier free agent depending on how you feel, will find a home much sooner than either.

Both the Mets and Yankees have a budgetary question about how close they are to the limit. The Yankees appear to have room for one major splash while the Mets still need quite a bit more. At minimum, they need to subtract and add a starting pitcher. The absence of Pete Alonso in the lineup remains present, too.

Hays is a fit for a lot of teams. On the Mets, he’d actually be ideal to start the season in left field with the hope Carson Benge platoons or takes the job from him. On an affordable contract, Hays would give the Mets wiggle room to trade for Luis Robert Jr. and add another bat, too.