The biggest Mets Opening Day roster decisions to follow this spring

3) Does Darin Ruf have his days numbered with the Mets?

With the signing of Tommy Pham, Ruf seems to be the odd man out of the Mets roster.  After batting for a terrible line of .152/.216/.197/.413 no one appears to be an advocate of Ruf in Queens.

The Mets are running out of options with Ruf. The best scenario would be to trade him to another team for some return that at this point would be practically marginal. Another way would be to remove him from the payroll to open space, but his salary of $3,125,000 (for luxury tax purposes) is insignificant when we talk about a general payroll of more than $350 million.

This leaves the Mets with a clear option, keep Ruf on the opening-day roster in hopes that he will become a bounce-back candidate and put up better numbers off the bench. The team could trade or cut him out later in the season, so doing either of these options at this point wouldn't make sense.

Keep in mind that in the current state of the Mets roster, the team doesn't need Ruf to produce as a starting player, but to be productive as a role player off the bench with occasional turns vs. left-handed pitchers or filling in the DH spot. We cannot forget that this player showed in 2021 having good contact and power, placing a Hard-Hit contact of more than 50% with an SLG of .519 and an OPS of more than .900.