The New York Mets have naturally been brought up when speculating potential teams for Aaron Judge, but the Mets may have their eyes elsewhere.
Any team would be lucky to sign Aaron Judge, including the New York Mets, despite being a direct city rival of the New York Yankees. However, the Mets don’t seem to be phased by Judge hitting the market and are after some other stars instead, particularly Trea Turner.
According to SNY TV, “SNY’s Andy Martino reported from the GM Meetings in Las Vegas that the Mets have been internally discussing Trea Turner ‘for a long time,’ knowing that he was about to hit free agency.”
The Mets would have to dump a lot of money into signing Turner, but with Jacob deGrom hitting free agency, they may be able to make it work if they don’t plan on re-signing deGrom. They will certainly have some difficult choices to make, as deGrom is nearly irreplaceable as a starter and the Mets have a lot of room to improve in their rotation.
The debate on who to sign comes down to whether Turner or deGrom would be more beneficial for New York.
The Mets can sign Jacob deGrom or Trea Turner, but probably not both
The team’s longtime ace, deGrom opted out of his contract, which was expected since he announced his intention to during spring training. However, it puts the Mets in a sticky situation because they now have to dish out even more money if they want to re-sign him. Though he’s worth a lot, it doesn’t leave much flexibility for them to sign Turner alongside deGrom.
Turner would undoubtedly be a good addition to the Mets. He’s great both defensively and offensively, and though he primarily plays at shortstop, he could fill in at second or centerfield as well. He’d also be great in the lineup and would bring power, which is an area New York could certainly improve in.
However, the team has clear weaknesses in its rotation and bullpen. They finished the regular season with the seventh-best ERA (3.57), 11th-best opponent batting average (.236) and sixth-best WHIP (1.18). Losing deGrom would be a big slide backward, as he made an immediate impact upon returning from injury in August and finished the season with an ERA of 3.08, batting average against of .175 and WHIP of 0.75.
The decision between the two certainly isn’t an easy one, but they should continue to aim for a star free agent no matter what.