3 priorities for the Mets in free agency
The Mets' Pete Alonso runs the bases after hitting a solo home run during the third inning of a game against the Miami Marlins on Sept. 27 in Miami. Credit: AP/Lynne Sladky
The World Series champion has been crowned, but the offseason feeding frenzy is just beginning.
Early Sunday morning marked the start of the negotiating period with this year’s crop of free agents. Though teams can’t sign a free agent who played elsewhere in 2025 until Friday, Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns will have plenty of work to do to patch up the holes exposed during this season’s collapse.
With free agency set to begin, here are the Mets’ top three priorities:
1. Re-sign Edwin Diaz
The closer opted out of the final three years of his contract on Monday, a source confirmed, and he’s a priority. The Mets struggled when they lost Diaz for all of 2023, and without him this year, they probably wouldn’t have gotten as close to making the playoffs as they did.
Closers of his caliber are a rarity, and this season marked a return to form: He had a 1.63 ERA with 28 saves and compiled three wins above replacement despite pitching only 66 1⁄3 innings, plenty impressive given that it’s a cumulative stat.
The Mets’ bullpen was ravaged by injuries, and though they’ll be getting some of those arms back, they simply don’t have another dominant option on the back end. Diaz will be expensive — the five-year, $102 million contract he opted out of was the largest for any full-time reliever — but he also provides a lot of value.
There are a few other options on the market — Raisel Iglesias, Robert Suarez and old friends Ryan Helsley and Devin Williams — but none is as dominant as Diaz.
2. Re-sign Pete Alonso
No surprise there. The Mets need a first baseman, and letting Alonso walk would create a significant hole in their offense. They declined to sign Alonso to a long-term deal last year, but it’s become clear that the homegrown talent won’t be quite as easy to appease this offseason.
Reports say Alonso is looking for a seven-year contract. If the Mets want him back, they’re going to at least need to get close to that.
Alonso has far more leverage than he had last offseason. He’s coming off a year in which he capably protected Juan Soto in the lineup, hitting 38 homers with a team-high 126 RBIs in 162 games. While his defense regressed, the free-agent class of first basemen just isn’t that strong, and Alonso is the crown jewel.
There is, of course, fear that Alonso, going into his age-31 season, will start to decline, but that still could be a ways away.
The Mets could go for a slightly lower-tier first baseman such as Josh Naylor, who still would cost a good chunk of change; attempt to convert a defensively suspect Mark Vientos to first base, or get an older, more-budget-friendly option such as Paul Goldschmidt and hope that prospect Ryan Clifford can take the reins sooner rather than later.
There’s another unorthodox option: Cody Bellinger. The Mets would need to stage a coup to coax him from the Yankees, but he would solve a few of their problems. He can hit for average, has a little bit of pop, finally would provide some offense at the centerfield position and could play first if they decide to DH Alonso (or if Alonso walks and first base becomes a carousel).
3. Address the starting rotation
The Mets need starting pitching, and Dylan Cease is the sort of high-risk, high-reward option that could be a game-changer . . . or a bust. He’s coming off a year in which he pitched to a 4.55 ERA, but he’s also a workhorse, and when he’s on, he’s brilliant, coming in second in the Cy Young Award voting in 2022 and fourth in 2024. Stearns talks about run prevention, and one way to prevent runs is to take the defense out of the equation: Cease’s 11.5 strikeouts per nine innings led all of baseball this year.
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
