What Unexpected Trait Unites the Mets’ New Position Players?

So here’s the deal: the New York Mets didn’t just stroll into this offseason with a checklist—they came armed with a promise to overhaul a roster that fizzled out spectacularly last summer. David Stearns wasn’t shy about it either; he flat-out said holding onto the same group from 2025 “wasn’t the right thing to do.” And true to his word, the Mets parted ways with long-time cornerstones Brandon Nimmo and Pete Alonso, setting their sights on reimagining the team’s core.

This offseason? It’s been, well, painstakingly slow—think glacier speed. Big fish like Kyle Tucker and Bo Bichette lingered in limbo well into January before ink hit paper. Cody Bellinger is still up for grabs, and the trade market? Far from barren. Patience has definitely been the name of the game. But an intriguing pattern’s surfacing amid these acquisitions—each new position player boasts a knack for making contact and evading strikeouts in ways that bely today’s usual power-first trends.

Interestingly, it’s not just that these fresh faces man the middle infield; it’s how ridiculously hard they are to strike out that stands out. Jorge Polanco, for instance, kept his punch-outs at a career-low clip last year, and Marcus Semien, despite a down season by some metrics, maintained his strikeout consistency. And then there’s Bichette—probably the crown jewel here—with a strikeout rate that’s downright elite in this era of whiffing frenzy.

For context, the league average strikeout rate hovered above 22% last season, whereas these guys are comfortably undercutting that mark. On the flip side, the players the Mets said goodbye to were hovering right around average and displayed some worrisome declines in making contact—red flags that whisper of fading skills and unsustainable profiles, especially under big contracts.

This shift signals more than just new faces; it’s a deliberate pivot toward a different offensive philosophy—emphasizing putting the ball in play, wearing pitchers down, and just generally stressing defenses. With all the drama last season’s late slump, this refined approach could be just what the Mets need to flip the script in 2026.

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The New York Mets went into the offseason with the idea of revamping their roster. David Stearns said as much at the end of last year’s disappointing collapse that saw the team go from first place to missing the playoffs over the summer, saying that returning most of the roster “wasn’t the right thing to do.” He made good on that promise, letting lifelong Mets Brandon Nimmo (traded to Texas) and Pete Alonso (left in free agency to Baltimore) go, building the team in a different image.

This offseason has been, for lack of a better word, slowly. Perhaps even glacially so. Big named players like Kyle Tucker and new Met Bo Bichette took forever to sign, with both signing in the middle of January. Cody Bellinger is still available, and many of the big trade targets are still on the board. It has been a test of patience, but the vision David Stearns had when he vowed to not run the 2025 Mets back is beginning to come into place, and every position player they have signed has something in common.

And it’s not just that they’re all middle infielders by trade. Even if they are.

All three of the new Mets acquisitions to their position player group are tough, tough batters to strike out. Jorge Polanco has a career 19% strikeout rate, and had a 15.6% strikeout rate last season, which was a big reason why the switch-hitter had a big 2025 season. Marcus Semien, despite a career low 89 wRC+, barely struck out as well, as he finished 2025 with an 17.4% strikeout rate, right in line with his career 18.5% strikeout rate (he also had a very strange season all together, as he was closer to league average than not after a truly horrific April and May but that is another story for another time).

Bichette, likely to be the crown jewel of the Mets offseason, is the absolute best example of this trend. His 14.5% strikeout rate was one of the best in the league, as only 25 qualified batter struck out at a lower percentage. Even with how often he expands the zone (12th percentile chase rate) and how little he walks (6.4%), he has an 83rd percentile whiff rate—he simply makes an outrageous amount of contact.

For reference, the league average strikeout rate sat at 22.2% this past year, so all three players are significantly below that mark.

Now, the players who left the Mets were not necessarily putting up Joey Gallo strikeout numbers in Queens, but the trends were concerning. Pete Alonso and Brandon Nimmo both struck out at roughly league average rates (22.8% and 21.6% respectively), but both have some concerning trends in their profiles, specifically in their whiff rates. Nimmo has seen his whiff rate drop sharply over the last three seasons, going from 68 percentile (good) to 55 percentile (average), and Alonso go from 43rd percentile in 2023, up to 48 percentile in 2024, and plummeting to 40 percentile in 2025.

This does not seem to be a coincidence. Nimmo and Alonso seem to be players on decline, with Nimmo in an especially sharp decline that could fall off a cliff soon. While Alonso will likely be able to slug his way out of the whiffing issues, its still a profile that can be fragile, especially on such a long contract. The 2025 Mets were not striking out a ton, coming in below league average at 21.4%, but this looks like a concerted effort to change the way the offense functions—less striking out, less all or nothing profiles. The 2025 Blue Jays were an extreme example of this archetype, as they struck out a ridiculous 17.8% as a team, and it was a big reason why they were an out away from their first World Series Championship in three decades.

While not all strikeouts are bad—a strikeout is unequivocally better than a double play, for example—swings and misses were a problem that reared its head from time to time as the Mets slowly collapsed last season, and part of their offensive revamp is a different way to stress pitchers and defenses in 2026.