The difficulty in fixing first base for the Mets

The Mets first base situation blew up in their face in 2026, and it won’t be easy for them to solve going forward

Maybe David Stearns didn’t watch the beginning of Moneyball last fall?

Perhaps he should’ve listened to the character portrayal of Ron Washington, and not that of Billy Beane.

At any rate, the noises of all of Stearns’s failures over the past year are at first base. We all know that— we have talked about it exhaustingly here, it’s been talked about during the TV broadcasts, radio broadcasts, endlessly chronicled in the media, and then put on full demonstration during the Orioles visit to Citi Field in September, when Pete Alonso more or less shoved it into the faces of the front office, which in turn caused a public protest on the matter by the fans at Citi Field.

In the end, Stearns and his front office dehumanized the impact Alonso had on the fan base and even his own roster and organization not just last year, but the year before as well. Remember— it was Steve Cohen who intervened on the negotiation at a meeting with Stearns and Alonso at his house just before the start of the 2025 season, and helped facilitate a deal to bring Alonso back for that season. It was the first clear moment that demonstrated the Mets front office simply didn’t want Alonso, didn’t really value Alonso all that much, and felt that almost anyone could be better than Alonso at first base.

All of that became a reality just ten months later, when Alonso bolted for Baltimore without even a sniff from the Mets. They didn’t want him, this front office never wanted him, and they thought a combination of Jorge Polanco, Jared Young, Brett Baty, and Mark Vientos— all of whom were not first basemen by trade— would be better than Alonso.

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Now, you and I knew that wouldn’t be the case. Sure, Alonso is an offense-first player, although he was much-improved at first base this past season in Baltimore. But I wrote a year ago that Alonso’s defense was watered down by the fact that the defense at second and in right field had been so bad in 2025, that it couldn’t do anything other than over-expose Alonso’s issues there. Flanking him with better defensive players would in turn help Alonso defensively.

Of course, we never got to see that unfold, and Marcus Semien, as we all know by now, might not have helped the matter, either.

In 2026, Mets first basemen produced a .231/.287/.380 line with 29 doubles, 18 home runs, and 77 RBI with 40 walks and 135 strikeouts. The -1.4 fWAR from Mets first basemen was, by far, the worst in MLB. Their 85 wRC+ was 29th in MLB, their 18 home runs were 24th, their 6.2 percent walk rate was 29th, their .380 slugging percentage 25th. They needed eight different first basemen to produce those marks as well.

The problem is, again, this wasn’t entirely unpredictable. If you’re in the camp that’s ok with letting Alonso go, that’s perfectly fine, but everyone in both camps can agree that after letting Alonso go, they needed to replace him with an actual first baseman. And there were plenty of alternatives— albeit lesser ones— available in free agency and trade last winter.

Now, one of the things people should realize is the Mets probably wouldn’t have been a lot better than they were if they had retained Alonso. They wouldn’t have been much better with any other first baseman in the league. This just happens to be the poster child for everything that went wrong for the Mets in 2026, but we all know their defense was terrible, they didn’t hit a lot overall, and their starting pitching wasn’t good enough, either.

Now, it absolutely contributed to their problems, but it wasn’t the problem that held the Mets back in 2026. Look no further than the 2025 Mets, which had Alonso and other better players, plus peak seasons from both Francisco Lindor and Juan Soto, and they still were essentially a .500 team in the end and on the outside looking in.

So, enough about the past. It is what it is now. Where do the Mets go from here?

One thing that has been clarified at least is that it would appear the days of hyping up Vientos at first base are in the past. Of course, I never truly understood why the Mets even entertained the notion of Vientos at first base, a foreign position to him after failing at third base.

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Another thing that’s been clarified is, at least for now, it seems like the notion that Polanco can be even an irregular first baseman is not on the table. They need to get this guy healthy before they can even consider putting him anywhere on the field, and Stearns said during his end-of-year press conference that Polanco would only be in a baseball progression phase when Spring Training begins in February. What that means is anyone’s guess, but until proven otherwise, nobody can expect anything from Polanco— he is a “seeing is believing” guy right now for this club after they signed him to a two-year, $40 million contract last December.

They need power. They need a steady presence. They need stronger defense. That entire package is going to be hard to find in totality. There will need to be compromises.

They don’t have anything viable at the top of the organization, either.

Ryan Clifford, who is currently at Triple-A and is the 14th-ranked prospect in their system, was a catastrophe offensively in 2026, so much so that he found himself on the development list towards the end of the year. He struck out 174 times in 470 plate appearances this year and produced a .180/.277/.363 line for Triple-A Syracuse. Strikeouts have always been Clifford’s undoing, but this year, if you watched him even for a single game, you saw he was totally lost at the plate. He would’ve undoubtedly been with the Mets at some point if he was a competent alternative, but that wasn’t the case at all and he’s going to have to show a lot next year in the minors to factor in at all in the big leagues.

The Mets did acquire Cole Mathis for David Peterson in June, but Mathis is still pretty far away and not a factor at the major league level yet.

It’s pretty obvious the Mets are going to the external markets for a first baseman this winter. That typically excites people, but I have some bad news for those looking towards free agency— there aren’t really a lot of options for the Mets to consider, and certainly no sure things in that market.

Jake Bauers, Alec Bohm, and Ty France headline the free agent first base market. There’s also Paul Goldschmidt, Rhys Hoskins, and Nathaniel Lowe, but this is as thin of a menu as there’s been at the position in a while.

Bauers is coming off a career year with the Brewers, during which he hit .266/.389/.874 with 22 doubles, 26 home runs, and 86 RBI, the latter two marking new career highs for the 30-year-old first baseman. He produced an OPS+ of 140, which is by far a new career high for Bauers. He actually seems like a candidate to be retained by the Brewers since he shouldn’t be terribly expensive, even after coming off a big year. He had bounced around for most of his career between the Rays, Guardians, Mariners, and Yankees from 2018–2023 before finding a home in Milwaukee over the last three years, and didn’t come into his own until this season. AS such, his track record is concerning and, for the Mets, too risky if you ask me to consider.

Bohm, 29, picked a bad year to have a bad year. He started as the Phillies’ third baseman, but moved to first base when they picked up Luis Arraez for the stretch drive. Bohm doesn’t strike out a lot, but he doesn’t walk a lot either and is a poor defensive player no matter where he is out there.

Goldschmidt, 38, has had two nice years with the Yankees but is probably not an everyday solution anymore. Lowe is coming off an up-and-down season with the Reds and Guardians but still produced a .761 OPS as a below-average defensive player, and France, 31, is coming off a big year with the Padres but had been worth 1.3 bWAR between 2023–2025 combined. He’s intriguing and could very much be on the table for the Mets since he’s a strong defender with proven upside offensively, but falls into that “risky” bucket. Perhaps the Mets would consider bringing France in if they mitigate their issues and risks in other areas of the roster first, so we will see.

As far as trade candidates go, this is always hard to read so early in the off-season. Spencer Torkelson is a name that has floated around the trade winds over the last year or so, so perhaps the Mets might see what it would take to pry him away from the Tigers. He is still two years away from free agency, and at age 27 produced a .230/.331/.435 line with 26 home runs and 77 RBI in 159 games with the Tigers. Torkelson strikes out a lot— he fanned 194 times in 612 plate appearances and has struck out 738 times in 2730 plate appearances over his five-year career. He plays every day, walks a lot though, and doesn’t chase, although he is another below-average defensive first baseman.

Rangers 1B Jake Burger potentially fits the profile for what the Mets need, with a combination of power and strong defense, although it’s unclear if Texas would even entertain a trade for Burger, who is still cheap and under control for two more seasons. He did hit 28 home runs, drove in 90 but he doesn’t get on base a lot— over the last three years, Burger has produced a .293 on-base percentage.

But, again, it’s worth a call on Burger and Torkelson at a minimum, as the Mets are at rock bottom at this position right now.

There are always trades that we aren’t thinking about or would even consider. And this isn’t to downplay their dire need to upgrade at first base, but I could see this playing itself out into the latter portion of the off-season too. Trades tend to take longer to put together, especially the bigger need kinds of moves like the Mets have with mostly undesirable options available in free agency.

In other words, we may have to be a little patient in their pursuit for a resolution at this position.