MLB Insider Believes New York Mets Should Target This Type of Slugger
Could a certain Boston Red Sox slugger be a fit in Queens this summer? One MLB insider seems to think so.
Joel Sherman of The New York Post said during his new podcast with fellow insider Jon Heyman on Tuesday that he thinks the Mets need a J.D. Martinez type hitter if he becomes available later in the season.
“The Mets have a singular home run hitter in (Pete) Alonso,” Sherman said on The New York Post’s new baseball podcast The Show. “I think they need one more bat.”
Sherman added that he thinks Martinez, 34, could be shopped in the coming months.
Martinez is in his final year of a five-year pact he signed with the Red Sox prior to the 2018 season.
With Boston already 12 games out of first place in a hot division that’s anchored by the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays, with the Toronto Blue Jays right behind them, the Red Sox have some veteran pieces they could turn into prospect capital as they retool for the future.
Martinez could give the Mets a big bopper to pair with Alonso in the middle of the order, something they’ve missed so far this season.
While Brandon Nimmo has been elite in all facets of the game, and Jeff McNeil has gotten back to vintage form, Alonso is really the only big home run threat in the team’s lineup, as Sherman remarked.
The Mets saw how valuable a player like Yoenis Cespedes was to add to the lineup when they traded for him at the trade deadline in 2015. Acquiring a power threat like Martinez could inject a similar type of life into the club.