The Mets have been in contact with the Giants regarding Michael Conforto , reports Mike Puma of the New York Post. The Post’s Jon Heyman wrote Thursday night that the Mets were looking into the outfield market and preferred to add a left-handed hitter. There aren’t many obvious options on that front.
The Marlins are likely to deal center fielder Jazz Chisholm Jr. , but a trade with the Mets could be complicated by the division factor. The Nationals probably wouldn’t have any qualms about dealing impending free agent Jesse Winker within the NL East.
Beyond that duo, the Giants might have the top pair of trade candidates among lefty-hitting outfielders in Conforto and Mike Yastrzemski . Of course, the Mets are plenty familiar with Conforto. A former 10th overall pick, he hit .
255/.356/.468 through parts of seven seasons with the team.
Conforto represented the Mets in the 2017 All-Star Game and was one of the better hitters in the league between 2017-20. His production dipped in his ’21 platform season. The Mets allowed him to walk in free agency after he declined a qualifying offer.
Conforto injured his shoulder while working out that offseason. He underwent surgery and missed the entire 2022 campaign. He landed in San Francisco on a two-year, $36M free-agent pact the next winter.
Conforto hasn’t recaptured his peak offensive form coming back from the injury. He has been an unexceptional hitter over his season and a half in the Bay Area. He turned in a .
239/.334/.384 slash through 470 plate appearances a year ago.
It’s a similar story in 2024. Conforto carries a .226/.
298/.415 batting line through 80 contests. His 9% walk rate is his lowest in any full season of his career.
He’s striking out at a customary 24.1% clip. The 31-year-old has had a slight rebound in his hard contact rate and power production.
He’s slugging above .400 for the first time in four years and has 10 homers across 299 plate appearances — the equivalent of a half-season of action. That uptick in power has come with a career-low OBP, however.
Conforto’s overall offense is again almost exactly league average, as measured by wRC+. That’s on par with what he produced in his final season in Queens and his first year in San Francisco. Conforto is playing this year on an $18M salary, nearly $6.
3M of which is still to be paid out. It’s not likely that other teams would take the full freight. Not only has Conforto’s overall production been middling, he has been in a funk of late.
He carried a .280/.331/.
490 slash into June but owns a .165/.261/.
331 line over his most recent 145 plate appearances. The Giants may need to kick in money and accept a minimal prospect return if they’re going to move him in the next few days. The Mets are paying a 110% fee on any salary they take.
Absorbing all of Conforto’s remaining money would cost them upwards of $13M including luxury taxes. That’s probably not appealing even to an organization that has leveraged its financial might to take on a couple struggling relievers, Phil Maton and Ryne Stanek , this month. San Francisco has dropped six of its last 10 and fallen six games below .
500. They’re 5.5 games back of the Padres for the last wild-card spot with five additional teams to pass in the standings.
Their mediocre play coming out of the All-Star break seems to have them positioned as sellers . This article first appeared on MLB Trade Rumors and was syndicated with permission..
