Oh, the punsters are going to love this one.
Hey, Siri, hit a home run!
Hey, Siri, why doesn’t Carlos Mendoza let his pitchers go longer?
Hey, Siri, is there any hope for Brett Baty?
That’s right, the Mets traded for Jose Siri, sending reliever Eric Orze to the Rays in return. Siri is a speedy center fielder with some pop in his bat. Unfortunately, he doesn’t make quality contact very often and despite his speed, he runs lower BABIPs than expected. And he further reduces the value of his running ability by being a free swinger, not drawing enough walks to get on base enough to rack up big stolen base totals.
Gee, that profile sounds awful familiar. If that wasn’t used to describe Siri, it could have been made for Harrison Bader. But Siri made $757,500 last year, compared to Bader’s $10.5 million. Siri will be in his first year of arbitration this upcoming season and estimates have him getting $2.9 million. Still, that means the Mets will pay less than one-third of what they did last year for Bader.
Siri will compete with Tyrone Taylor for the starting job in CF. They’re both righty hitters, so it’s not an obvious platoon situation. Unless the Mets can revamp his swing and/or improve his swing decisions, it’s difficult to imagine Siri being the better choice to start. While he did hit 18 HR in 448 PA last year, Siri had a butt-ugly 37.9 K%. No Met with at least 50 PA last year had even a 30.0 K%.