When the dust settled on the Mets spending spree, there was one hole on the roster that still needed to be addressed: the outfield depth. Last offseason, the Mets did not sign a backup outfielder to a major league contract, and they instead went into the season with Travis Jankowski as the only reserve outfielder and used Jeff McNeil’s positional versatility to spell their outfielders for the early part of the year.
This offseason, the Mets wanted to sign a major league backup. There were a few players on their radar for this role: AJ Pollock, Andrew McCutchen, Adam Duvall, and Trey Mancini were at the top of the list.