Old friend, Michael Mayer of MMO and MMN, reports the New York Mets have reached out to Willy Adames to see if he would switch to third base for the New York Mets. For his part, Adames seems amenable to the switch.

Adames, 29, is in the prime of his career. Over the past four seasons, he’s been a 3+ WAR player, and he’s had a 119 wRC+ or better in three of the past five years.

Looking deeper at the stats at Baseball Savant, his strikeout rate has been steadily decreasing while his walk rate has been improving. His exit velocities and barrels are consistent with his sweet spot rates improving.

Defensively, he can still play short. Thats important because as we saw with Francisco Lindor’s back, it’s good to have a real backup shortstop option. Being fair, Luisangel Acuña did a great job, but if he’s going to be an everyday player for the Mets, he’s obviously going to need a position change.

That said, we did see Adames go from a 10 and 16 OAA at SS to a 1 in 2024. That was more in line with the negative OAAs he posted with the Tampa Bay Rays.

Looking at the whole picture, he has a strong arm and moves well to his right. That would allow Lindor to play up the middle more to compensate for his not moving as well up the middle and his weaker arm for the position.

Having Adames and Lindor on the left side of the infield promises to be the Mets best left side of the infield since it was manned by Rey Ordoñez and Robin Ventura. This helps with run prevention and makes their pitching staff stronger.

This also improves the defense by moving Mark Vientos from third to first. Even with Vientos’ defensive strides, he was still a -5 OAA there. Truth is, long term, he needs to move to first.

Yes, this would all hurt because it means losing Pete Alonso. However, when all is said and done, the Mets infield and team is better with Adames over Alonso. That’s not said with any enthusiasm, and it’s still true even if it will be a deeply unpopular opinion.

Again, if you want to blame someone here, blame the Wilpons. Alonso should’ve been a Met in 2025.

Stearns is going to value run prevention. Adames does that far better than Alonso. Adames’ 119 wRC+ will offset losing Alonso’s 122. Truth is, Adames is the better and more complete player.

The Mets should forward and sign Adames because it makes the Mets better. It moves them closer to winning the World Series. Adames is the better option as much as it hurts to admit.