The Mets’ Left Field Fix: Free Agency or a Fantasy Blockbuster?

Last week, the Mets did something nobody had on their offseason bingo card unless you’re the kind of person who fills out that card after the fact: they traded Brandon Nimmo for Marcus Semien.

And immediately, instantly, in the blink of a Mets fan’s heartbreak,

left field became a sudden, yawning, canyon-sized void. A Daniel Vogelbach–sized hole. In other words: big, impossible to ignore, and slightly confusing.

So now the question on every Mets fan’s mind is: How do we fill that hole? 

There are two free-agent options everyone keeps pointing to:

Option 1: Kyle Tucker

Kyle Tucker is a Gold Glove guy, a professional hitter, and the proud owner of the kind of left-handed swing that makes hitting coaches spontaneously burst into show tunes. He’s reliable, consistent, and hits the ball like it owes him money. But defensively? Well, Statcast insists that in 2025 his range and speed both sat in the 26th percentile — which is roughly the same pace as the Grand Central Parkway when 40,000 Mets fans and 40,000 US Open tennis fans all decide to go home at once. In other words: he’ll get there when he gets there

Option 2: Cody Bellinger

Then there’s Cody Bellinger, also a Gold Glove–caliber defender, also a lefty, also terrific. The difference? Belli moves like he’s been chased by hornets since birth. Statcast puts him in the 93rd percentile for range, 72nd percentile for speed, +7 Outs Above Average, and he posts strong defensive metrics at every outfield spot — including left field, Oh, and he plays first base too, because apparently some guys just collect positions like airline miles.

As Tucker declined a qualifying offers this offseason, it means signing him comes with draft-pick compensation — baseball’s version of the Times Square “tourist tax,” except instead of paying $38 for a bad hot dog, you lose a piece of your farm system. Bellinger on the hand did not have a qualifying offer (QO) in 2025 because he is no longer eligible for one. He was extended a QO by the Chicago Cubs after the 2023 season, which he accepted, and the QO is only available to a player once.

But here’s the philosophical wrinkle: both guys are lefties. And just days ago, David Stearns told us that acquiring righty Marcus Semien was all about balancing the lineup. Yin and yang. Right and left. Spreadsheet harmony.

So replacing lefty Brandon Nimmo with… another lefty?

That doesn’t whisper “balance.”

But if you’re asking me which option I’m taking between the two?

It’s Cody Bellinger because if we’re putting another lefty in the outfield, I’d like one who can personally shrink the outfield by 40 percent and one that doesn't cost the Mets a draft pick.

If you’ve been loyal readers here on the Korner, you know we rarely do the whole trade-rumor thing. It’s just not us. We’re more about stories, retrospectives, and the occasional mild rant about a bullpen meltdown. But this… this was just too good to pass up. And honestly, it’s also a pretty cool exercise—one of those “let’s see what it would actually take” thought experiments that keeps a baseball nerd like me awake at night, scribbling player names and prospect rankings on the nearest scrap of paper. Think of it as a mental batting practice for the offseason: no risk, all fun, and just enough of a fantasy angle to make your inner Mets fan start drooling.

Which brings us to the real fun part: let’s talk about Fernando Tatis Jr.

Fernando Tatis Jr. Yes, that Tatis. The one with the superstar bat, the highlight-reel glove, the 30/30 athleticism, the charisma, and that magical ability to terrify every MLB social media team within a five-state radius.

He’s perfect. He’s too perfect. He’s a unicorn with a glove. His dad was even a Met—which, should this dream ever come true, we would mention approximately eight thousand times within the first week.

There’s just one small, microscopic, Grand-Canyon-sized problem: the San Diego Padres are not trading Fernando Tatis Jr. Not this winter. Not next winter. Possibly not until the sun flickers out like the end of an old Mets night game on WOR. Team officials have said it. Insiders have said it. Random Padres bloggers with surfer avatars have said it. He’s signed through 2034 and viewed as a long-term investment, not a trade chit.

BUT—and this is where every Mets fan leans forward like Ralph Kiner offering moral support during a tough at-bat—this is an exercise. A hypothetical. A what-if. A Thought Experiment to Keep Us From Going Insane Until Pitchers and Catchers Report.

So what would it actually take? To answer that, we look at the two most comparable blockbusters in recent memory: the 2022 Juan Soto Mega-Deal, where the Padres gave up Abrams, Gore, Hassell, Wood, Susana, and Voit; and the 2023 Soto-to-Yankees package that sent King, Brito, Vásquez, Thorpe, and Higashioka back to San Diego. Those two trades give us a blueprint for what it costs to pry loose a superstar in his prime.

And since I'm leaving Nolan McLean out of this—my personal No-Trade-Clause prospect—we build the offer from the next tier down. For the Mets, that means Jett Williams as the elite young centerpiece—the Abrams/Hassell role, the guy who makes a front office say, “go on.” Carson Benge becomes the Voit/Wood piece, near-MLB-ready with real upside. Jonah Tong fills the Gore/Thorpe pitcher slot with strikeouts for days. Brandon Sproat slots in as the Susana/Brito/Vásquez developmental arm who rounds out the pitching depth every blockbuster seems to require.

Yes, Jeff McNeil could slide in as the MLB-ready sweetener if needed,and while we’re at it, let’s throw in Ronny Mauricio—a young, dynamic piece to add depth—and politely ask the Padres to toss in Ramon Laureano as well, because with Carson Benge gone, the Mets suddenly have a hole in center field to patch. Now we’re not just building a hypothetical Tatis Jr. package; we’re building a package that could conceivably field a decent team on its own. It’s overkill, yes, but then again, when you’re fantasizing about a switch-hitting, glove-wielding unicorn like Tatis Jr., overkill is part of the fun.

Would this actually land Tatis Jr.? No. Because the Padres are not trading Fernando Tatis Jr. They’ve said it publicly. They’ve said it privately. They’ve probably told their pets.

But if they were listening—really listening—this is the sort of offer that might, might, get them to say: “Hang on, let me put you on hold.”