Every year, a baseball team makes a move that seems like nothing more than a footnote at the time—only to come back and haunt them like a ghost in a pinstriped jersey. The Mets might be about to make one of those moves, and this time, the ghost’s name could be Alexander Canario.
The talented young outfielder has spent the last few weeks in Mets camp doing everything he could to force his way onto the roster. He hit .306 in 17 exhibition games, smacked three home runs, drew seven walks, and generally looked like a guy who belongs in the big leagues. But here's the rub: Canario also struck out 15 times in 43 plate appearances. That strikeout rate is part of the three-true-outcomes profile that has followed him through his minor league career, and with the Mets already packed in the outfield—featuring Juan Soto, Brandon Nimmo, José Siri, Tyrone Taylor, and Starling Marte—there’s just no room for him. Canario is out of minor league options, meaning the Mets will likely place him on waivers in the coming days, and unless another team takes a shot on him, he’ll be left to bounce around the league.
This situation is what you call a classic roster squeeze. The Mets could theoretically send Luisangel Acuña down to Triple-A instead, but that would leave them without a safety net for a backup at second base, third base, and shortstop. However, Francisco Lindor never takes a day off, Mark Vientos is a young durable player who should play everyday, and Brett Baty hopes to seize this opportunity and run with it in Jeff McNeil’s absence. The bigger concern might actually be in the outfield, where both Brandon Nimmo and Starling Marte are not at 100% health. That makes the potential of losing Canario even more significant. Given that reality, I might be inclined to send Acuña down, roll the dice until McNeil returns, and hope that when the time comes to send Canario down, other teams will have their own roster logjams and won’t be able to claim him. It’s a gamble, but one that might be worth taking.
The frustrating part is that Canario might actually have a higher upside than Acuña. But prospects are like scratch-off lottery tickets—sometimes you hit the jackpot, sometimes you just get a nice reminder that you should’ve saved that five bucks. Remember Alex Ramírez? Just two years ago, he was one of the Mets’ top-rated prospects. Now, at 22, he already cleared waivers earlier this year after the Mets designated him for assignment and then resigned him. The future is unpredictable, but letting a guy like Canario walk for nothing feels like a mistake we’ll regret down the road.
And if history has taught us anything, it’s that these seemingly small moves can have huge consequences. Need a reminder? Let’s rewind to July 30, 2004. The Mets, in a flurry of transactions, briefly had a guy named José Bautista. Then they turned around and flipped him in a trade that landed them Kris Benson and Jeff Keppinger. Benson won all of 14 games in a Mets uniform. Bautista? He won three Silver Sluggers, hit 344 career home runs, and generally made life miserable for pitchers (and Mets fans watching from home) for over a decade.
And let’s not forget what else we missed out on—those legendary bat flips. The ones that made pitchers glare, umpires sigh, and Mets fans everywhere wish they had a time machine. The bat flips that weren’t just celebrations, but declarations: "I just crushed that ball, and you're going to watch it leave the stadium." Instead, Mets fans were left to watch Bautista terrorize opposing pitchers from afar
Of course, the Mets did eventually reunite with Bautista—fourteen years later. In 2018, he put up a respectable .204/.351/.367 slash line in 83 games, hitting nine homers and driving in 17 runs, including his only career walk-off home run—a grand slam, no less. Not exactly the MVP-caliber player he became in Toronto, but hey, at least we finally got to see him in blue and orange. Better late than never, right?
So, while on paper, losing Canario might look like a minor, unavoidable roster move, I can’t shake the feeling that this could be one of those transactions we look back on in five years, shaking our heads and muttering, “How did we let this guy get away?”
For now, the Mets don’t have much of a choice. But let’s just hope this one doesn’t come back to bite us—again.