By Griffin Goldberg

After a sluggish and straight up disappointing 2021 season, New York Mets outfielder Michael Conforto is set to hit free agency, where plenty of potential suitors loom. Despite his underwhelming performance this year, I think it is safe to assume that Conforto will still draw a ton of interest from various ball clubs. A middle of the order left-handed bat with plus power is a hot commodity for many teams, so it’s hard to imagine the market for the slugger being dry.

Conforto, 28, was a first-round pick for the Mets out of Oregon State in 2014 and since entering the league soon after in 2015, he has had a huge impact on the team. Perhaps his most memorable moment with the Mets came in Game 4 of the 2015 World Series, where he belted two home runs against the Royals, showing flashes of what he had in store for the years to come.

All in all, Conforto has not disappointed during his seven years in Queens. Throughout his tenure with the team, the sweet-swinging lefty has slashed .255/.356/.468 with 152 home runs, and a 124 wRC+. For those of you who don’t know, wRC+ is an advanced metric which stands for Weighted Runs Created Plus. This stat essentially evaluates how many runs a player is responsible for manufacturing on offense and compares it to the league average, which is 100. This means Conforto has been 24% above league average since entering the league when it comes to run creation. Conforto was also selected as an All-Star in 2017. That is a well above average offensive career, yet for some reason, I continue to see so many Mets fans advocating for letting him walk because of a down year that, for all we know, was an anomaly. 

Let’s take a closer look at some of the factors that might have contributed to Conforto’s sudden drop off in production. The right fielder battled a hamstring injury early in the year that kept him sidelined for roughly six weeks. Upon returning to the club in late June, Conforto struggled to really get it going with the bat, leading some people to wonder whether or not he was fully healthy. It wasn’t until much later in the year that he started to finally heat up. In the months of August and September, Conforto showed a glimpse of a return to form, slashing .272/.372/.457 with 8 home runs in 184 at-bats. Another potential factor into Conforto’s struggles that very few people have talked about is the surprise firing of Chilli Davis just 23 games into the regular season. Davis was constantly being praised by Mets hitters, including Conforto, and the team cut him loose basically out of nowhere. This move was as much of a surprise to the players as it was to the fans, as guys like Pete Alonso and Francisco Lindor publicly expressed their confusion and frustration with the team’s decision to move on from Davis so quickly. Flashforward and how much did that decision actually change things? Hugh Quattlebum was hired to be Davis’s replacement as hitting coach, and the offense struggled just as mightily under his coaching as it did before. Clearly, the problem did not lie entirely with the hitting coach. Essentially the entire Mets lineup aside from Pete Alonso and Javier Baez struggled to get into a consistent groove at the plate all year, and at a certain point there is only so much the hitting coach can do. Regardless, it is not outrageous to think that the departure of Chilli Davis, who Conforto praised and had his most successful seasons under, might have played a role in the lefty’s inability to get it going on offense, even if that role was slight. 

People seem to forget how important Conforto has been to the Mets and I don’t think those people fully understand just how significantly his absence could affect this team. Obviously, being without one of your biggest offensive threats in the middle of your lineup is a loss in itself, but there is so much Conforto brings to the table off the field as well. Former manager Luis Rojas has spoken publicly on multiple occasions about the kind of leadership presence Confroto has become in the Mets clubhouse, and how his leadership has in turn affected the people around him. “His demeanor is great," Rojas said. "He’s one of our natural leaders here. Homegrown. He’s a guy that bleeds blue and orange. He cares so much about the team. He’s inspired me in the past a lot. I’ve learned a lot from him.” 

Homegrown players like Conforto, Wright, and deGrom do so much more for a team than what meets the eye. Numbers and on-field performance aside, these are the types of players that keep the rest of the team in check, motivate those around them, build team chemistry, and attract millions of fans from all over. People develop personal connections to homegrown players because they represent a sense of loyalty, which fans return the favor for by coming out to games, wearing their jerseys, and supporting them through both the good times and the bad. While David Wright was on the shelf for the better part of four straight seasons, do you think fans stopped supporting him? Now, I am not saying Conforto is the Captain, but the same principle can still be applied; Conforto is a Met through and through, and it should remain that way.

Is one rough year really enough to warrant giving up on one of your longest-tenured homegrown players? Especially when that player has been a cornerstone for your team for years, being arguably the most productive hitter on the team in the process? I say hell no. And to those of you saying yes, I am talking to you. By the way, these are the same fans who were relentlessly crying, “Extend Conforto” after his phenomenal 2020 season where he hit .322 with a .927 OPS. News flash, they had it right the first time. That was only a year ago. Yes, I know it was a shortened season, but let’s not act like that was the first great offensive year Conforto has had. People seem to forget that he had a three year stretch from 2017-2019 where he hit 27 or more home runs in each of those seasons. Michael Conforto having an average offensive season does not suddenly make him a bad baseball player. And yes, his season was average, not worse than that. Remember how I mentioned wRC+ earlier? Well Conforto’s was 106 this year, which is technically still above league average. 6% above average, but above average nonetheless. For the fans saying this was such a “horrible” season, it really wasn’t. It definitely was not great, but when your worst season in the league is an average season for most players, that tells you all you need to know. This is recency bias at its finest, ladies and gentlemen.

Of course, there is always the question of money. How much is Conforto worth? If he had hit free agency after his scorching hot 2020 season, I think the lefty could have easily garnered a deal in the $135 million range across 5-6 years. As we know however, his numbers this year were nowhere near as attractive, and putting up the worst offensive numbers of your career in a walk year definitely does not help your case. Regardless, I could still see someone coughing up $85-100 million over 4-6 years for the right fielder’s services. With Scott Boras as his agent, it is almost a given at this point that Conforto will decline the qualifying offer that the Mets will undoubtedly offer. I know this and I am sure Sandy Alderson and the Mets know this as well, which is why it would make no sense to me if they were to let him walk. Thanks to Steve Cohen, the Mets now have the financial flexibility to make a run at Conforto while also addressing their other needs; it does not have to be one or another. Worst case scenario, the team could conceivably follow in the Dodgers’ footsteps by going over the league-imposed luxury tax, which Steve Cohen has expressed a willingness to do in the future. Regardless of how the Mets want to approach the situation, there are countless avenues they can explore that would all allow them to bring back one of their franchise players, which is an opportunity they should not overlook.

It would be such a classic Mets move to let Conforto walk right into the grasp of another team, with which he will undoubtedly become an absolute monster and certified Met-killer for years to come. It happened with Daniel Murphy in 2016 and it is happening again now with Cy-young candidate Zack Wheeler. The Mets did not make an effort to re-sign either of these players and look how that has panned out. This is all too familiar with the Mets and I could see the same exact situation unfolding this year with Conforto. One of the primary messages Steve Cohen and Sandy Alderson emphasized after the new ownership takeover was a burning desire to reinvent the Mets by completely changing the culture of the team. That starts here by recognizing what you want and going out and getting it, rather than letting other teams walk all over you, which they have done for pretty much their entire history as a Major League franchise.

I know Mets fans are fed up. It’s the same story every year and nothing ever changes, even with the new ownership taking over prior to the 2021 season. The Mets made a plethora of exciting moves during last year’s offseason, bringing in players like Francisco Lindor, Carlos Carrasco, Marcus Stroman, Jonathan Villar, Taijuan Walker, Aaron Loup, Kevin Pillar, and James McCann. Yet they finished third in the National League East and missed the playoffs for the 16th time in the past 19 years. Despite all the buzz, New York’s offense finished the season as one of the worst in the league this year, ranking 27th in baseball in runs per game (3.93), 29th in hits per game (7.66), and 24th in the league in OPS (.707). For a team with that much hype around it heading into the year, finishing 77-85 is disappointing to say the least. But that does not mean that the Mets need to clear house entirely. They are still in win now mode and have a bright future with a number of valuable pieces, Conforto included. Mets fans, do not hit the panic button just yet. Their time will come, you just need to be patient. And don’t you want Conforto to be there when they finally start to win? I know I do. With Steve Cohen leading the charge, New York needs to try to re-sign Michael Conforto this offseason because if they don’t, someone else will and the Mets will regret it for years to come.