{"id":2273076,"date":"2026-02-08T22:47:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T22:47:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2273076"},"modified":"2026-02-08T22:47:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T22:47:16","slug":"mets-to-sign-former-royals-52-home-run-outfielder-to-1-5-million-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/mets-to-sign-former-royals-52-home-run-outfielder-to-1-5-million-contract\/","title":{"rendered":"Mets to sign former Royals 52 home run outfielder to $1.5 million contract"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Mets to sign former Royals 52 home run outfielder to $1.5 million contract<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The New York Mets<\/a> have completely overhauled their entire lineup this offseason. Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil, and Brandon Nimmo are all gone, while their additions have been huge.<\/p>\n

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Jorge Polanco, Marcus Semien, Bo Bichette, and Luis Robert Jr. have all been added this offseason. But the Mets aren’t done adding to their lineup.<\/p>\n

According to Jon Heyman of The celebrity.land<\/a>, the Mets are in agreement on a $1.5 million contract with former Kansas City Royals<\/a> outfielder MJ Melendez.<\/p>\n

Mets agree to $1.5M contract with ex-Royal MJ Melendez<\/h2>\n

“Mets agree to deal with MJ Melendez,” Heyman reports. “MLB deal. $1.5 million plus $500K incentives.”<\/p>\n

This one-year deal for the former Royals outfielder is an interesting depth signing for the Mets. He’s no longer a catcher like he was when his career began, but his outfield ability is still worth investing in.<\/p>\n

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The 27-year-old has struggled in his big league career, posting -1.4 bWAR in four seasons with the Royals. This past season, in just 23 games, Melendez managed to put up -0.6 bWAR.<\/p>\n

More<\/strong>:\u00a0Mets trade rumor on Brett Baty, Mark Vientos is unexpected update from Pirates<\/a><\/p>\n

He hit just .083 with a .321 OPS in 65 plate appearances. His -10 OPS+ was by far the worst of his career, as every other year he was, at worst, an 83 OPS+ hitter.<\/p>\n

But his massive struggles in 2025 led him to be left off the MLB roster for most of the year, and the Royals did not re-sign him despite the outfielder having a few more years of club control.<\/p>\n

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While he’s not a negative defensively, his major offensive struggles have led Melendez to hit free agency. The Mets are now taking a chance on him, agreeing to terms on a $1.5 million deal that can rise to as much as $2 million if Melendez hits his incentives.<\/p>\n

More MLB news:<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source sports.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mets to sign former Royals 52 home run outfielder to $1.5 million contract originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here. The New York Mets have completely overhauled their entire lineup this offseason. Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil, and Brandon Nimmo are all gone, while their additions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2273077,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[376106,435838,377388,440020,423189,374446,43627,423121,350960,440021,380043,311257,363777,358283,396514],"class_list":["post-2273076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-bo-bichette","tag-brandon-nimmo","tag-brett-baty","tag-jeff-mcneil","tag-jon-heyman","tag-jorge-polanco","tag-kansas-city-royals","tag-luis-robert-jr","tag-marcus-semien","tag-mark-vientos","tag-mj-melendez","tag-new-york-mets","tag-pete-alonso","tag-pirates","tag-the-new-york-post"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Mets-to-sign-former-Royals-52-home-run-outfielder-to.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2273076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2273076"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2273076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2273078,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2273076\/revisions\/2273078"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2273077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2273076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2273076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2273076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}