{"id":91406,"date":"2025-01-16T13:53:21","date_gmt":"2025-01-16T18:53:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=91406"},"modified":"2025-01-16T13:53:21","modified_gmt":"2025-01-16T18:53:21","slug":"jesse-winker-returns-to-the-mets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/01\/16\/jesse-winker-returns-to-the-mets\/","title":{"rendered":"Fiery Veteran Outfielder Re-Signs with Mets"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Mets and free-agent outfielder Jesse Winker have reached an agreement to a one-year, $8 million deal, reports Jon Heyman of the New York Post<\/a>. Winker will receive a $1 million signing bonus in the contract.<\/p>\n

Winker, 33, is best utilized as a designated hitter and occasional corner outfielder who plays against right-handed pitching. Additionally, Winker adds unmeasurable value as a veteran with a reputation as a positive clubhouse presence (at least in most of his past stops<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Mets to Re-Sign Jesse Winker<\/h2>\n

After an injury-plagued 2023 with the Milwaukee Brewers, Winker revamped his conditioning ahead of the 2024 season. The results paid off, as Winker appeared in 145 games and hit .253\/.360\/.405 with 14 homers and 14 stolen bases.<\/p>\n

Winker thrives due to his mature approach at the plate. Among qualified MLB hitters, he ranked in the 96th percentile in both Walk rate (12.4%) and Chase rate (19%) while also posting a great 19.6% Whiff rate (ranked in the 78th percentile).<\/p>\n

When executed well, this strategy makes a pitcher work harder, increases his pitch count, and leads to more mistakes. This means the pitcher is more likely to walk a hitter like Winker (who typically bats in front of run producers) or make mistakes in the zone for Winker to drive.<\/p>\n

New York will bring back Winker mostly for his plate approach and platoon advantage against right-handed pitching. For his career, Winker has posted a .276\/.379\/.462 slash in 2,212 plate appearances against right-handers compared to a .210\/.324\/.338 in 563 plate appearances against left-handers.<\/p>\n

Though he can contribute defensively, Winker’s value comes mostly from his offense. He recorded three Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) but -11 Outs Above Average in 566 2\/3 left field innings last year. His performance was bad in a shorter sample in right field (-2 DRS and -2 OAA in 104 innings).<\/p>\n

Winker has been slowed by a plethora of injuries, especially to his back and knee. However, he showed last year that he can still provide a spark with the bat and in the clubhouse.<\/p>\n

Main Photo: \u00a9 Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New York Mets and free-agent outfielder Jesse Winker have reached an agreement to a one-year, $8 million deal, reports Jon Heyman of the New York Post. Winker will receive a $1 million signing bonus in the contract. Winker, 33, is best utilized as a designated hitter and occasional corner outfielder who plays against right-handed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4683,"featured_media":87471,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22,1071,35],"tags":[139],"class_list":["post-91406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mets","category-mlb","category-news","tag-jesse-winker"],"modified_by":"Matt Graves","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4683"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91406"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93960,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91406\/revisions\/93960"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}