The Mets announced today that outfielder Tyrone Taylor has been reinstated from the 10-day injured list. In a corresponding move, fellow outfielder Jose Siri has been designated for assignment. Will Sammon of The Athletic reported Siri’s DFA prior to the official announcement.
Siri was acquired from the Rays in the offseason, with the Mets sending right-hander Eric Orze to Tampa in exchange. That deal has clearly been a bust for the Mets. Siri has spent most of the 2025 season on the injured list. When healthy, he hasn’t performed well.
Taylor’s return squeezes him off the roster. Siri is out of options and can’t be easily sent back down to the minors. He is making $2.4MM this year and would have been due a raise in arbitration going into next year. The Mets were probably planning to non-tender him this winter anyway, so he gets cut today instead.
The Mets surely knew they were getting a flawed player, but also one with clear attributes. In 2023, Siri hi 25 home runs for the Rays, stole 12 bases and provided strong center field defense. His 35.7% strikeout rate and 5.5% walk rate were both awful figures but the power still helped him produce a .222/.267/.494 line and 106 wRC+. When combined with his speed and defense, he was worth 2.6 wins above replacement, in the eyes of FanGraphs.
His performance backed up a bit last year. He increased his walk rate slightly to 6.9%, though his strikeout rate also ticked up to 37.9%. His home run tally dropped to 18, in a larger sample of plate appearances. His .187/.255/.366 batting line and 78 wRC+ showed clear regression at the plate, but he still put up 1.8 fWAR thanks to his speed and defense.
But as mentioned, his 2025 season has not looked like that at all. He fouled a ball off himself in April and suffered a fractured left tibia. He was expected to miss eight to ten weeks but he ended up missing about five months, getting reinstated from the injured list earlier in September. When not on the IL, his performance has been decidedly lacking. It has only been 36 plate appearances but Siri struck out in 47.2% of those and has produced a .063/.167/.125 line.
Taylor hasn’t been great this year, but his tepid .218/.277/.315 line is still well beyond Siri’s production. The Mets acquired Cedric Mullins at the deadline to try to fortify the center field position. That hasn’t really worked out either, as Mullins is hitting .188/.287/.291 since joining the Mets, but that’s also a notch above Siri’s performance this year and Mullins has a greater track record as well. Brandon Nimmo started a game in center this week as well, though he’s back in left today with Taylor taking over up the middle.
Time will tell how the Mets fill the position going forward but they have decided there was no room for Siri. With the trade deadline having passed long ago, the only choice will be to put Siri on waivers. He would have no appeal to other clubs in the short term. As mentioned, he’s been in poor form. He also wouldn’t be postseason eligible with any claiming team. He can be controlled via arbitration for two more seasons, so it’s theoretically possible for another club to have interest in claiming him with an eye on next year.
If he passes through waivers unclaimed, he would have the right to reject an outright assignment, as a player with at least three years of big league service time. It’s possible he would decide to accept such an assignment, however. If the Mets make the playoffs and someone gets injured, he could be added back to the roster and perhaps play a role in the postseason.
There would also be a small financial consideration, as he has less than five years of service time. That means he would have to forfeit his remaining salary commitments in order to elect free agency. At this late stage of the campaign, that would be just a few thousand dollars, but the combination of that cash and the possibility of factoring into the playoffs could be enough for him to accept. In that scenario, he would have another chance to elect free agency at season’s end.
Photo courtesy of Troy Taormina, Imagn Images
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