MLB Rumors: Gary Sánchez to Sign Mets Minor League Contract After Giants Release

After being released by the San Francisco Giants last week, Gary Sánchez is going to join the New York Mets.

Per Joel Sherman of the New York Post and MLB Network, the Mets will sign Sánchez to a minor league deal.

Sánchez signed a minor league deal with the Giants on March 31. The agreement came with an opt-out clause he could exercise if he wasn't with the MLB club by May 1.

When the Giants didn't call Sánchez up from their Triple-A club before the deadline date, he exercised the opt-out clause and was officially released on May 2. The 30-year-old was hitting .164/.319/.182 with one extra-base hit in 16 games for the Sacramento River Cats.

This past offseason marked the first time Sánchez was a free agent in his MLB career. The two-time All-Star spent the 2022 season with the Minnesota Twins after being traded by the New York Yankees as part of the Josh Donaldson deal.

The Mets are off to a slow start and have seen several key players struggle out of the gate. They have gotten virtually nothing offensively from the catcher position.

Tomás Nido is hitting .118/.148/.118 with 16 strikeouts in 51 at-bats and has a minus-24 OPS+. His minus-0.6 FanGraphs wins above replacement is tied for the worst among all catchers with at least 50 plate appearances.

Francisco Álvarez has been significantly better by the standard Nido is setting. He has a .220/.264/.320 slash line with three extra-base hits in 50 at-bats. The 21-year-old, who is the top overall prospect in the sport according to MLB.com, is starting to get more consistent playing time with the hope he will start to figure things out.

Sánchez shouldn't be signed for the purpose of eventually becoming the Mets' primary catcher, but he could work his way into being Álvarez's backup given Nido's struggles.

Once seen as a cornerstone player for the Yankees, Sánchez has fallen off in the past three seasons. He finished second in AL Rookie of the Year voting in 2016 after hitting .299/.376/.657 with 20 homers in just 53 games.

Sánchez followed that by making the All-Star team and hitting 33 homers in 122 games during the 2017 season.

Since the start of the 2020 campaign, Sánchez has a .195/.287/.394 slash line with 49 home runs in 294 games.