Josh Bell

Position: 1B/DH B/T: S/R

Player Data: Age: 33 (8/14/1992)

2025 Traditional Stats: 533 PA, .237/.325/.417/.742, 111 H, 22 HR, 63 RBI

2025 Advanced Stats: 107 wRC+, 16.5% K%, 10.7% BB%, .247 BABiP, .359 xwOBA, 0.1 fWAR, 0.4 bWAR, -4 DRS, -4 OAA

Rundown

Josh Bell made huge under the hood changes last year that did not show up in his slash line.

In 2025, his bat speed skyrocketed from 70.4 mph to 73.1 mph and he pulled the ball in the air 15.4% of the time (57th percentile) versus 10.2% (13th percentile) in 2024. This led his average exit velocity to jump from 88.9 mph (52nd percentile) to 90.4 mph (63rd percentile). He was in the 20th percentile in barrel rate at 12.4% compared to 6.9% in 2024 (45th percentile). Lastly, his hard-hit rate went up 6.2% from 42.6% to 48.8%, good for the 76th percentile.

Meanwhile, he whiffed 3% less at 23.5%. His strikeout rate went from 19.9% to 16.5% and his walk rate went up from 8.3% to 10.5%.

So why did his slash line look largely similar in 2025 to how it did in 2024? Part of that comes from his .247 BABIP compared to his .286 BABIP the year before. Nationals Park also is not the best ballpark for his new swing or spray chart. According to Baseball Savant, Busch Stadium and Kauffman Stadium were the only ballparks last year he would have hit less home runs if he played all his games there.

Davy Andrews of FanGraphs did a deep dive into Bell’s swing change in June last season and found that Bell struggled to square up the ball from the right side leading to more outs because he was making contact deeper. He also pointed out that while Bell did increase his average exit velocity, it was not enough to lead to a meaningful increase in home runs.

He wrote, “Bell is hitting more fly balls and fewer ground ball. But he’s not hitting the ball much harder, so a lot of those fly balls are just long outs. He’s also not squaring the ball up well, which means fewer line drives and a lot more easy groundball outs to the right side.”

All of this can be seen in his splits

Against RHP – .262/.346/.450/.797 (122 WRC+)
Against LHP – .151/.250/.302/.552 (56 WRC+)
At Home – .208/.292/.333/.626 (78 WRC+)
On the Road – .262/.352/.488/.840 (132 WRC+)

The is some reason for optimism that if Bell became a long-side platoon bat in a more hitter friendly ballpark he could truly maximize these swing changes. But Bell has had fluctuations in his bat speed and hard-hit rates throughout out his career across various ballparks with mixed results. Until he repeats this under the hood data it is hard to state whether or not it will be sticky year to year.

Contract 

MLB Trade Rumors does not have a projection for Josh Bell’s contract, but Spotrac lists his market value at one-year and $11.2 million. At age-33, this is almost double what he made in 2025.

Recommendation: Stay Away

The Mets will likely talk to all the first base candidates in case Pete Alonso chooses to go to a different team, but Josh Bell is probably not the best candidate to fill his shoes. His bat does not profile well in Citi Field, he likely needs to be in a platoon to be maximized, and he is largely a designated hitter at this point in his career.