{"id":568388,"date":"2026-02-12T15:52:24","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T15:52:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/568388\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T15:52:24","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T15:52:24","slug":"mets-2026-season-preview-jackson-cluff-is-one-of-the-mets-many-insurance-policies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/568388\/","title":{"rendered":"Mets 2026 Season Preview: Jackson Cluff is one of the Mets\u2019 many insurance policies"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the news of his hamate surgery<\/a> still fresh in our minds, it\u2019s important that we remember that there is no one on the Mets\u2019 roster \u2013 40-Man or otherwise \u2013 that can take Francisco Lindor\u2019s place, even for just a few weeks. But that doesn\u2019t mean that the Mets don\u2019t need someone to play short, and ideally, someone by whom they won\u2019t be handcuffed when Lindor returns.<\/p>\n

While it may be appealing to just shift Bo Bichette back to short for a limited time, if the Mets really want Bichette to get acquainted with a new position, the short term benefit might not be worth stalling his progress. Jorge Polanco played most of his career at short, but recent history at that position has been rough. Ronny Mauricio could probably handle a few games there, but isn\u2019t a true shortstop.<\/p>\n

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With both Jett Williams and Luisangel Acu\u00f1a departing the system via trades this winter, the Mets find themselves with a serious dearth of upper-minors shortstop talent. This is why the Mets signed a number of fringy guys who could help out on a short term basis at the position. During his press conference yesterday<\/a>, David Stearns mentioned a number of potential shortstops, including Mauricio, Vidal Bruj\u00e1n, Grae Kessinger, Christian Arroyo, and Jackson Cluff. While we will get to all those players eventually, today we\u2019re looking into Cluff.<\/p>\n

Cluff, a product of Brigham Young University, was drafted in the sixth round of the 2019 draft by the Nationals. After missing the 2020 season due to COVID-19 and parts of 2021 due to injury, the \u201821 Arizona Fall League was Cluff\u2019s first real test in professional baseball. He hit .342 with six doubles, a home run, and eight stolen bases in 22 games, which put him into the conversation going into 2022<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, that would be the last time that Cluff batted over .250 in organized ball of any kind. To his credit, the now 29-year old has improved fairly consistently offensively, but in small steps and not enough to garner real excitement as a prospect. In 2025, in 103 games at Triple-A Rochester, Cluff hit .242\/.349\/.771 with twelve home runs, 14 doubles, and 23 steals.<\/p>\n

Additionally, Cluff isn\u2019t just a shortstop. Across 2024 and 2025, Cluff played all four infield positions, center field, left field, and pitched in five games. While he\u2019s no \u201cSuper\u201d Joe McEwing, that\u2019s a useful player in the high minors.<\/p>\n

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His usefulness makes his release by the Nationals a little odd. Yes, he\u2019s too old to really be considered a prospect at this point, and no, he hasn\u2019t done enough to really inspire confidence. But he\u2019s a player with no major league service time who can handle the middle infield and hit a tiny bit. Those guys usually stick around an organization until one or more of their skills has eroded enough to render them unfit for the upper minors.<\/p>\n

Cluff was part of the large exodus<\/a> of players from the Nationals system at the end of last season, and the Mets signed him to a minor league deal. He\u2019s probably destined to spend most or all of the season at Triple-A, but he does represent a type of player that is very useful, especially when your starting shortstop gets hurt before spring training officially starts. Cluff won\u2019t be an embarrassment at short, and the Mets\u2019 lineup is deep enough that, if they had to keep him in the lineup for a couple of days, that probably wouldn\u2019t hurt the club too much.<\/p>\n

While Cluff isn\u2019t the ideal long term, or even medium term, solution if Lindor has to miss any significant time, we\u2019ll likely get lots of looks at him during spring training and the Mets will be able to determine if he\u2019s a decent short term, stopgap solution if one of the Mets\u2019 middle infielders gets hurt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the news of his hamate surgery still fresh in our minds, it\u2019s important that we remember that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":568389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2398],"tags":[5,88,59018,227,51166,60267,120,4,415,4804,812,896,414,71,4222],"class_list":{"0":"post-568388","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-washington-nationals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-bo-bichette","10":"tag-christian-arroyo","11":"tag-francisco-lindor","12":"tag-grae-kessinger","13":"tag-jackson-cluff","14":"tag-jorge-polanco","15":"tag-mlb","16":"tag-nationals","17":"tag-ronny-mauricio","18":"tag-the-mets","19":"tag-vidal-brujan","20":"tag-washington","21":"tag-washington-nationals","22":"tag-washingtonnationals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116058465775745444","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/568389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}