{"id":770901,"date":"2026-08-05T19:30:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T19:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/770901\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T19:30:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T19:30:12","slug":"mike-tauchman-opts-out-of-mets-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/770901\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Tauchman Opts Out Of Mets Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Mets released veteran outfielder Mike Tauchman<\/a> from his minor league deal today, per Francys Romero of BeisbolFR.com<\/a>. The New York Post\u2019s Jon Heyman adds<\/a> that Tauchman was actually granted his release after triggering an opt-out clause in his contract. He\u2019s now a free agent.<\/p>\n

The 35-year-old Tauchman has been a fairly steady source of OBP and solid production against righties across the past three seasons. From 2023-25, he totaled 1136 plate appearances between the Cubs and White Sox, slashing .255\/.359\/.381 in the process. Tauchman doesn\u2019t have big power but walked at a huge 13% clip in that time and struck out at a 21.3% clip that\u2019s about one point shy of the major league average.<\/p>\n

Despite that solid three-year run between the two Chicago clubs, Tauchman was non-tendered by the White Sox and had to settle on a minor league deal in free agency. He looked like a good candidate to break camp with the Mets after he batted .241\/.371\/.448 in 13 spring games, but he suffered a meniscus tear in his left knee during the final week of camp. That sent him to the operating table. What was originally billed as a six-week recovery timetable instead wound up spanning just over three months; Tauchman was sidelined into early July.<\/p>\n

So far with the Mets\u2019 Triple-A club, Tauchman has taken 73 plate appearances. His plate discipline is strong as ever, but he hasn\u2019t hit for average or done much damage when making contact, as evidenced by a tepid .213\/.342\/.262 batting line.<\/p>\n

Tauchman has experience at all three outfield spots and has generally graded out as an above-average defender. Given that he\u2019s 35 and coming off a three-month absence due to a meniscus tear, it seems unlikely that a team would plug him back into center field, where he hasn\u2019t logged a major league inning since 2024. But any team looking for a left-handed corner bat off the bench could take a low-cost flier on Tauchman rediscovering his 2023-25 form and providing some support down the stretch. If he spends under 28 days on a major league roster, he\u2019d technically be controllable into 2027 via arbitration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mets released veteran outfielder Mike Tauchman from his minor league deal today, per Francys Romero of BeisbolFR.com.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":770902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,6647,4],"class_list":["post-770901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-baseball","tag-mike-tauchman","tag-mlb"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117044564756708281","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770901","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=770901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/770902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=770901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=770901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=770901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}