{"id":778018,"date":"2026-08-13T23:12:38","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T23:12:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/778018\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T23:12:38","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T23:12:38","slug":"mets-interested-in-star-japanese-slugger-teruaki-sato-with-glaring-first-base-need","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/778018\/","title":{"rendered":"Mets interested in star Japanese slugger Teruaki Sato with glaring first base need"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Mets are scouting and considering Hanshin Tigers star 3B Teruaki Sato, who\u2019s expected to come to MLB. But if they do sign Sato, he might have to switch to 1B.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Mets had mixed results with position switches this year. Bo Bichette moved seamlessly to 3B, but 1B hopeful <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/08\/05\/sports\/jorge-polancos-swing-work-pays-off-in-breakout-game-for-mets\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jorge Polanco\u2019s injuries<\/a> are limiting him to DH.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The best early guess is that Bichette will be back at 3B, as he has a good chance to opt in, with $84 million and two years, plus a second opt-out to go, especially considering CBA uncertainty.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Like Munetaka Murakmai, who\u2019s thrived at 1B slugging for the White Sox, Sato, a former Central League MVP with a 1.026 OPS, has \u201cgood pop\u201d but is \u201cquestionable\u201d at 3B, via scouts.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mets are scouting and considering Hanshin Tigers star 3B Teruaki Sato, who\u2019s expected to come to MLB.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":778019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2396],"tags":[858,5,9925,101,4,2046,1690,61,2548,4203,25,185,430,428],"class_list":["post-778018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-mets","tag-alex-cora","tag-baseball","tag-don-mattingly","tag-mets","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-free-agency","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-mets","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkmets","tag-philadelphia-phillies","tag-sports","tag-sports-columnists","tag-sports-plus"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117090736077409324","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778018","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=778018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/778019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=778018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=778018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=778018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}