Summer is officially over — and in a stunning turn of events, so is the New York Mets’ season. But while this year’s team will spend the fall in hibernation, the MLB postseason is peppered with a plethora of former Mets, from franchise icons to traded prospects to obscure relievers. So with the Wild Card Series set to kick off tomorrow, let’s take a look at the seventeen ex-Mets who will be competing for a World Series title in 2025.
PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES
Harrison Bader
If he were simply facing the Mets all October, Bader would be projected to have the greatest postseason of all time. Since his one-season stint in Flushing, the New York native has absolutely annihilated his old team, batting .528 with two homers, three doubles, and seven RBI in nine games against the Mets. Only one player has had a higher batting average in a single season (with a minimum of 35 at-bats) against the Mets: Tony Gwynn in 1998.
But Bader is thriving as more than just a Met-killer. In his age-30 season, Bader has put up 4.2 WAR and a 117 OPS+ — both career-high marks. While his defense might not be elite enough to earn him a second Gold Glove Award, he still ranks 22nd among outfielders in Statcast’s Fielding Run Value metric, with a swift 28.8 ft/sec sprint speed. The Phillies began batting Bader leadoff during the Mets’ trip to Philadelphia in early September and the formula stuck, meaning we can expect to see Bader taking the Phillies’ first at-bat of the NLDS on Saturday. If he channels the spirit of the 2022 postseason — when he hit five home runs in nine games with the Yankees — we can also expect to hear the liberty bell ringing this fall.
David Robertson
David Robertson’s postseason career has been shaped by the Philadelphia Phillies. As a 24-year-old, he helped lead the Yankees over the Phillies in the 2009 World Series. As a 37-year-old, he finally returned to the World Series, this time donning Philadelphia’s red pinstripes. As a 38-year-old Marlin, he watched the Phillies eliminate his team in the Wild Card round. Now, as a 40-year-old, he’ll suit up once again for the Phillies in October.
Robertson was excellent during his brief Mets tenure, pitching to a 2.05 ERA in 2023 before being sold at the deadline for prospects Ronald Hernandez and Marco Vargas. If you were under the impression Robertson retired, it might be because he spent most of the 2025 season as a free agent until the Phillies signed him in late July. In 17.2 IP this season, he’s put up a 4.08 ERA with 22 strikeouts. While he won’t be the most high-leverage right-handed arm in a Phillies pen that includes Jhoan Duran and Orion Kerkering, David Robertson will be David Robertson: reliable, eternal, and somehow back at Citizens Bank Park.
Taijuan Walker
It’s been three years since Taijuan Walker’s taco truck graced the Citi Field parking lot. The second Met to wear No. 99, Walker earned every bit of the “fan favorite” title in Flushing, playing with passion and logging the second-most innings on the second-best team in franchise history. While his Mets resume was far from perfect (a certain regrettable play near the third base line in Pittsburgh comes to mind), he is also one of just fifteen right-handed pitchers to represent the Mets at a midsummer classic.
Walker’s four-year, $72M deal with the Phillies hasn’t panned out exactly how he’d hoped, with a 4.89 ERA across three seasons thus far. The Phillies moved Walker to the bullpen earlier this season, but returned him to the rotation as a result of injuries over the summer. It’s hard to imagine Walker getting much meaningful playing time this October (he didn’t make a single postseason appearance with the Phillies in 2023 or 2024), but that doesn’t mean you can’t rewatch highlights from June 18, 2022.
LOS ANGELES DODGERS
Anthony Banda
If you don’t remember Anthony Banda by name, you may be able to conjure an image somewhere in the outskirts of your mind: a left-hander with a goatee and glasses pitching at Great American Ball Park, struggling to seal one of the wackiest wins of the Mets’ 2021 season.
Banda was traded by the Giants to the Mets in exchange for minor league infielder Will Toffey in July 2021, and made just five appearances before being DFA’d later that month to make room on the roster for Javier Báez. Banda bounced around four other organizations with little success before the Dodgers acquired him in 2024, after which he has pitched to a 3.14 ERA in 114.2 innings — the second-most thrown by any Dodger reliever in that span. In the 2024 postseason, Banda was spectacular, allowing just one earned run while striking out eleven in eight innings of work. In other words, even if you did remember him, it’s safe to say Banda is no longer the same pitcher who posted a 7.36 ERA in orange and blue all those years ago.
Michael Conforto
When 22-year-old Michael Conforto got stranded at first base to conclude the 2015 World Series, it seemed he wouldn’t have to wait long before returning to October baseball. As it turned out, the wait lasted a decade. When the Mets made the 2016 Wild Card game, a struggling Conforto was forced to watch from the bench as his team got shut out. The Mets failed to make the postseason in each of his following five seasons in Flushing, while two seasons in San Francisco yielded a pair of fourth-place finishes.
Now, Conforto is the everyday left fielder on the reigning World Series Champions. It’s been a rough season for the former first-round pick, finishing with a .199 batting average and poor fielding numbers, but his playing time kept its pace as the Dodgers battled injury issues. He might not be the superstar the baseball world predicted, but tomorrow night, he’ll finally be back on baseball’s biggest stage. And if history is any indicator, ten years ago he hit a home run off Dodger Stadium’s right-field foul pole in his first at-bat of the postseason.
CHICAGO CUBS
Justin Turner
It just wouldn’t be a list of former Mets without Justin Turner, would it? The same story has been told non-stop in New York for over a decade: a 30-year-old utility infielder, with just 0.7 WAR in over 300 games with the Mets, signs as a free agent with the Dodgers and suddenly hits .340 to become one of the best bats in baseball. From 2014-2022 in Los Angeles, Justin Turner put up 34.6 WAR, the 20th-most in the sport during that span. For painful context, no Mets position player recorded even 20.0 WAR across those seasons.
Now with his seventh big league team and two months away from his 41st birthday, Turner firmly occupies the role of veteran bench player for the Cubs. For the first time since his days as a Met, Turner this season has seen his OPS+ dip below 100, his WAR drift in the negative direction, and his playing time limited to part-time capacity. That’s not to say Turner won’t turn it on in October, with the experience of having appeared in 85 career postseason games — more than the Mets have played in the past fifty years.
Pete Crow-Armstrong
While he didn’t keep up his MVP pace, Pete Crow-Armstrong sure did make Mets fans feel a sting this season, hitting 31 home runs and 37 doubles while stealing 35 bases and playing the best center field defense in the National League. Only three other players have eclipsed 30 homers, doubles, and steals at 23 years old or younger: José Canseco, Álex Rodríguez, and Julio Rodríguez.
The 19th overall pick in the 2020 Draft and the headline prospect the Mets parted with in their long-lamented trade for Javier Báez, Crow-Armstrong has become a sort of cautionary specter in Queens. The young superstar seems poised to be a difference-maker for the Cubs in the postseason, whether with his bat, his glove, or on the base paths. Perhaps it would only be fitting for him and Justin Turner to win a World Series together in a year when the Mets suffered their worst collapse in almost two decades.
SAN DIEGO PADRES
Jose Iglesias
Was Jose Iglesias the most beloved one-season player in Mets history? At the very least, he was certainly the most musically talented. In just 85 games, Iglesias put up 3.1 WAR, collected 91 hits (“OMG” not included), and became the symbol of a euphoric summer surge to the playoffs.
As painful as it was to watch David Stearns let Candelita go this past offseason, the numbers side with Stearns. Over 112 games this season, Iglesias holds a 66 OPS+ with -0.7 WAR. But the Padres will likely still give him starts in the playoffs, and they’ve utilized him all around the infield throughout the year. Iglesias also quietly ended the regular season on a hot streak, posting a .916 OPS in his final seven games. Regardless of how he performs, it may make fans misty-eyed to watch Iglesias take the field in a Padres uniform as the Mets stay home this October.
TORONTO BLUE JAYS
Max Scherzer
There are only three players age 40 or older projected to play in the 2025 postseason, and all have appeared on this list: David Robertson, Justin Turner, and now Max Scherzer. It’s hard to imagine Scherzer — a three-time Cy Young Award winner, two-time World Series champion, member of the 3000-strikeout club, and surefire first-ballot Hall of Famer — slotting in at the bottom of a playoff rotation, but that’s exactly where he finds himself this fall. After his scintillating 2022 regular season (and less than scintillating postseason) with the Mets, Scherzer has lost steam in recent years, seeing his ERA fall from 3.77 with the Mets and Rangers in 2023 to 5.19 with the Jays in 2025.
It was a particularly tumultuous close to the regular season for Scherzer, who recorded a 9.00 ERA across his final six starts. Still, Scherzer is one of the most experienced arms in postseason history, with his 25 playoff starts ranking eighth all-time between John Smoltz and John Lackey. Assuming he gets a start for Toronto, Scherzer would also become just the first pitcher in major league history to start a playoff game for six different franchises (Tigers, Nationals, Dodgers, Mets, Rangers, Blue Jays), and the third to pitch in a playoff game for six different franchises, along with David Wells and Fernando Rodney.
Andrés Giménez
One of two young shortstops traded to Cleveland in the deal to acquire Francisco Lindor, Andrés Giménez has more than delivered on the promise displayed during his shortened rookie season with the Mets. Between 2022-2024, Giménez won three consecutive Gold Glove Awards while recording 16.4 WAR, the second-most of any player younger than 26 during that span (trailing only Juan Soto). The bulk of Giménez’s offensive value came in 2022, when he put up a stunning 141 OPS+ and received sixth place in MVP voting, but his slash lines have been in steady decline since then.
Giméenez has battled injuries since being traded to Toronto in December, limiting him to just 101 games played this season, but he is currently healthy and slated to be either the Blue Jays’ everyday shortstop or second baseman (depending on how fast Bo Bichette can return from a left knee sprain that’s kept him sidelined for weeks) this October. While he might not slug the Jays to the World Series, Giménez is a defensive wizard with postseason experience and the potential to make a game-changing play whenever he’s on the diamond.
CLEVELAND GUARDIANS
Matt Festa
Here’s a trivia question: of the fifty pitchers who have appeared in exactly one game for the New York Mets, who produced the lowest WAR? If you guessed Matt Festa, you’d be correct. On June 30, 2024, Festa entered to pitch the top of the eleventh in a tie game against the Astros, surrendering five runs in one inning and yielding a whopping -0.7 WAR.
As of August 13, 2025, Festa had a 5.17 ERA with the Guardians, but as Cleveland’s season took a turn for the better, so did Festa’s. The 32-year-old right-hander finished with a 1.65 ERA in his final 21 appearances, positioning himself as an attractive October relief option with a proven ability to limit hard contact.
NEW YORK YANKEES
Amed Rosario
The last few years have been a whirlwind for former top prospect Amed Rosario, as he’s swapped teams seven times over the course of three seasons. For the past two months, he’s been a Yankee, making just seven starts and playing three different positions (second base, third base, and right field) for the Bombers. Like his trade-mate Andrés Giménez, Rosario’s best campaign came in 2022 with Cleveland, when he posted 4.2 WAR. While his OPS+ has consistently hovered around 100, his value has diminished with his departure from shortstop, where he only recorded a positive Defensive Run Value once in his career.
Rosario’s most memorable moment as a Met came during the covid-complicated 2020 season, when he hit a disorienting walk-off home run on the road at Yankee Stadium. Perhaps he can channel that clutch performance in the Bronx once again, this time while wearing pinstripes in October.
Paul Blackburn
But Paul Blackburn was just pitching for the Mets [checks notes] 47 days ago…how did he end up on a playoff team? The Yankees signed Blackburn on August 21, and after one disastrous outing against Boston — conveniently the team he’ll be facing in the Wild Card round starting tomorrow — he’s been stellar, allowing just two earned runs while striking out fourteen in twelve innings of relief work. By contrast, Blackburn had a 6.00 ERA during his 48.0 IP with the Mets between 2024 and 2025.
Whatever the reason behind his recent shift in results, Blackburn isn’t a lock to make the Yankees’ Wild Card roster. If he appears in the postseason, it would likely be to log low-leverage innings and relieve stress on the primary arms, meaning he might be a better fit for a later, longer postseason round.
BOSTON RED SOX
Steven Matz
It can be easy to forget just how new to the majors Steven Matz was when the Mets world hailed him as the team’s “fourth ace” in 2015. By the time he took the mound for Game 4 of the NLDS, Matz had made just six major league starts — two fewer than Nolan McLean currently has under his belt. For him to throw 14.2 postseason innings with a 3.68 ERA was a remarkable feat, one that perhaps went under-appreciated in the storm of remarkable storylines which the 2015 Mets conjured that fateful October.
It’s been an up-and-down ride for the hometown hero since leaving the Mets after the 2020 season. Matz put together quality years with Toronto in 2021 and St. Louis in 2023, but couldn’t muster a positive WAR or sub-5 ERA in 2022 or 2024 with the Cardinals. Unlike Michael Conforto, Matz has actually been on a postseason roster since 2015, though he didn’t log any innings for St. Louis in their 2022 Wild Card Series loss to the Phillies. The lefty bounced back once again this season, proving one of the more underrated trade deadline pickups by posting a 2.08 ERA in 21 relief appearances with the Red Sox. When he last saw playoff action in Game 5 of the 2015 World Series, Matz commuted to the ballpark from his childhood home in Stony Brook. It’s only fitting that he return to the playoffs by pitching back in New York, fighting to eliminate his childhood team’s fiercest rival.
DETROIT TIGERS
Rafael Montero
In May of 2014, two starting pitchers made their major league debuts for the Mets on consecutive days: Rafael Montero and Jacob deGrom. At the time, if you were to tell every fan, writer, or executive in the baseball world that one man would win two Cy Young Awards while the other would be a middle reliever with a negative career WAR, none would have assigned the players’ resumes correctly.
It’s been eight years since Montero’s once-promising Mets tenure came to an unceremonious end. Since then, he’s found flashes of success with the Rangers in 2019 and the World Series champion Astros in 2022 — most notably posting a 2.37 ERA while logging the most innings of any reliever for the latter team. What Montero hasn’t found is consistency, failing to put together two consecutive seasons with an ERA below 4.00 at any point in his career. This season, Montero bounced from Houston to Atlanta to Detroit, where he once again proved effective, recording a 2.86 ERA in 20 appearances. Thanks to his years in Houston, Montero now has ample experience on baseball’s biggest stage. Whether on the mound or in the clubhouse, that factor surely adds to the 34-year-old’s value this October.
Paul Sewald
There was a period of time when Paul Sewald was regarded as one of the best relievers in baseball. This period, of course, did not align with any of his four seasons as a Met, during which he put up a 5.50 ERA over 147.1 innings pitched. After Sewald signed with Seattle in 2021, he put up three consecutive seasons with a 130 ERA+ and at least 60.0 innings pitched, becoming one of only five pitchers to accomplish that feat in 2021-2023 along with Max Fried, Brandon Woodruff, Shohei Ohtani, and Emmanuel Clase.
Sewald helped lead the Diamondbacks to the World Series in 2023, but he struggled in the fall classic, surrendering six runs in two innings of work. Since then, the results have been middling for the veteran right-hander, with an ERA+ below 100 in each of the past two seasons. Sewald saw both sides of the A.L. Central race this season, being traded from the Guardians to the Tigers on July 31 (just in time for Detroit’s collapse). Now, he’ll be traveling back to Cleveland for the Wild Card Series. Given his fiery performances against the Mets, we can only assume that Sewald is salivating at the opportunity to eliminate a former team in the postseason.
Javier Báez
Well, we’ve talked about the player the Mets traded to acquire him and the player the Mets DFA’d to make room for him — we might as well just talk about Javier Báez. His six-year, $140M contract was panning out to be one of the worst major signings in baseball history, as the former Silver Slugger, Gold Glove Award winner, and MVP runner-up posted an ugly 71 OPS+ across his first three seasons in Detroit while seeing his WAR fall to -1.1 in 2024.
This season seemed to be the start of a new chapter for Báez. At 32 years old, he started the All-Star Game in center field — a new position where the 32-year-old has impressed — while sporting a more respectable 109 OPS+ in the first half. Since then, he’s regressed back to the Báez of recent seasons, mustering just a 51 OPS+ while striking out in over 30% of his at-bats. It’s been a disappointing decline for a player who once seemed destined for superstar status, but Javier Báez is a wild card player on a Wild Card team this October. With one big swing, he could quickly find himself back in the national spotlight.
