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Ib\u00e1\u00f1ez, 33, is a utility guy who provides defensive versatility. His offense has been mercurial and is currently at a low ebb. He had solid seasons in 2021 and 2023, with a swoon in 2022. Over the 2024 and 2025 campaigns, he slashed .240\/.297\/.355 for the Tigers. That production led to an 85 wRC+, indicating he was 15% worse than league average. Detroit could have retained him via arbitration but non-tendered him instead, sending him to free agency.<\/p>\n
Teams around the league still believe in his potential. The Dodgers signed him to a one-year, $1.2MM deal in January. The designated him for assignment a couple of weeks later, which may seem odd, but was by design.<\/p>\n
Ib\u00e1\u00f1ez has just over three years of service time. Players with at least three years of service have the right to reject outright assignments after clearing waivers. However, if they have less than five, they have to walk away from their salary commitments. The Dodgers were hoping that the contract was enough for other teams to pass on him. Once he passed through waivers, he wouldn\u2019t want to walk away from the $1.2MM, so he would surely stick around as non-roster depth.<\/p>\n
The A\u2019s interrupted that plan, claiming him back in February. He stuck around for a few weeks but hit .118\/.167\/.118 in 18 plate appearances. Despite that poor showing in recent weeks, the Mets are going to take a shot on him.<\/p>\n
Ib\u00e1\u00f1ez will at least provide some flexibility off the bench. He has experience at all four infield spots and the outfield corners. His shortstop work consists of just nine innings but he has over 1,000 innings at second base and almost 800 at third, with good numbers to boot. Combining that with improved offense would be ideal but it\u2019s been a few years. His most recent above-average offensive season was 2023, when he hit .264\/.312\/.433 for a 103 wRC+.<\/p>\n
The Mets have operated with narrow infield flexibility for much of this year. They opened the campaign with Francisco Lindor<\/a><\/strong> at shortstop, Marcus Semien<\/a><\/strong> at second and Bo Bichette<\/a><\/strong> at third. First base has been shared by a rotation of Jorge Polanco<\/a><\/strong>, Mark Vientos<\/a><\/strong>, Jared Young<\/a><\/strong> and Brett Baty<\/a><\/strong>. with Young and Baty also playing some outfield. The Mets have mostly been playing without a bench infielder. Bichette was effectively the backup for Lindor, while guys like Baty or Vientos could cover third for Bichette. Baty could also cover second if Semien missed time.<\/p>\n The picture has been shuffled in recent weeks. Lindor, Polanco and Young have all hit the IL recently, as has outfielder Luis Robert Jr.<\/a><\/strong> That leaves the Mets with Ronny Mauricio<\/a><\/strong> at short, while Bichette and Semien still hold their positions. Mauricio has struck out in nine of his 22 plate appearances so far this year. The Mets called up infielder\/outfielder Eric Wagaman<\/a><\/strong> today when Robert hit the IL but Wagaman is more of a corner guy. Ib\u00e1\u00f1ez gives them some more cover in the middle infield. Wagaman\u00a0has options and could be sent back out when Ib\u00e1\u00f1ez joins the team.<\/p>\n Photo courtesy of Scott Marshall, Imagn Images<\/em>\n <\/div>\n The Mets have claimed infielder\/outfielder Andy Ib\u00e1\u00f1ez off waivers from the Athletics, per an announcement from the A\u2019s. Francys Romero of BeisbolFR\u00a0reported the move prior to the official announcement. The A\u2019s designated him for assignment a few days ago. The Mets have an open 40-man spot after designating Carl Edwards Jr. for assignment earlier today. … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29223,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Mets-Claim-Andy-Ibanez-MLB-Trade-Rumors.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29222"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29224,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29222\/revisions\/29224"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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