One of the major mysteries around baseball has revolved around ex-Mets outfielder Michael Conforto's free agency.
The Mets are about to play their sixth game of the regular-season on Tuesday evening, and Conforto has still not found a new home.
According to multiple sources with knowledge of the situation, Conforto is not close to signing with a team. Instead, he is focused on getting healthy, while taking his time and waiting for the right opportunity to come along.
Conforto's market was said to be robust prior to the lockout. But his agent Scott Boras told The Athletic and The New York Post on March 30 that the outfielder suffered a shoulder "strain" while diving for a ball during a defensive drill in January. This set Conforto back in his offseason training program and slowed his willingness to negotiate with teams once the work stoppage concluded.
Although Boras said in late-March that Conforto was once again hitting, back to his "normal swing plane" and working out for teams in Arizona, the 29-year-old is still not close to a deal as of Tuesday.
Despite enduring a down season in 2021, where he produced a batting average of just .232, while posting a .729 OPS and 14 homers, Conforto declined the Mets' one-year, $18.4 million qualifying offer back in November. He instead elected free agency, which means any team that signs him will have to forfeit their second-highest draft pick to the Mets unless a deal is made after the MLB draft wraps up on July 19.
Conforto's decision to turn down the Mets' qualifying offer signaled his desire to sign a multi-year deal in free agency. However, MLB's regular-season is a week old and he remains available on the market.
Now, Conforto's focus lies on getting 100% healthy and waiting for the right fit to present itself before signing with a team.
As of this date, the Mets have not shown interest in bringing back Conforto, who spent the first seven seasons of his career in Queens. The Mets drafted Conforto in the first round of the 2014 MLB draft. He went onto make one All-Star appearance as a Met and hit the seventh most home runs (132) in franchise history.
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