He has roughly the same OPS this year against Lefties as Ryan Howard, at a more premium defensive position. (and even with his arbitration raise will be making a 6th of what he does) Yes, he's not playing it well this year, but that's actually the oddity. He's got a positive defensive WAR every other year. His .164 BABIP in April is the luck that's pulling his stats down, even his average against lefties. He's only got 108 PA against them. Also, the Scott Hairston (and even Paulino) lefty-mashing signings were probably a result of Alderson's understanding of Pagans lefty troubles. I'm not trying to deny he's having a bad year. He's having a bad year in the field and at the plate. He's 18th among qualifying CFers in OPS. (Of course, his career numbers, particularly his Mets career, would have him in the top half and he usually plays better defense than many of them) I think it's a reasonable assumption to expect Pagan to basically be Pagan next year. And even for $4 mill or so, that's going to be valuable. There also isn't going to be a whole lot of options for the Mets to replace him for both a reasonable rate and have that replacement be obviously and predictably better. Certainly can keep an eye out, but it definitely seems more reasonable to keep Pagan, and let a prospect attempt to push him out. The Mets already need to replace RF, and while it's likely Duda, he's certainly not a lock to be a good player. But yes, we've had this argument before. And really, not much has changed beyond the raise he's going to get.