This Week in Mets: What does New York really need at the trade deadline?

New York Times

3 days ago

'The ability to imagine is the largest part of what you call intelligence. You think the ability to imagine is merely a useful step on the way to solving a problem or making something happen. But imagining it is what makes it happen.'
—'Sphere,' Michael Crichton
The trade deadline is as many days away as Ronny Mauricio had hits Sunday night, and the Mets have won seven in a row. Let's get right to it and break down as narrowly as we can what the Mets could really use this week.
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President of baseball operations David Stearns has already singled out center field as the logical area for an offensive upgrade, were the Mets to make one. New York entered Sunday with the second-worst OPS in baseball from the position.
The situation in center is tied to the uncertainty the Mets have at second and third base. Jeff McNeil is going to start pretty much every day at second or center, and New York has Brett Baty, Ronny Mauricio, Mark Vientos and Tyrone Taylor as options to fill out the lineup. (Vientos could also see time at designated hitter, depending on the health of Starling Marte and Jesse Winker down the stretch.)
In a perfect world, Baty and Mauricio could start against righties, and Vientos and Taylor could start against lefties. But Vientos and Taylor have had poor seasons overall, including against southpaws. That's been a team-wide problem for New York's right-handed hitters. The Mets entered Sunday ranking 20th in baseball in OPS against southpaws; strangely, that's attributable almost entirely to the right-handed hitters in New York's lineup struggling against lefties. The Mets' left-handed hitters have an OPS more than 100 percentage points better against lefties than their righty hitters.
So the best fit in center field is someone who handles the position defensively — Stearns has very clearly emphasized that — while excelling against left-handed pitching. Looking at the center-field options, that knocks out the lefty-swinging Jarren Duran (who would probably cost too much to consider anyway) and Cedric Mullins (who has been in a deep slump since the end of April). It leaves three interesting names: Luis Robert Jr., Harrison Bader and Dane Myers.
Robert, you know. He hit 38 homers in 2023 and has been terrible ever since. He has been hot lately, and there's a school of thought that a change of scenery would reinvigorate him. If the Mets acquired him, it would be because they want him in center field most days, which would put McNeil at second and leave third base to the trio of Baty, Mauricio and Vientos. There'd be more protection in case one or more of those young players struggled.
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Despite the recent struggles, Robert would require a real return. The closest comparison I can find for him is the Milwaukee Brewers' 2014 trade for Gerardo Parra, which cost the Brewers a recent first-round pick (No. 38 Mitch Haniger) and a starter having a breakthrough year in A-ball en route to being a fringe top-100 prospect (Anthony Banda). The Mets would not want to give up that much.
Bader, you know. He was in Queens last year, and his season turned disappointing in part because he didn't hit left-handed pitching as well as he has over his career. He's had a nice year with the Minnesota Twins and an especially hot July.
A good comp for a Bader trade is either the Mets' trading Tommy Pham away in 2023 (for Jeremy Rodriguez, whom FanGraphs viewed as a top-100 prospect within a year) or the New York Yankees' trade for Andrew Benintendi in 2022, when a recent first-round pick (No. 38 again) was the key piece going to the Kansas City Royals.
Myers, you might not know. The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal mentioned him briefly last week. He's a 29-year-old with the Miami Marlins whose defensive metrics grade out well; he has the same number of outs above average as Tyrone Taylor in fewer innings, though he's behind in defensive runs saved. And Myers has hit lefties very well: an .866 OPS for his career, and an .866 OPS this season. Myers is basically having the season the Mets expected out of Taylor, and in that regard, it's not a given he'll outperform him the rest of the way. Myers would come with four additional years of team control, so the Marlins do not need to move him. But he's 29, and Miami has a center-field prospect waiting.
I don't have a good comp for a Myers trade. The closest I can come up with is when the Chicago White Sox traded catcher Reese McGuire with three more years of team control to the Red Sox, though for veteran reliever Jake Diekman. A Myers trade would probably include a fringe top-20 prospect in the organization as the headliner, if I'm speculating.
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You wouldn't have known it from this weekend in San Francisco (at least for the first 26 innings), but think back to last year's National League Championship Series. What haunted the Mets' bullpen more than anything? Walks.
The bullpen entered Sunday with a 9.3 percent walk rate, the 14th highest in baseball. That's not too bad, right? Well, unfortunately, Max Kranick and his 3.4 percent walk rate won't be part of the calculation. Let's look at six key relievers and their walk rates:
(For what it's worth, Brooks Raley has walked two of 14 batters faced this season. His walk rate with the Mets in his last full season in 2023 was 10.6 percent.)
That 11.0 percent combined walk rate would be the second-highest in the league. So, what would really help the Mets' pen would be a late-game arm who is stingy with free passes. And the three players who stick out the most in that regard are Minnesota's Griffin Jax (6.8 percent walk rate) and Pittsburgh Pirates teammates David Bednar (6.8 percent) and Dennis Santana (6.0 percent).
Jax's relatively low walk rate stands out because he doesn't throw many pitches in the strike zone. He throws fewer than half his pitches in the strike zone (similar to, say, Reed Garrett) while generating an incredible amount of chase on his slider and changeup. (He has the fourth-best chase rate in baseball.)
The best comp for a Jax deal is probably Cleveland's deal for Andrew Miller in 2016, which cost it two top-100 prospects (and two other pitchers who made the big leagues).
Bednar, a two-time All-Star, has returned to form after being sent down back in April. He relies on his 97 mph four-seamer as well as a curveball and splitter; the curve would be a different look for the bullpen, as almost no one else throws it.
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The best comp for a Bednar deal is another one Pittsburgh made: sending Mark Melancon to the Washington Nationals in 2016 and getting Felipe Vázquez back. Vázquez became an All-Star closer before sexual assault charges ended his major-league career.
The difference between Santana and Jax is that Santana still throws a fastball a fair amount of the time, and he throws it in the zone. Santana generates chase (the 13th most in baseball) with his slider. Santana has been especially tough against left-handed hitters, holding them to five hits in 57 at-bats — none of them for extra bases. Santana doesn't strike out hitters the way Jax and Bednar do.
Santana could compare to an earlier Pirates trade, when they sent reliever Richard Rodriguez to the Atlanta Braves in 2021 for a young starter in Bryse Wilson.
I'd trade for 1999 Shawon Dunston and 2015 Addison Reed.
No, I'd basically make these moves in tandem. If the Mets prioritize Robert in center field, they can make a smaller move for the pen with Santana. If they really want Jax, they can do something smaller for Myers in center. If they want to take the middle road, Bader and Bednar work.
The Mets finished a sweep of the San Francisco Giants on Sunday to push their winning streak to seven. At 62-44, New York leads the National League East by 1 1/2 games over the Philadelphia Phillies and is within a half-game of the Chicago Cubs and Brewers for the best record in the National League.
The San Diego Padres came back over the weekend to split a four-game series in St. Louis and salvage a 5-5 trip to start the second half. San Diego is 57-49 and owns the final NL wild card, one game ahead of the Cincinnati Reds.
The Giants, as you may have deduced from above, were swept by the Mets. San Francisco dropped to 54-52 and is now three games behind San Diego for that last wild card. The Pirates come to the Bay for three games before the Giants head east.
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at San Diego
RHP Frankie Montas (3-1, 4.62 ERA) vs. RHP Dylan Cease (3-10, 4.59 ERA)
LHP Sean Manaea (1-1, 2.19) vs. RHP Yu Darvish (0-3, 9.18)
RHP Clay Holmes (9-5, 3.40) vs. RHP Nick Pivetta (10-3, 2.81)
vs. San Francisco
LHP David Peterson (7-4, 2.83) vs. LHP Robbie Ray (9-5, 2.93)
RHP Kodai Senga (7-3, 2.00) vs. RHP Carson Seymour (0-0, 3.00)
RHP Frankie Montas vs. TBD
Red = 60-day IL
Orange = 15-day IL
Blue = 10-day IL
• Paul Blackburn should be back within a week, likely in the bullpen. The Mets don't need a sixth starter again until late August.
• Tylor Megill might be back that final week of August to be that sixth starter. Megill should start a rehab assignment soon.
• Jose Siri still hasn't restarted a running program, but the Mets still think he should be back at some point this season.
Triple A: Syracuse at Buffalo (Toronto Blue Jays)
Double A: Binghamton vs. Harrisburg (Washington)
High A: Brooklyn vs. Jersey Shore (Philadelphia)
Low A: St. Lucie at Jupiter (Miami)
• Even after adding Gregory Soto, the Mets should add a setup man
• Our trade deadline mailbag answers questions about Clay Holmes, Mark Vientos and more
• An overview of the Mets' needs and possible solutions
• Intel on how the Mets feel about center field; intel on how others think they'll behave in the pitcher markets
• It was a big week for Francisco Alvarez and Brett Baty
• The Mets should care about every little upgrade
• The Athletic's trade deadline big board
So, after I found last week's sci-fi novel (Ray Nayler's 'The Mountain in the Sea') lacking a little in the cheap thrills department, I read Crichton's 'Sphere.' It was basically the opposite of Nayler's book: a lot of propulsive plot, though with less currency behind it (and a bit of an anticlimactic ending). Thus concludes my mid-summer interlude into science fiction.
The Dunston trade in 1999 worked out. But one for reliever Billy Taylor did not. Which two relievers did the Mets send to the Athletics in return for Taylor?
I'll reply to the correct answer in the comments.
(Photo of Jeff McNeil: Ishika Samant / Getty Images)