Was the Mets trade deadline disappointing or smart?

New York defeats the Twins for a second straight night, winning 2-0. Plus, evaluating the first trade deadline under David Stearns.

What’s Up with the Mets? ⚾️

• The Mets shutout the Twins and won for the second consecutive night, beating the Twins by a 2-0 score (box)

• LHP Sean Manaea was brilliant in the win, pitching seven scoreless innings while allowing just two hits, one walk and striking of a season-high 11 batters

• RHP Edwin Díaz converted his first four-out save of the season and his 13th save overall, retiring all four batters he faced with two strikeouts

• 3B Mark Vientos crushed a solo home run (15) as part of a 1-for-3 day at the plate

• DH J.D. Martínez went 2-for-4 with a double and an RBI single in the victory

• The Mets made four separate moves on the day of the trade deadline…

  • New York acquired RHP Paul Blackburn from the A’s on Tuesday in exchange for No. 25 ranked prospect RHP Kade Morris (story)

  • New York acquired RHP Tyler Zuber from the Rays in exchange for minor league RHP Paul Gervase

  • New York acquired RHP Huascar Brazobán from the Marlins in exchange for INF Wilfredo Lara

  • New York acquired rookie ball LHP Nicolas Carreno from the Pirates in exchange for LHP Josh Walker, who had been designated for assignment last week

• With the win on Tuesday night, the Mets are now 17-9 in the month of July, 29-13 since Grimace threw out the first pitch and 35-17 since May 30th

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Playoff Race 🏁

The Mets are just a half-game back of the Braves for the first Wild Card spot in the National League. They are tied with the Padres with both teams are a half-game ahead of the Diamondbacks. Both the Pirates and the Cardinals are a full two games back of the Mets.

There are 55 games remaining.

Per FanGraphs, the Mets have a 55.9% chance of making the postseason.

New York has the 8th easiest schedule in MLB the rest of the way.

Tiebreakers:

• vs. ATL: 5-5

• vs. ARI: 2-2

• vs. STL: 3-2

• vs. SD: 3-0

• vs. CIN: 2-1

• vs. SF: 2-4 (finished)

• vs. PIT: 5-2 (finished)

• vs. CHC: 4-3 (finished)

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Roster Moves 📰

• Traded LHP Josh Walker in exchange for LHP Nicolas Carreno

• Acquired RHP Paul Blackburn in exchange for RHP Kade Morris

• RHP Shintaro Fujinami outrighted to Triple-A Syracuse

• Acquired RHP Tyler Zuber in exchange for RHP Paul Gervase

• Acquired RHP Huascar Brazobán in exchange for INF Wilfredo Lara

• SS Trey Snider signed

• RHP Ty Adcock designated for assignment

• C Logan Porter designated for assignment

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Injury Updates 🏥

• C Francisco Álvarez (left shoulder) missed his third consecutive game on Tuesday night

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Down on the Farm 🌾

• RHP Mike Vasil (No. 11 prospect, Triple-A): 7 IP, 4 H, ER, 2 BB, 8 K (win)

• 2B Luke Ritter (Triple-A): 3-for-3, HR (20), 2B, 2 BB

• OF Drew Gilbert (No. 2 prospect, Triple-A): 2-for-4, RBI, BB

BOX SCORES

Single-A STL | High-A BRK (PPD) | Double-A BNG | Triple-A SYR

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Today’s Game 🗓

Match-up: Mets (57-50) vs. Twins (58-48)

Where: Citi Field — Flushing, NY

Starters: RHP Luis Severino (7-3, 3.58 ERA) vs. RHP Pablo López (9-7, 4.73 ERA)

When: 1:10 PM EDT

Where to Watch: SNY

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What to make of the Mets trade deadline… ✍️

One of the more fascinating trade deadlines over the last several years for the Mets is officially in the books, and David Stearns’ first since taking over this front office.

There was a lot of curiosity how Stearns and the organization would handle this deadline after vaulting themselves into the thick of a playoff race that many people in the organization may not have completely seen coming. Just two months ago, the Mets looked as if they were going to be one of the primary sellers in all of baseball but because of their hot play, they actually forced the front office’s hand and turned them into buyers.

Even so, despite the fact that New York is firmly in Wild Card contention right now and would act as buyers, it still remained to be seen just how aggressive this front office was going to be. How “in” do you go for a team that you feel is flawed and potentially performing at a level that you didn’t expect until 2025 and beyond?

If the last few weeks – all culminating on Tuesday evening – told us anything, it’s that the Mets chose to play things safe.

New York began their trade deadline season earlier than other teams as they acquired reliever Phil Maton from the Rays on July 9th. New York’s quest to revamp their bullpen continued five days ago, acquiring reliever Ryne Stanek from the Mariners on July 26th.

The Mets set their plans in motion early, both due to the fact that they likely wanted to jump the market a bit, and more simply because they were in desperate need of more fresh bodies with the massive struggles the bullpen was undergoing and the challenging injuries they faced after losing both Reed Garrett and now Deniel Núñez to the injured list.

New York made another trade just two days later, this time addressing their offense, by acquiring outfielder and long-time nemesis Jesse Winker from the division rival Nationals.

And that leads us to Tuesday, the final day the club could make any moves to bolster their roster aside from marginal waiver claims in August (remember, waiver trades post-trade deadline no longer exist). All-in-all, the Mets were active on the final day of trading as they were involved in four separate deals, three of which impacted their major league roster, although none was exactly the “game-changing” type of move that maybe some fans had held out hope for.

Instead, Stearns and the Mets focused on more shrewd acquisitions in attempts to strengthen the edges of their roster rather than going for broke. In a season where not many expected this team to be where they are and still see the flaws on this roster that is not yet fully complete in the eye of their President of Baseball Operations, it does make sense that the Mets would not pivot so dramatically to go all in on this season.

That being said, I still can understand why some fans may be disappointed. While the reasoning behind it made sense and I wasn’t exactly rooting for the team to detonate their own farm system — which they only very recently built back up to be one of the better groups in baseball — it was a bit lackluster to see more fringe-type moves being made than ones that may have had more impact. This, of course, is not solely on the Mets, though, as certain big-name players on mediocre teams such as Blake Snell and Garrett Crochet wound up not being dealt at all.

When you watch a team that has played as spirited as they have for the last two months now, one that seems as if they’ve got that special kind of vibe and energy surrounding them, it’s bittersweet when it feels like you didn’t do enough to help them reach their goals. Two years later, fans are still feeling the sting of the 2022 trade deadline from former GM Billy Eppler who chose a similar “fringe” approach for one of the best regular season teams in franchise history, acquiring players like Daniel Vogelbach, Darin Ruf, Tyler Naquin and Mychal Givens. That decision, rather famously, blew up in the organizations face and reminded everyone that you don’t get as many chances as you think to have a team worth going for it at the trade deadline.

All-in-all, the Mets acquired six players via trade in July to help improve their roster: Phil Maton, Ryne Stanek, Jesse Winker, Paul Blackburn, Tyler Zuber and Huascar Brazobán. And in that process, New York only gave up four players ranked in their top 30 prospects, three of whom were ranked 22nd or lower and the highest ranked prospect being RHP Tyler Stuart (No. 17 per MLB.com).

It’s also worth noting that of these six players, half of them – Blackburn, Zuber and Brazobán – are under team control beyond this season, and Maton has a team option for 2025.

While it definitely feels like a mixed bag of a deadline – I myself am still feeling a bit emotionally conflicted about it – it’s hard to argue with the logic or the results of getting that many players with some sort of value for as little as they did.

Perhaps we’ll look back in a few months and bemoan the fact that Stearns didn’t believe in his roster enough and that these moves mostly fell short, or maybe it goes the other way and you get a bit of a 2021 Braves thing going on like they had with Jorge Soler, Adam Duvall and Eddie Rosario.

Or, more likely than not, it may very well just fall somewhere in-between. Perhaps that wouldn’t be so bad, or maybe it would feel like an opportunity missed. At the end of the day, we’re not really going to know how any of this is gonna go until we actually see it all transpire over these final 55 games.

We were all excited in 2015 when Sandy Alderson acquired Yoenis Céspedes, but did any of us have any idea how impactful he would truly wind up being? And on the other end of the spectrum there have been major trades that people were excited about that didn’t lead to team success like Jay Bruce or Javier Báez. At the end of the day, there’s really no way of knowing how these things are going to go in the moment.

It goes against the reactionary nature of sports, especially in this modern age of real-time social media and bullshit debate shows on sports talk radio and TV, but it’s one of those things that you just need to sit back and let take place before you make up your mind and have a strong opinion either way.

That’s the route I’ve decided I’m taking, and I hope when we look back on these few weeks down the line we’ll remember them fondly rather than asking ourselves the age old question, “what if…?”

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Around the League 🚩

• Yankees INF Jazz Chisholm had a two home run game for the second straight night, becoming the first player in franchise history to hit four home runs in his first three games with the club, as New York defeated the Phillies 7-6 in 12 innings

• The Dodgers acquired RHP Jack Flaherty from the Tigers in exchange for C/1B Thayron Liranzo and SS Trey Sweeney

• The Orioles acquired OF/DH Eloy Jimenez from the White Sox in exchange for minor league reliever Trey McGough

• Orioles top prospect Jackson Holliday is reportedly being recalled to the major leagues on Wednesday

• The Padres acquired LHP Tanner Scott and RHP Bryan Hoeing from the Marlins in exchange for two of their top prospects LHP Robby Snelling and RHP Adam Mazur

• Cardinals OF Tommy Pham hit a grand slam in his first at-bat since re-joining the organization in the club’s 8-1 blowout win vs the Rangers

• Despite trading away RHP Alex Cobb and DH Jorge Soler, the Giants oddly decided to hold onto LHP Blake Snell and acquire DH/OF Mark Canha from the Tigers in exchange for RHP Eric Silva

• The Marlins completed their fire sale on Tuesday, trading away LHP Tanner Scott, 1B Josh Bell, OF Bryan De La Cruz, LHP Trevor Rogers, RHP Huascar Brazobán, RHP JT Chargois and RHP Bryan Hoeing after dealing 2B Jazz Chisholm and LHP A.J. Puk in the last week