QUEENS, NY — The New York Mets acquired right-handed starting pitcher Paul Blackburn from the Oakland Athletics on Tuesday, roughly two hours before the Major League Baseball 6 p.m. ET trade deadline.
The Mets are sending right-handed pitcher Kade Morris, currently in High-A ball, back to the Athletics in the deal. Morris was the team’s No. 25-ranked prospect.
Blackburn, 30, is 4-2 with a 4.41 ERA this season with 38 strikeouts in 51 innings pitched. He returned from a stress reaction in his right foot just last week, which had held him out since early May.
An All-Star in 2022, Blackburn owns a 4.83 ERA in 81 career starts with a 1.396 WHIP.
“I think this is an incredibly consistent pitcher,” president of baseball operations David Stearns said. “He fills the strike zone and has kind of a kitchen sink approach to what he does. We think he’s going to fit into our rotation quite nicely.”
This is a pitcher that fits the mold of a project for Stearns, who has helped Luis Severino and Sean Manaea get back on track after struggles in recent years. Blackburn is a pitcher with an expanded arsenal that induces weak contact when he is at his best.
Per Baseball Savant, he has thrown six pitches at least 10% of the time this season: A 92-mph four-seamer, an 89-mph cutter, an 85-mph changeup, an 81-mph slider, a 79-mph curveball, and a 91.4-mph sinker. The cutter, changeup, slider, and curveball all have whiff rates over 25% in 2024. It has helped him build an offspeed run value that ranks in the 90th percentile amongst all pitchers in Major League Baseball this season.
Getting a starting pitcher while not subtracting from the organization’s crop of top prospects was crucial for Stearns, who has seen his starting rotation cut down over the past week. Christian Scott is on the 15-day IL with a sprained UCL and Kodai Senga’s season is over before it ever really began after he suffered a high-grade calf strain in his 2024 debut on Friday against the Atlanta Braves.
The Mets also saw Adrian Houser fail to secure the No. 5 role in the rotation — he was designated for assignment after a cameo as a long reliever — while Tylor Megill and David Peterson struggle to find consistency at the MLB level.
Blackburn is projected to fill a role near the bottom of New York’s rotation.
