Less than two days until Major League Baseball’s trade deadline on Tuesday evening at 6 p.m. ET, and the Mets continue to be one of the hottest topics of conversation even after making to big trades to tell the rest of the sport that they’re waving the white flag in 2023.
Max Scherzer and David Robertson are gone, the former sent to the Texas Rangers. The latter sent in the division to the surprisingly-contending Miami Marlins.
It’s left a clubhouse that began the season talking about World Series aspirations in shock — the consequences of a miserable four months that’s put them on the outer limits of the National League Wild Card picture finally coming to fruition.
Steve Cohen spent more than $800 million to maintain a roster that won 101 games last season and bring on reinforcements to field a World Series contender this season. Instead, their hopes for winning the division died in June. They’re currently 18 games back of the first-place Atlanta Braves and 6.5 games back of the final Wild Card berth.
Rather than feed more of his great fortune into the underachieving club, Cohen has opted to cut his losses and begin the purge of expiring contracts that began back in June when he sent Eduardo Escobar to the Los Angeles Angels. But the gravity of the New York front office’s admittance that they’re selling is creating a last-minute frenzy before the deadline.
After Robertson and Scherzer were dealt, Justin Verlander — who as recently as last Tuesday said he was solely focused on being a Met — admitted that his stance about not waiving his no-trade clause has changed.
The Mets are undoubtedly getting calls on Verlander, including a previous inquiry from the Atlanta Braves and one from the Houston Astros in potential hopes of reuniting with the ace that won a Cy Young Award with them last year and helped win a World Series.
But Mets general manager Billy Eppler said that, while the phone lines were very much still open following the Scherzer trade’s completion on Sunday, the price point for their remaining trade chips remain high.
And Verlander is the most expensive and alluring chip in the pot.
While the Mets would have to eat a decent amount of money on Verlander’s remaining contract — he’s due another $43.3 million next season — the return in a potential trade would have to be similar to what Eppler got back from the Rangers for Scherzer in their No. 3 prospect, Luisangel Acuna, if not more.
Verlander has found his groove this season and over the last month was markedly more reliable than Scherzer. The allure of bringing on the 40-year-old, who has a 1.95 ERA over his last nine starts, could see the Mets presented with an attractive package of prospects to continue addressing their focus on building up the farm system.
Aside from the potential of a big haul for Verlander, the Mets are still garnering considerable interest for veteran outfielders Tommy Pham and Mark Canha — both of whom are on expiring contracts.
Pham has been one of New York’s more pleasant surprises this year, posting an .820 OPS with 10 home runs and 36 RBI in 79 games this season. Among the teams interested are the Minnesota Twins, Milwaukee Brewers, and Los Angeles Angels.
Canha, who is having his worst year since 2017, still drawing interest from the likes of the Brewers and the Los Angeles Dodgers as a depth option that still provides the promise of pop.
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