After acquiring Marcus Stroman from the Blue Jays earlier in the week, many expected New York Mets general manager Brodie Van Wagenen to remain a busy man over the subsequent days.
But, as the trade deadline came and went — despite a seemingly endless stream of rumors leading up to it — New York’s first-year GM stood pat, electing to hold on to power righty, Noah Syndergaard, closer, Edwin Diaz, and impending free-agents, Zack Wheeler and Todd Frazier.
With just five games separating the Mets from their first postseason berth since 2016, this team bolstered their rotation to elite levels, switching out Jason Vargas (traded to Philadelphia on Tuesday) with Stroman, but held off on upgrading in any other areas.
That could end up posing an issue down the stretch if this team does indeed find themselves in a playoff race.
Seeing as how Diaz has been iffy, at best, over his short tenure in Queens (5.05 ERA, 3.93 FIP, 13.83 K/9, 3.29 BB/9), another bullpen arm — like the five that got divvied between their NL East rivals, Atlanta and Washington — could have gone a long way.
After the trade buzz settled down, Van Wagenen spoke to the Mets’ press corps, giving just a glimpse into what was going on in Flushing leading up to 4 PM ET (quotes via Tim Britton, The Athletic).
“We evaluated a lot of different options, but we wanted to make sure we only considered moves that improved our club and kept us on a mission. We’re the underdogs; we’re chasing the rest of the pack” Van Wagenen said. “In particular to the players that have expiring contracts, we wanted to make good baseball moves […] Zack Wheeler matters to us.”
“We did evaluate a lot of the bullpen options […] For us, we felt like getting [Stroman] in this marketplace was going to be more valuable,” he said. “There were more conversations than there was action.”
A rotation of Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Zack Wheeler, Marcus Stroman, and Steven Matz should theoretically lower the burden on the Mets’ relief corps, limiting the number of times skipper Mickey Callaway will need to go to his beleaguered bullpen in a game. That’s a great thing.
But relying on Seth Lugo continuing to dominate, Justin Wilson to remain solid since his return to the team, and Robert Gsellman to be consistently effective, while at the same time praying that Diaz finds his way, is a risky way to go about things.
The Nationals picked up right-hander, Daniel Hudson, from Toronto, and plucked left-hander Roenis Elias and righty, Hunter Strickland from Seattle. The Braves went all out, adding right-handers Shane Greene from Detroit and Mark Melancon from San Francisco.
Any of those guys surely could have helped the Mets’ cause, but, alas, this current roster is the one that’s taking us home. Let’s hope Brodie chose wisely.
