The Mets suffered a tough loss on Wednesday night in which the bullpen blew their league-leading 19 save and dropped their record to a season-worst seven games below .500 at 37-44.
At the halfway point of the season, the Mets sit in fourth place and 11 games back of the first place Atlanta Braves. They are only five and half games ahead of the last place Miami Marlins.
The Mets and new manager Brodie Van Wagenen were expecting to be contenders in 2019, but now they face a July 31 trade deadline in which they are starting to look more like sellers. Van Wagenen was said to be hired by the Mets because he didn’t want to rebuild the Mets and he made several moves during his first offseason that dealt away prospects for major league ready pieces.
Instead, the Mets have been one of the worst teams in the National League.
Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil, Michael Conforto, Dominic Smith, Edwin Diaz, Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, and Seth Lugo give the Mets a good controllable nucleus to build around. The Mets pending free agents are Zack Wheeler and Todd Frazier while the Mets have options on Jason Vargas and Juan Lagares for the 2020 season.
Now the question becomes, how will handle Van Wagenen handle his first trade deadline if the Mets continue to play poor baseball. Will he sell only the short-term pieces or does he look to maximize on current value with someone like Lugo?
