Tuesday’s MLB trade deadline was a tough pill to swallow for many Mets’ fans. The team parted with two future Hall of Fame pitchers as well as several other useful veterans, officially punting on the 2023 season, and making it so they will have a lot of work to do to be relevant in 2024, as well.
However, the organization also completely reset its farm system, bringing in as many as four Top-100 prospects and several others who could also make it to the big leagues with the Mets some day.
The biggest names brought in by the Mets include outfielders Drew Gilbert and Ryan Clifford from Houston in the Justin Verlander trade, Luisangel Acuña in the deal with the the Rangers for Max Scherzer, and Marco Vargas and Ronald Hernandez, rookie-ball players who the Mets acquired from Miami in the deal earlier this week for David Robertson.
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All of those players except Hernandez slot in among the Mets’ Top 10 organizational prospects, according to MLB Pipeline, with Acuña and Gilbert ranking in the top four along with Kevin Parada and Ronny Mauricio.
The Mets have now set themselves up for an intriguing future, with young talent around the diamond. While their pitching currently lags behind their hitting in terms of future prospects, six of their top 15 prospects are pitchers as well.
While 2024 figures to be a transitional season, by 2025, the Mets could be trotting up an everyday lineup featuring a plethora of former elite prospects, as well as multiple star veterans who will still be under contract.
If the Mets sign absolutely zero free agent position players beyond 2024, and let Pete Alonso walk after next season (which still feels unlikely), they could still play a 2025 lineup that might look something like this based on when the team’s top prospects are expected to reach the major leagues.
C Francisco Álvarez
1B Mark Vientos
2B Luisangel Acuña
3B Brett Baty
LF Drew Gilbert
RF Jeff McNeil
DH Ronny Mauricio
That is without factoring in Starling Marte, who would be in the last year of his contract, and other Mets’ prospects with ETAs before 2025 like Alex Ramirez and newly-acquired Jeremiah Jackson.
By 2026, the likes of Ramirez, Parada, Clifford, and Jett Williams may also be ready to play every day, creating even more options for the organization and giving them insurance of some of the prospects don’t pan out the way they were hoping. Just for fun, lets’ run out a potential 2026 lineup purely based on those currently in the organization, although it’s nearly impossible to project it this far out.
C Francisco Álvarez
1B Kevin Parada
2B Luisangel Acuña
SS Francisco Lindor
3B Brett Baty
LF Drew Gilbert
CF Jett Williams
RF Brandon Nimmo
DH Mark Vientos/Ronny Mauricio
Utility Jeff McNeil
Again, that is leaving out big-name prospects like Clifford and Ramirez. If the likes of Vientos and Mauricio, for example, don’t pan out at the big-league level by then, the Mets will have other options waiting in the wings.
The best part about where the Mets stand, is that they don’t need to rely on those 2025 or 2026 lineups listed above being reality. Under Steve Cohen, the Mets will continue to pursue high-level free agents, even if they take a small gap year from doing that in 2024 (although I’d wager money they at least submit a strong offer to Shohei Ohtani).
In addition to Ohtani, the next free agent class features players like Matt Chapman, Cody Bellinger, and J.D. Martinez who could be attractive to the Mets. After the 2024 season, players like Juan Soto, Paul Goldschmidt, Jose Altuve, and Alex Bregman (in addition to Alonso) are set to become available. The Mets can bolster their big-league club by signing veterans who still play at elite levels to short-term deals while they develop their elite prospects.
With their position-player group in such excellent shape however, the Mets now have the luxury to invest further in pitching and fill in around the margins when it comes to position players. They also now have the capital to strike a big trade for a star player should they choose to go in that direction in either of the next two seasons.
The Mets have built an exciting pathway to the future, while sacrificing some relevancy in the present. While they still need to continue to invest in the organization to truly become the “Dodgers East” that Steve Cohen envisioned, Tuesday was a difficult but important step in setting themselves up for long-term success.
