In an chat with The Athletic, Max Scherzer said the Mets are retooling to be competitive in 2025 and 2026.

In talking with the Mets’ brass—aka owner Steve Cohen and general manager Billy Eppler—Scherzer asked if the Mets were going to reload in 2024. Scherzer said Eppler told him, “No, we’re not. Basically our vision now is for 2025-2026, ‘25 at the earliest, more like ‘26. We’re going to be making trades around that.”

And that they’ve done.

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The Mets have dealt Scherzer and now Justin Verlander in exchange for three Top 100 prospects: Luisangel Acuña, Drew Gilbert, and Ryan Clifford. They also traded for Marco Vargas (generally viewed as a Top 100 guy) and Ronald Hernandez (a Top 20 team prospect) for David Robertson.

Scherzer also said that Eppler informed him that the team wasn’t going to aim for “upper-echelon” players this offseason. That would mean not making a bid for Shohei Ohtani.

“I was like, ‘So the team is not going to be pursuing free agents this offseason or assemble a team that can compete for a World Series next year?’” Scherzer asked. “He said, ‘No, we’re not going to be signing the upper-echelon guys. We’re going to be on the smaller deals within free agency. ‘24 is now looking to be more of a kind of transitory year.’”

He also said the team told him that the team would be open to moving players who are free agents after 2024. Scherzer called the names “substantial.” That makes you think Pete Alonso. However, on a more realistic level, that includes Brooks Raley, Omar Narvaez, José Quintana, and Adam Ottavino.

Scherzer also said Steve Cohen told him, “I never thought in a million years we’d be in this situation, being at the deadline and we’re actually selling. But the math is the math. And the math says this organization needs to retool.”

“That was Steve saying that,” Scherzer said.

At the same length, as old friend Sam Lebowitz pointed out to me, the Mets needed Scherzer to waive his no-trade clause to get a deal done and acquire the best prospects. After all of this, we’ll certainly get comments from Billy Eppler. Steve Cohen should hold a press conference, too.

There’s just over an hour left until the trade deadline.