The Last-Place Mets Are In Limbo As The Trade Deadline Fast Approaches

NEW YORK – David Stearns and his Mets are standing on a bridge suspended over fog.

Stearns, the team’s president of baseball operations is, for some reason, trusting that the last-place Mets will turn their season around between now and the Aug. 3 trade deadline. Never mind that the Mets have lost eight of their last 13 games and have been inconsistent in all facets of the game. As he has all season, Stearns is determined to allow his roster more time to climb up the NL East and wild-card standings before making any definitive statements about the direction of the Mets.

"We're going to continue to give this team time to prove that we can get back into this in a very legitimate sense," Stearns said on Tuesday at Citi Field during his regularly-scheduled news conference. 

That being said, he’s also preparing for the worst. 

"The cutoff [to make a decision] is August 3rd," Stearns said. "The cutoff is the deadline. And clearly you have to have a strategic direction at that point. We can prepare along parallel paths as we go through this. And we know we have to play better than what we’ve played right now, and we're going to give this team a chance to do that."

The Mets (34-44) have almost six more weeks before officially declaring themselves buyers or sellers. Of course, their record and continued downward spiral says they should be sellers. New York is in fifth place, 14.5 games behind the first-place Braves and seven games behind a wild-card spot with seven teams in front of them. Just two weeks into the season, they dug themselves into a hole that has proven too immense to crawl out of.

Even now, losing a dozen consecutive games back in April still weighs on the Mets clubhouse. 

"There’s been long periods of time wondering why we’re not winning more," Mets infielder Bo Bichette told me on Tuesday. "And at the end of the day, we had a 12-game losing streak. That happened. That’s part of the season, and it’s going to take us some time to get it back. Sometimes when you go through a bad stretch like that, it feels like you need to counter it with a stretch that’s just as good. It would be nice if it happened in these next two weeks. But we have to keep on grinding."

At least in one significant way, the Mets have the same problem now as they did last year. The starting rotation is underperforming and injury-riddled and, as a result, incredibly ineffective. 

The rotation’s 4.87 ERA is ranked 27th in MLB. Only the Astros, Athletics, and Rockies are worse. The biggest disappointment of the bunch has been right-hander Freddy Peralta, whom the Mets traded for over the winter in exchange for two of their top prospects. Peralta’s 4.83 ERA is ranked 57th out of 61 qualified major-league starting pitchers. Stearns said Peralta’s bloated numbers are due to "uncharacteristic" command issues, and that he’s "working on some mechanical things." If the Mets do end up selling, Peralta is still their best trade chip. 

Mets starters have also thrown the fourth-fewest innings in the major leagues, partly because the team has been over-reliant on openers, hoping their starters will perform better pitching from the bullpen. 

Sean Manaea, who has a 4.64 ERA in 54 ⅓ innings pitched this season, recently shifted from exclusively pitching from the bullpen to finally starting games. The 34-year-old left-hander has one more season remaining on his three-year, $75 million contract. The Mets are encouraged that, after a slow start, his velocity has ticked back up, and he has looked more like the back-end starter he was always intended to be.

David Peterson, meanwhile, has a 6.09 ERA in 16 games – eight starts – and 68 innings. The 30-year-old is in his final year of team control, and at this point, it’s clear that these are the final days of his Mets tenure. The same can be said about right-hander Kodai Senga, who put the Mets in a 5-0 hole by the second inning of his Tuesday night start against the Cubs. Senga has a 10.08 ERA in seven starts this season. He has pitched as if he is unplayable in the major leagues. Still, the Mets are continuing to rely on Peterson and Senga to make starts more out of necessity than choice, to absorb the fallout from injuries, pointing to the lack of viable pitching depth in the organization as the reason.

There is no timeline for Clay Holmes’ return after he fractured his fibula on a comebacker in May. Right-hander Christian Scott is on the injured list with a right hip impingement, and he could return to the rotation sometime this weekend for the Mets’ series against the Phillies. By then, someone will be the odd-man out. 

"I do think, in terms of our rotation, it's a turn-by-turn evaluation," Stearns said. "We do need to see production there. We need to figure out a way to get ourselves later into games in competitive positions."

What could meaningfully change for the Mets between now and August? The most significant addition will be Francisco Lindor’s return from the injured list. The Mets star shortstop is on the cusp of rejoining the lineup for the first time since he sustained a calf stain at the end of April. Lindor and Juan Soto have appeared in the same lineup in just nine games this season. Lindor went on the IL the same day Soto returned from the IL, with both Mets stars sustaining calf strains. And Soto, just before Lindor's planned return, is suddenly day-to-day with back tightness after exiting Tuesday's contest in the fifth.

There are still no positive updates on first baseman Jorge Polanco (left Achilles bursitis) and center fielder Luis Robert Jr. (lumbar spine disc herniation). Still, if nothing else, the Mets offense will be closer to full strength once their shortstop is back. Cue the expectations, at least externally, that Lindor will save the Mets season. 

"I think we're at the point of the season where there's a sense of urgency," Stearns said. "Now, that urgency isn't a week or two, as we talked about. We have a period of time here before we have to make any finite decisions about a trade deadline strategy or anything like that. 

"We're also at a period of time when we've got to start playing better baseball, win more games consistently. Francisco's a big part of that. We think he can help us. So I think it's both, you know, we have a sense of urgency throughout our team right now. We also can't put everything on Francisco to come back, at a time when he hasn't been playing baseball very much, and expect him to put us on his back."

Looming over all of this is Steve Cohen, the ultra-rich Mets owner who's carrying a $375 million-plus payroll, the second-highest in MLB behind only the Dodgers. Last year, the Mets missed the playoffs while flashing a $340 million payroll. The core of last year's team was broken up by Stearns over the offseason. This year, Stearns built the Mets roster to his vision.

According to those familiar with his thinking, Cohen would find it unacceptable if the Mets missed the playoffs in back-to-back seasons. Things are certainly trending that way, so what has the team owner told his front-office leader about how he would like to handle the upcoming trade deadline?

"Look, I think Steve wants us to certainly be better than we are," Stearns said. "He's frustrated. We're all frustrated. Steve expects us to do better than this. I expect us to do better than this. He, like me, is going to withhold judgment on any sort of trade deadline strategy until we have to make a decision closer to that time."

OK, then. Six more weeks of living in limbo, then Judgment Day.