Three Mets trade targets flying under the radar this winter

2) Left-Handed Pitcher Daniel Norris

The Detroit Tigers have a plethora of young pitching that has been moving quickly through their farm system and up to the big league level over the last two seasons. With the amount of young pitching that the Tigers are bringing up to the Major Leagues there are a few pitchers who have had their roles shift out of the starting rotation and one of those pitchers is left-hander Daniel Norris.

The 27-year old southpaw pitched 27.2 innings mainly out of the bullpen this past season and pitched to a 3.25 ERA with 28 strikeouts and seven walks to go along with a great 1.157 WHIP. This was after Norris had made 29 starts and three appearances out of the bullpen back in 2019 for the Tigers to the tune of 4.49 ERA and a somewhat league average 1.330 WHIP.

While Norris has only pitched more than 140 innings in a season once, Norris can provide the Mets with the upside of a number five starter until Noah Syndergaard is ready to return to the starting rotation at some point during the regular season, and then he can shift to the bullpen as a pitcher who can come in and give the Mets multiple innings.

Norris would be the perfect move in regards to deepening the organization’s pitching depth this offseason, but he also still contains upside as a pitcher who strikes out over 20% of the batters he faces in his career and whose average fastball velocity almost jumped up three whole miles per hour this season at 93 MPH.

It would seem that the Mets only have one left-hander penciled into their starting rotation next season with David Peterson, as the jury is still out on what the Mets plan to do with Steven Matz after his disastrous 2020 campaign. In the bullpen, the Mets will also have left-hander Justin Wilson heading for free agency and no decision has yet been made on a potential Chasen Shreve reunion, which makes a potential Norris trade a sensible move.

Norris will be arbitration-eligible one final time this offseason before becoming a free agent in 2022. While it’s unclear what the Mets would potentially have to give up, there were a few teams at the Trade Deadline who were interested in acquiring Norris which means his name is surely going to be brought up again at some point this winter.