NY Mets: 15 worst trade deadline deals in franchise history

The trade deadline has one main purpose: give teams an opportunity to improve their ball club. Whether buying or selling, the ultimate mission is to get better. Buyers look short-term while sellers hope to get better in the future. The New York Mets, who have swung some major trade deadline deals in their history, have their share of hits and misses.

Previously on Rising Apple back when I was a wee tyke at FanSided, I covered the top 15 trade deadline deals in Mets history. In the time since, I have wanted to look at the other side: the worst trades the Mets have made at the deadline.

Finally, in a year where we’re more positive than ever, I have set aside the time to do it. These Mets trades at the deadline are a mix of forgettable and infamous. None gave the club the rewards they were hoping for whether it brought them little back in terms of prospects or brought them a dud major leaguer.

15) NY Mets Worst Trade Deadline Moves: Mookie Wilson to the Blue Jays for Jeff Musselman

The only time I trust a trade for a guy with the last name Musselman is if I’m trying to find a personal trainer. On July 31, 1989, the Mets were looking for something else. Although competitive, the team used this summer to move away from the spectacular platoon that had worked for several seasons in center field and go in a new direction.

Right on July 31, the Mets traded longtime fan favorite Mookie Wilson to the Toronto Blue Jays for pitcher Jeff Musselman and a lifetime minor leaguer, Mike Brady. Wilson, who was set to become a free agent at season’s end, was hitting just .205 at the time of the trade. It made a lot of sense to move on from him.

Unfortunately, Wilson found success with his new ball club. Outside of New York for the first time in his professional career, Wilson hit .298 for the Blue Jays in 1989. He ended up re-signing with them in the offseason and played north of the border into the 1991 campaign.

As with any trade, there are two sides. You already know Brady never made the majors. Musselman, who was pitching to a 10.64 ERA at the time of the deal, turned things around for the Mets in 1989. He logged 26.1 innings and gave them a 3.08 ERA. That was about all he could give them. In 1990, he pitched 32 frames and had a 5.63 ERA. He wouldn’t pitch in the big leagues again.

14) NY Mets Worst Trade Deadline Deals: Jeurys Familia to the Athletics for a pair of prospects

We don’t know for sure how this trade will eventually end up. So far, it hasn’t been so good.

Jeurys Familia was an elite closer for the Mets during his prime. When the club traded him at the 2018 trade deadline, he was 4-4 with a 2.88 ERA and 17 saves across 40.2 innings of work. He had rebounded from a poor and injury-filled 2017 campaign. With free agency looming and a deal to be made with the Oakland Athletics, it made sense to trade him since their chances of making the postseason seemed impossible.

Familia was good for the Athletics but not excellent. He was 4-2 with a 3.45 ERA and a single save. Familia worked as a setup man in Oakland during the latter part of 2018. He would return to the Mets the next year to some awful results: a 5.70 ERA in 60 innings of work.

Still with the team in 2021, the Mets only have one player they acquired in this deal still with the organization.

To land Familia, the Athletics gave up Will Toffey, Bobby Wahl, and international slot money. Wahl was later traded to the Milwaukee Brewers in the Keon Broxton deal—an even bigger bust. Toffey remains in the minor leagues for the Mets with no indication that he’ll ever get a call to the show.

13) NY Mets Worst Trade Deadline Moves: Neil Walker to the Brewers for Eric Hanhold

Aside from all of the wonderful puns you can make with this trade, it was pretty awful for New York. Involving Neil Walker and Eric Hanhold, it was a big loss for the Mets because of how much more they should have been able to get back in return. For instance, anything at all.

Hanhold’s only time with the Mets happened in 2018 when he had a 7.71 ERA in 2.1 innings of work. Only memorable because he was one of many poor relievers the team put on the mound that year, at least we can say we didn’t have to suffer through him for too long.

Walker, who was coming off a pretty awesome 2016 season and had hit .264/.339/.442 for the Mets in 2017, ended up putting together similar numbers for the Milwaukee Brewers after joining them. Walker was able to provide Milwaukee with some much-needed infield depth and a quality veteran bat.

This was one of many bad trades the Mets made at the 2017 trade deadline. As you’ll soon see, it wasn’t the worst. That’s because some guys hurt the Mets more with their performance. Others failed to ever reach the big leagues. At least Hanhold saw some big league action before departing the organization.

11) NY Mets Worst Trade Deadline Deals: Jay Bruce to the Cleveland Indians for Ryder Ryan

Back in 2017, the Mets underwent a firesale at the trade deadline. Every veteran approaching free agency became available. The team had multiple misses. One of the absolute biggest is what they were able to get in return for Jay Bruce and the eventual future player the Mets would acquire for the prospect several years later.

Bruce was awesome for the 2017 Mets. When he was traded to the Cleveland Indians, he had 29 home runs in only 448 trips to the plate. He was well on his way to challenging for the franchise record which sat at 41 in the pre-Pete Alonso days.

The lone player the Mets picked up in the deal was minor league pitcher Ryder Ryan. Ryan has yet to reach the big leagues and is actually now a member of the Texas Rangers organization as of 2021.

What makes this trade so bad for the Mets is that Ryder went to the Rangers in 2020 in exchange for a reunion with Todd Frazier. Frazier, a guy we often link with Bruce as a bust brought to town as a free agent for the 2018 campaign, didn’t do much at all in September of 2020. Hypothetically, what if the Mets traded Ryan somewhere else for a more productive player than this poor rehash?

We can only wonder.

10) NY Mets Worst Trade Deadline Deals: Rick Reed to the Minnesota Twins for Matt Lawton

I feel Rick Reed is one of the most underrated pitchers in Mets history. A winning percentage of .621 with the club which is second to only Dwight Gooden, Reed was one of the most important players on the late 1990s clubs. In 2001, his time in New York came to an end when he was traded on July 30 to the Minnesota Twins for outfielder Matt Lawton.

Reed was, yet again, having a nice year for the Mets. In 20 starts, he was 8-6 with a 3.48 ERA. Reed wasn’t as successful in Minnesota to finish out the year. In 12 starts with them, Reed went 4-6 with a 5.19 ERA. He would go on to have a nice regular season in 2002 but pitched two duds in the postseason for the Twins.

Lawton had what could be considered an equivalent turn. Before heading to the Big Apple, Lawton was hitting .293/.396/.439 with 10 home runs in 444 plate appearances. Much like Reed, he didn’t find much success with his new team.

Lawton batted .246/.352/.366 in his 213 trips to the plate with the Mets. To make matters worse, he was traded in December to the Cleveland Indians as part of a far more infamous deal.

Remember Roberto Almora’s time in Flushing? Lawton was one of the pieces the Mets moved to get him.

While a pretty even deal on paper, this trade makes the list because of how little it brought back. Considering how terrific Reed was pitching, it would have been more beneficial to land an outfielder who performed much better than Lawton did.

9) NY Mets Worst Trade Deals: Bret Saberhagen to the Colorado Rockies for practically nothing

Bret Saberhagen’s time with the Mets is viewed by many with great disappointment. It’s not so much how he performed but how often it was. Saberhagen was injured a lot during his New York tenure. Having pitched for the team in 1994 and 1995, he also missed a lot of time because of the strike.

On July 31, 1995, with the Mets going nowhere near the postseason, the team traded him to the Colorado Rockies along with a minor league player to be named later. In return, the blue and orange acquired Arnie Gooch and Juan Acevedo.

Even if you’ve paid close attention to the Mets for the last 60 years, I wouldn’t blame you for not knowing the names Gooch and Acevedo. Gooch never reached the big leagues. Acevedo did have a decent major league career. However, he only would pitch for the Mets in 1997. He would end up getting traded again, this time to the St. Louis Cardinals, for Rigo Beltran.

As for Saberhagen, the deal was saved from becoming an all-time worst one because of how poorly things went in Colorado. He was 2-1 with a 6.28 ERA across 9 starts. The thin air of Denver affected him greatly. For a guy who finished with a lifetime ERA of 3.34, this was atypical.

The only part of this trade that made it so bad is the same theme we’ve seen on recent entries: why couldn’t the Mets get back anything of more value?

8) NY Mets Worst Trade Deadline Deals: Addison Reed to the Boston Red Sox for three pitchers

Addison Reed was exceptional during his time with the Mets. In 145 games as a reliever, Reed was 6-5 with a 2.09 ERA. When the club traded him away at the deadline in 2017, they flipped him to the Boston Red Sox for three pitchers. One was bound to contribute heavily to future New York teams, right?

Not so much. Gerson Bautista saw limited action with the Mets before he was traded to the Seattle Mariners in the far more infamous Robinson Cano deal. Jamie Callahan pitched only 6.2 innings with the club in 2017 before he departed. The final piece, Stephen Nogosek, has seen big league action with the Mets and remains with the organization. However, he’s likely nothing more than a warm body for the minor leagues.

Reed would go on to pitch well for the Red Sox in 2017. Although his 3.33 ERA was higher than the 2.57 he had in New York, it helped Boston get to the postseason. No longer a closer once arriving in Beantown, he still served a role in the back of the Red Sox bullpen.

We can’t blame the Mets in the least bit for trading Reed in the final year of his contract. What we can be upset about is how they acquired three young arms and none of them worked out well. With three strikes on this trade, the Mets were a clear loser.

7) NY Mets Worst Trade Deadline Deals: Acquiring Oliver Perez from the Pittsburgh Pirates

This trade is a little change of pace from many of the others on this list. The majority of misses the Mets made at the trade deadline involved moving a capable major leaguer for minor league talent that never amounted to much. This all-time worst trade is an exception.

In the summer of 2006, the Mets were on their way to capturing an NL East crown. During their march there, the team had a need for a pitcher. This brought us to a questionable trade made with the Pittsburgh Pirates and the beginning of the Oliver Perez nightmare.

At this point of his career, Perez had only one good season on his resume: 2004 when he was 12-10 with a 2.98 ERA. In 2006, he was dreadful with Pittsburgh. At 2-10 with a 6.63 ERA, I have to question what the Mets were thinking.

Things didn’t get better. Perez did win a shutout for the Mets but that was it. He would go 1-3 with a 6.38 ERA for the club in 2006, essentially contributing nothing aside from fueling nightmares. Perez did turn things around in 2017 but his time calling Queens home left a bad taste in the mouths of many.

Stepping back for a moment, we need to look at what was given up to acquire Perez. For his services, the Mets traded outfielder Xavier Nady and also managed to pick up veteran reliever Roberto Hernandez. Nady did have a successful stint with the Pirates and continued to give serviceable efforts for several years. Hernandez, now in his second stint with New York, pitched to a 3.48 in 2006. He was actually the better piece acquired in this trade.

Was the Perez trade dreadfully awful? Not so much if all it cost them was Nady.

Did it do more harm than good? You better believe it.

6) NY Mets Worst Trade Deadline Deals: Dave Kingman to the San Diego Padres

You know a trade was bad when it was part of an infamous day in team history. Occurring on June 15, 1977, the Dave Kingman deal with the San Diego Padres was part of the Midnight Massacre—more on that later.

Kingman was scuffling as a member of the Mets. Coming off an All-Star campaign in 1976, the home run hitting, hard-swinging Kingman wasn’t quite himself in 1977. One of the few guys on the team hitting well, he became a trade casualty. Sent off to the Padres for two players, he would end up playing for a total of four teams that year!

I don’t want to go too deep into what Kingman accomplished after leaving the Mets because I don’t think it matters much. He did eventually return.

What made the Kingman trade awful was what the team got in return for this dangerous power hitter. Paul Siebert and Bobby Valentine were the two men sent to the orange and blue. Siebert would log a total of 56 innings for the Mets combined in 1977 and 1978. His 4.50 ERA was rather average.

Valentine, a light-hitting player his entire career, lived up to the low expectations. He hit .222 in his part-time role with the club. On a positive note, it may have set up for his eventual return as a manager.

5) NY Mets Worst Trade Deadline Deals: David Cone to the Toronto Blue Jays for Jeff Kent and Ryan Thompson

This trade deadline move was a little different. Dealing David Cone to the Toronto Blue Jays on August 27, 1992, did land the Mets two quality players: Jeff Kent and Ryan Thompson, the former more so. There are other factors at play as to why this was a bad trade deadline move.

Firstly, the Mets watched from afar as one of their best pitchers in recent seasons would go on to win a championship. Cone and the Blue Jays took down the Atlanta Braves in the 1992 World Series. He was amazing for them down the stretch, going 4-3 with a 2.55 ERA.

Fortunately, it looked like the Mets did at least get some quality back. Although he struggled in New York during the 1992 season, Kent began to grow into a quality hitter. He wasn’t able to fully blossom until a few years later. By then, the Mets had already traded him away in an even worse deal.

Thompson was far less productive yet a nice part-time player. He did hit 18 home runs in 1994 in only 379 trips to the plate. He would get traded prior to the 1996 season to the Cleveland Indians where he would (at least organizationally) reunite with Kent.

Trading Cone at the deadline as they did, prior to his free agency, and getting back Kent and Thompson wasn’t horrific. However, it’s what the Mets did after, in particular with Kent, that has landed this as one of the worst trade deadline moves in franchise history. The team never did win with Kent on the roster and managed to flip him around the deadline in 1996 for the fourth-worst deadline move the franchise ever executed.

4) NY Mets Worst Trade Deadline Deals: Jeff Kent to the Cleveland Indians for Carlos Baerga

Jeff Kent spent parts of five years with the Mets, hit 67 home runs, and accumulated a .279 batting average. This wasn’t half-bad for a second baseman. Unfortunately, on July 29, 1996, he was traded to the Cleveland Indians along with Jose Vizcaino for Carlos Baerga and Alvaro Espinoza.

Kent didn’t hit well for the Indians in 1996. It took him until 1997 to bloom into one of the league’s best power hitters; then a member of the San Francisco Giants. What if the Mets had held onto him a little longer?

Espinoza is almost irrelevant in this move because he only spent the half-season in New York. Although he hit well, we remember this trade for the acquisition of Carlos Baerga.

It’s hard to believe Baerga was ever an awesome player. A three-time All-Star before putting on the orange and blue, he ended up as a major disappointment. In 1996, he batted .193 in 91 trips to the plate. Things did get slightly better over the next two seasons. However, nothing of what he did compared to his early Indians days of hitting 15+ home runs and driving in over 100 runs.

Like a future Indians second baseman the team would acquire via trade (Roberto Alomar), Baerga’s overall Mets numbers aren’t too terrible. It’s the high expectations we had for him that makes this so bad. Baerga was closer to average than anything else. And knowing the team could have potentially kept Kent instead—there are no all-age-appropriate words for it.

3) NY Mets Worst Trade Deadline Deals: Prospect Scott Kazmir to the Tampa Bay Devils Rays

The 2004 Mets got too caught up in reaching for the postseason. They made several trades during the summer to make themselves better. One trade that stands out as a bad one occurred on July 30. Bartolome Fortunate and Victor Zambrano went to New York. Heading to the Devil Rays (I’m going to give them the Devil adjective, it was 2004!), the Mets sent Jose Diaz and a young pitcher named Scott Kazmir.

Fortunato was okay for the team in 2004 but missed all of 2005 due to injury. This was the end of his major league career outside of a single appearance in 2006.

Zambrano, meanwhile, saw much more action with the Mets. Arriving to New York with a 4.43 ERA, he actually did manage to go 2-0 with a 3.86 ERA in 2004. The bigger issue is that he made only 3 starts. He would stay with the team into 2006 with rather poor results. An injury eventually took its toll and knocked him out of the season early on in 2006.

Meanwhile, Kazmir became a two-time All-Star with Tampa Bay and joined a long yet injury-filled career. During the 2006-2008 season when the Mets could have really used an arm like Kazmir, he was dominating in the American League.

Always a fighter, Kazmir continually battled back from injuries and managed to pitch well as recently as 2015. His comeback tour extended into 2021 but the results for the now 37-year-old weren’t nearly as great.

In short: the Mets literally traded away their future for an attempt at being better in the moment. It didn’t work out.

2) NY Mets Worst Trade Deadline Deals: Lenny Dykstra to the Philadelphia Phillies for Juan Samuel

Never make a deal with your biggest enemies. The Mets learned this from the June 18, 1989 trade made with the Philadelphia Phillies. Tom Edens, Roger McDowell, and Lenny Dykstra were all sent to the Phillies in exchange for Juan Samuel. Immediately, this was a bad trade.

Samuel had been a major stolen base threat during the 1980s as a member of the rival Phillies. Also a fine hitter, things went in a different direction once he joined the boys in the Big Apple. Samuel was a .228 hitter in 370 plate appearances with the Mets in 1989. So upset with how the deal was going, he was shipped out before the new year in a December swap with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

McDowell pitched amazingly well for the Phillies in 1989. In 56.2 innings, he had a 1.11 ERA. He would go on to pitch well for several more seasons, even joining Samuel with the Dodgers ironically enough.

The bigger piece in this trade was Dykstra. During his time with the Phillies, he became a fan favorite and MVP runner-up. His first full year with the team included a league-best 192 hits. An exceptional player with multiple tools, he helped hold down the Mets for several years in the early 1990s.

1) NY Mets Worst Trade Deadline Deals: Tom Seaver to the Cincinnati Reds

What else would it be? Arguably the worst trade in Mets history (I think it’s second to the Nolan Ryan deal), this deal involving the legendary Tom Seaver defined the Midnight Massacre of 1977. The greatest player in franchise history was shipped from out of town to the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for several players. I don’t care if they did actually perform well—to a degree. This trade broke hearts and the franchise to pieces.

Seaver wasn’t nearly as tremendous with the Reds but that doesn’t make this one sting any less. He remained one of the league’s best starting pitchers for several more years while the Mets stayed down at the bottom of the league.

In return, New York acquired Doug Flynn, Steve Henderson, Dan Norman, and Pat Zachry. Each had some level of success calling Shea Stadium home. Together, even on their best days, I don’t think they compare to what Seaver was able to accomplish.

That’s the problem with trade deadline deals involving any established big leaguers. It’s rare you can get the prospects or younger players back of equal value. In the history of the Mets, the only trade we can even consider a good one where they sold at the deadline is the Carlos Beltran for Zack Wheeler move.

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There was no way to possibly win the Seaver trade. Getting rid of your franchise’s best player is not a winning move. In fact, it’s an all-time loser of a trade.