NY Mets: 4 trade targets on the Twins not named Jose Berrios to consider

In terms of starter help, Michael Pineda could be a really solid option to hold down the back of the Mets rotation until reinforcements get healthy.

“NY Mets’ Jacob deGrom gets the hype, but Yankees’ Michael Pineda is even better,” Andy Martino infamously wrote in 2016 for The Daily News.

It’s hard not to think about that headline whenever Pineda is brought up in conjunction with the Mets. While deGrom obviously turned out to be the better of the two pitchers, in Martino’s defense, Pineda isn’t THAT bad.

He had a rough couple of years for the Yankees after his good rookie year in 2011 and his amazing comeback partial season in 2014. He’s also dealt with a lot of injuries, missing over two full seasons in the beginning of his career and then another full season in 2017 after he first signed with Minnesota.

When he finally got to pitch for the Twins though, he was a really solid starter. Over parts of three seasons and 234 innings pitched in his Twins career, he has a 3.96 ERA and 111 ERA+. It’s nothing to write home about, but it’s still very respectable.

This season he’s been a little bit worse than that average, putting up a 4.11 ERA and 102 ERA+ over 61.1 innings pitched, but overall, those are still fine numbers. He’s been pretty much a league-average pitcher, and actually technically a hair above average.

The Mets have had so much rotation turnover, with15 separate people starting games wearing the Orange and Blue this season — the most in baseball — that the roster could use a little league average starting pitching right about now.

Pineda probably won’t cost too much because like Robles and Colomé, he’s a free agent after this season, so there’s no long-term commitment to him. He could be used to give the solid Mets innings and help them survive until Jacob deGrom, Carlos Carrasco, Noah Syndergaard, and David Peterson return.

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If the Mets don’t feel comfortable selling the farm for Berríos, calling the Twins could still be the answer for pitching problems in Queens.