3 players NY Mets fans wanted on the 2025 roster we won't need to trade for now

After a 2024 season full of question marks, New York Mets fans spent the 2024-25 offseason building wish lists to fix the team's glaring holes. The fanbase was desperate for impact talent, and three names were constantly discussed as perfect fits: a dynamic, All-Star center fielder from Boston, a "safer" free-agent replacement for Pete Alonso, and a high-upside, bounce-back starting pitcher.

As it turned out, the Mets failed to land any of them. The center fielder stayed put, the first baseman signed a massive deal with the Astros, and the pitcher (after a "prove-it" year in Queens) signed his big-money deal with the Oakland A's. After the Mets' 2025 debacle, it's easy to play "what if." But a look at the 2025 performance of those three fan-favorites shows that the Mets' biggest offseason "failures" may have been their greatest strokes of luck. All three are now rumored to be on the trade block, but as "buyer beware" candidates, the Mets should be thrilled to pass on them a second time.

​The "bounce-back" pitcher who bounced the wrong way

​After a disastrous 2023 with the Yankees (6.65 ERA), Luis Severino was the definition of a "buy-low" lottery ticket. The Mets took that chance, signing him to a one-year, $13 million "prove-it" deal for 2024. He was one of the few bright spots in a tough year, delivering an 11-7 record with a 3.91 ERA over 182 innings. He was a workhorse, and fans were desperate for the team to re-sign him, viewing him as a critical piece of the 2025 rotation. Severino, however, cashed in on his success, spurning the Mets' qualifying offer to sign a lucrative three-year, $67 million deal with the Oakland A's.

​That "failure" to retain him now looks like a stroke of genius. The 2025 season in Oakland was a complete regression to the mean for the 31-year-old. His ERA ballooned to 4.54, and his WHIP jumped to 1.30. Most alarmingly, the underlying numbers that predict future success all fell off a cliff. His strikeout rate, a hallmark of his career, plummeted from a healthy 23.9% career mark to a meager 17.6%. He simply stopped missing bats, and his FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) of 4.11 suggests his mediocre ERA was not a fluke.
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He finished the 2025 season with an 8-11 record, leading the league in one unfortunate category: home runs allowed. He was no longer a frontline starter but a high-priced, back-end innings-eater. Now, with the A's in a perpetual rebuild and looking to shed salary, Severino is once again on the trade market. This time, he's not a "buy-low" candidate but a damaged asset with two years and $45 million left on his deal. The Mets wisely avoided a long-term commitment to a volatile, injury-prone arm and should not correct that "mistake" by trading for him now.