3 NY Mets players on the Opening Day roster who feel like midseason trade bait

It’s a guarantee not everyone on the New York Mets Opening Day roster will make it to the end. Sometimes done on purpose, the 26 players the Mets will open the year won’t be the same they finish.

Maybe more than some recent years the Mets have some players who’ll be trade bait. We’ve seen MLB trade deadline deals go down that weren’t just about selling prospects for major leaguers. The Mets have the potential to sell while buying.

Expecting the Mets to at least be in contention by this year’s trade deadline, we won’t see a massive wave of players deleted from the roster. These three players might not necessarily be performing badly, but it’s easy to see where the fit lessens and how opportunistic it could be to trade them.

Three Mets players we could see traded at the deadline

1) Mark Vientos

The Mets are going to realize they should have traded Mark Vientos at any of those points in the past when he had value. This summer, as he struggles to find any significant playing time whatsoever, they’ll finally bite and send him packing.

The good news for Vientos is he might slot in nicely as a right-handed bat to face lefties almost exclusively. This can improve his numbers while raising his trade value slightly. Certain circumstances can help make Vientos more crucial for the Mets this year. However, it’s going to require a lot to go wrong for other players before it can go right for him.

2) David Peterson

One of the starting pitchers speculated in the offseason as someone the Mets could move, his slightly over $8 million contract will be more than halfway cleared by the time we get to the trade deadline. A lot can happen between now and then with the health of the Mets pitching staff. What’ll make David Peterson a trade bait is the rise of the younger players.

The Mets managed to get through spring training without any major starting pitcher injuries. They’ll surely pop up at some point in the regular season during the daunting 162-game schedule. As long as they have enough bullets and pitching prospects trend the way we’d like them to, Peterson becomes expendable. We shouldn’t discount the idea of the Mets upgrading his rotation spot with a separate trade. It’ll be somewhat similar to 2019 when the Mets traded Jason Vargas to the Philadelphia Phillies and acquired Marcus Stroman from the Toronto Blue Jays.

3) Tyrone Taylor

Incredibly useful for the Mets as a fourth or fifth outfielder depending on how you want to classify him, Tyrone Taylor can get traded as a way to seize an opportunity. He’s not quite an everyday player but also too good to rot on the bench. A team in need of an emergency center field situation may gladly turn over something of value to the Mets in order to rent Taylor for two months.

The Mets already have some obvious future candidates to take on his role which may be decreased this coming year. Taylor might not even be the best backup center fielder with Carson Benge around. Prospect Nick Morabito is already on the 40-man roster and can give the Mets defense and speed they’ll count on most from Taylor.