3 NY Mets trade candidates curiously left out of Jeff Passan’s mega-story for ESPN

2) Sean Manaea

Sean Manaea kind of falls into the same category as Senga. He’s a well-paid pitcher with two years left on his contract. The difference in money is significant. Manaea will make $10 million more per season but comes with many of the same questions. Health and performance at the front of it, the idea of trading Manaea is far more difficult than finding a suitor for Senga. Simply looking at last year’s results, we are reminded of how excellent Senga can be while Manaea may have already peaked.

We can come to the conclusion Manaea’s name wasn’t mentioned because dealing him would require the Mets to eat significant money or take on a similar bad contract. There isn’t much else that would make sense. He’s no bargain and one could argue the Mets overpaid him in the first place. His deal seemed to be four-year money spread out over only three seasons. It’s a pain now that we can be thankful about in 2028.

There needs to be a line for the Mets as to how much dead money they’ll be willing to part with. If they trade McNeil and eat salary, they’re far less likely to do it with Manaea.

A repeat of his 2025 performance and maybe Manaea is a more likely trade candidate than what Passan believes. Still a candidate to get demoted to the bullpen in a worst-case scenario for next season, it sounds like we’ll need to cross our fingers and hope for the best.