Minor NY Mets trade continues a trend started by Billy Eppler

It was a busy Friday for the New York Mets ending with the signing of Clay Holmes. Prior to the bold addition to their starting rotation for the coming season, the team continued a trend of trades started by Billy Eppler.

Minor league pitcher Sean Harney was acquired by the Mets in exchange for international pool money.

A 26-year-old righty with just 10 games of experience in Double-A or higher, it’s a nice addition to the farm system fitting in with the mold of all of the other Tampa Bay Rays products the Mets have been adding to their staff in recent years.

Sean Harney is the latest Rays pitcher to join the Mets organization

We don’t have to go all the way back to Drew Smith to find some kind of a connection. No, there was way too much of a layoff between that 2017 trade deadline deal and the addition of Harney to make any connection. This commonality seems to begin more with the 2022-2023 offseason deal for lefty Brooks Raley. An important piece of the team in 2023, an early season-ending injury cost him an opportunity to be that same asset for the club this past year.

Raley’s success upped the narrative of how well the Rays can turn the careers of pitchers around as well as their development. The Mets are buying into this theory. Last year’s free agent signing of Jake Diekman was a great example of a veteran who turned things up to a whole new level late in his career. Of course, that one didn’t work out nearly as well. He was DFA’d before the trade deadline.

Around the time the Mets moved on from Diekman, they picked up Phil Maton from the Rays. He wasn’t a successful project of theirs, however, the Mets were able to help turn his year around. He’d go on to have an excellent 2.51 ERA for New York in his 28.2 innings of work. Maton’s addition to the Mets began a transformation within the bullpen.

On the topic of the trade deadline, the Mets made another trade with the Rays on a scale only slightly larger than the Harney acquisition. Tyler Zuber came to the Mets but never saw any big league action. A tough go of it in Triple-A, he is currently parked on the 40-man roster with a shot to compete for a bullpen spot this spring; if he’s not replaced first.

The relationship between the Mets and Rays goes beyond pitchers. Jose Siri was swapped for Eric Orze in November. The Mets get a stud defensive center fielder with pop while the Rays add a project to their system they’ll hope to win with or get the most out of and eventually swap for someone younger and/or more controllable.

Is it a coincidence all of these Mets pitchers are coming from the same organization? Perhaps in part. It’s also an acknowledgement, respect, and mutually beneficial situation in many of these cases. The Mets relieve the Rays of salaries they’d like to move on from. In the Harney for cash situation, it opens up more room for Tampa Bay to add on the international market.

No doubt there is another Mets-Rays trade brewing sometime in the future.