11 Mets starting pitcher trade candidates ranked from the bottom to the top

3) NY Mets trade target Sean Manaea

Yet another member of the Oakland team, Sean Manaea now has parts of six years in the big leagues behind him and one final year before reaching free agency. Like Bassitt, this helps to make him a strong trade candidate and a guy where you don’t have to worry about committing to for very long.

Manaea has managed to do something pretty spectacular. Last year, he tossed two shutouts! While this doesn’t make a dent in the history of baseball, it’s pretty impressive considering the current state of baseball starting pitching. He made an American League-best 32 starts to go with it and struck out batters at a rate of 9.7 per nine.

What we should like about Manaea is how much of a nice fit he would be with what the Mets currently have. Although I don’t think he’s good enough to be their number three without question, he can certainly outpitch Carlos Carrasco or Taijuan Walker. He’s a guy to look at as a potential longer term option depending upon how he performs in 2022.

His final year of arbitration should make him one of the more expensive players on the Athletics roster. For this reason, he’s more likely to get dealt than the next guy on our list, a teammate of Manaea’s one year behind on reaching free agency.