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3 former Braves players the Mets should trade for to help catch Atlanta
These three former Braves could help the Mets catch Atlanta for the top Wild Card spot.
No team should ever specifically target ex-players from a particular team in order to get better. The New York Mets only went after a slew of former Milwaukee Brewers and New York Yankees this past offseason because of their availability. Manager Carlos Mendoza’s familiarity with players like Harrison Bader and Luis Severino as well as David Stearns’ experience trade additions Adrian Houser and Tyrone Taylor all made sense for a Mets club with a whole lot of 40-man roster vacancy.
At this year’s trade deadline, we could see the Mets coincidentally go after a few other ex-Brewers or Yankees. They may even see themselves flirting with trades to bring in some once upon a time Atlanta Braves.
The Braves don’t have a firm grasp of the top Wild Card spot. Catching them would be a dream for the Mets if for no other reason than to shift momentum. Hosting against an inferior opponent doesn't hurt either. While not the ultimate goal, trading for any of these former Braves players could help New York reach the top Wild Card spot where they currently trail by 4 games.
1) Kevin Pillar
Both a former Braves player and an ex-Met, Kevin Pillar is a trade commodity many teams will be inquiring about. Even the Braves could use him on their roster. In what should be his final MLB season, the Los Angeles Angels outfielder will have at least a couple of days where his name gets mentioned a lot and fans of contenders all seem to think he’ll save them.
On the Mets, Pillar makes complete sense as a right-handed hitting murderer of left-handed pitchers. Overall this year with the Angels he’s batting .290/.340/.476 with 6 home runs in 156 plate appearances. We can toss out the .160/.290/.360 he batted as a member of the Chicago White Sox to begin the year to help justify this. Far more spectacular is the .368/.411/.618 slash line he holds against lefties in 73 opportunities.
The Mets’ outfield need is a bit complicated because two of the regulars starting in place of Starling Marte have reverse splits. Jeff McNeil is hitting .250/.290/.352 against lefties while Tyrone Taylor is at only .188/.222/.290. They come close to swapping places almost literally when we look at righties. Taylor is a .250/.300/.450 hitter against them with McNeil at .208/.274/.329. If you had to wager, McNeil would be the one to more likely bend more toward figuring out righties.
2) Kirby Yates
One of the league’s best closers in 2024 is finishing off wins for the Texas Rangers. He went to the defending champions after missing all of 2021 due to injury, pitching only 7 innings in 2022, and putting together a solid year from the Braves bullpen in 2023. He was 7-2 with a 3.28 ERA in 60.1 innings of work for Atlanta last season.
This year in Texas, things have gone even better. Yates is 3-1 with a microscopic 1.05 ERA in 34.1 innings of work. He has saved 16 games and has yet to give up a home run (jinx).
Yates, at 37, may also be nearing the end of his career. Signed to just a one-year deal this past offseason, the righty is doing everything he can to help the Rangers get back to the playoffs. Unfortunately, they seem more like sellers than buyers even with a stacked roster of players having successful seasons.
Yates might be better than some of the other options out there for the bullpen in part because he has spent most of his better big league seasons not closing games. His league-leading 41 saves in 2019 came right before an injury that derailed the rise of a late-blooming star. He was already 30 by the time he landed on the San Diego Padres in 2017 after bouncing around with several teams and never quite catching on anywhere.
The asking price for Yates shouldn’t be extremely high. Something in the same neighborhood as what the Mets landed last year for his teammate, David Robertson. Robertson, by the way, wouldn’t be such a bad addition for the Mets either if the Rangers end up as sellers.
3) Kevin Gausman
Is Kevin Gausman even up for sale? A free agent target of the Mets a few winters ago, he reportedly took less money to sign with the Toronto Blue Jays. Don’t take it personally. The veteran who spent the last months of 2018 with the Braves and the first part of 2019 with them is still a match albeit further out of reach one for the Metropolitans.
This year hasn’t been as strong for Gausman who, since leaving the Braves, has been a top ten Cy Young finisher three times. His numbers this year will have him out of the race which might have the Blue Jays more willing to sell.
Gausman is 7-8 with a 4.50 ERA in 104 innings this season. Last year’s strikeout leader with 237 isn’t going to go back-to-back as he has averaged exactly one per this year. Has age finally caught up to Gausman? His strikeouts are down, home runs allowed are up, and with an average exit velocity of 90mph against him, it’ll be the first time in his career since this was tracked (it started in 2015) where he’s in the 90s.
Owed the remainder of his $22 million this year plus $46 million over the next two seasons, getting out from his salary would be a great benefit to the Blue Jays. Some other younger players they’d probably like to pay, such as Vladimir Guerrero Jr., could make an older veteran like Gausman expendable.
Don’t think of this as a salary dump, though. Gausman will remain a hot commodity if made available. The money isn’t that outrageous considering how high the market continues to go.
For the Mets, adding him would be a bit of a surprise considering the biggest rumors going around have the team selling a starter. Adding him would allow them to possibly move a starter to the bullpen or even execute a separate trade while continuing to have a deep rotation. Christian Scott will be on an innings limit and David Peterson can’t be trusted. The Mets, whether they like it or not, could use a starting pitcher addition. Gausman, because of his contract, might not cost quite as large of a prospect haul as some others of his ilk. A player the Mets would be buying low on, he’s a change of scenery candidate merely for the poor performance at home this year. He’s 1-5 with a 7.19 ERA in 9 starts in Toronto. On the road, Gausman is 6-3 with a 2.34 ERA in 10 starts.
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