3 reasons the Mets failed at the trade deadline

Tuesday’s MLB trade deadline was one for the history books, as more than 107 players were traded prior to the trade deadline. The New York Mets added four players in Daniel Vogelbach, Tyler Naquin, Darin Ruf, and Mychal Givens who will all be on the roster by Wednesday. 

But the Mets could have improved their team even further, as a lot of potential upgrade opportunities slipped away.

1) The Mets failed to acquire a left-handed relief pitcher to upgrade from Joely Rodriguez.

The biggest shock of the Mets coming out of the trade deadline is that they did not add a left-handed relief pitcher before the deadline. The Mets have had this issue all season, looking for replacements for Aaron Loup and Brad Hand, who were wonderful as Mets last season. The Mets had to trade a reliever with lively stuff in Miguel Castro to get a lefty in Joely Rodriguez. 

But Rodriguez has been quite inconsistent this season, with the walks being a nightmare (16.5 percent of opposing hitters have walked). And the Mets haven’t had that reliable lefty piece that could effectively neutralize lefties in the division in high leverage spots such as Matt Olson, Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, and Juan Soto (now a Padre). 

Figure the Mets have to deal with the Dodgers in the playoffs (Freddie Freeman, Max Muncy, and Cody Bellinger are the Dodgers’ lefty power bats), and the Mets missed an opportunity to add a lefty reliever. 

Andrew Chafin and Gregory Soto from the Tigers, and Brock Burke and Matt Moore of the Rangers were examples of lefties that the Mets could have traded for, and the reliever market didn’t move as quickly as many experts believed it would. 

2) The Mets didn’t get any new offensive production from the catcher position.

The Mets saw another opportunity slip away, as the Cubs kept All-Star catcher Willson Contreras, despite many rumblings the Cubs would move on from the last member of their World Series team from six years ago. The Mets and Rays were in on Contreras, but the Mets approached the deadline as if they weren’t willing to move any of their top prospects to get him. 

Christian Vazquez was another name linked to the Mets at one point. Vazquez is one of the best hitting catchers in baseball, and was an important link to the Red Sox 2018 championship, based on how amazing their pitching was. Vazquez was dealt to the Astros for two prospects, neither one was in the Astros’ top 25 prospect list. 

How did the Mets not offer something similar to what the Astros offered? The Red Sox got totally fleeced in that trade, and this makes the Mets look silly for not upgrading offensively. The Mets are banking on the offense from their high-quality players to stay as successful as they’ve been all year while relying on James McCann and Tomas Nido to only need to produce in big spots like (especially Nido) have all season.  

By the way, Francisco Alvarez still needs time to look at borderline major league pitching in Triple-A before the Mets give him the shot in Queens.