The biggest Mets trade deadline bust this year

At the trade deadline, the New York Mets were pretty active, but I think everyone agrees that they should have done more.

Acquiring Daniel Vogelbach and Darin Ruf to fix their DH platoon has proven to have been a great move as the Mets offense has looked exponentially better since the deadline.

Adding Mychal Perez as the third catcher proved to be an upgrade over Patrick Mazeika as he had a couple of clutch hits when called upon. Adding Tyler Naquin despite a major slump right now has been a massive upgrade over Travis Jankowski when looking at the fourth outfielder.

What the Mets failed to address was the bullpen. Mychal Givens has to be better, considering he was the only reliever acquired.

The Mets traded young rookie reliever Colin Holderman to the Pirates in exchange for Vogelbach. I thought this was a good move as Vogelbach was a needed piece and I assumed the Mets would go out and get multiple relievers.

When Drew Smith went on the sidelines, I was even more convinced that the Mets would get multiple relievers. The bullpen outside of Adam Ottavino and Edwin Diaz has been a massive question mark all season, and I assumed the Mets realized that.

The Mets acquired Givens to replace Holderman's spot, but did not replace Smith's spot. Givens to put it lightly, has been horrible since arriving in Queens.

His first appearance in orange and blue came in a lopsided game in Washington. All Givens had to do was get three outs to complete a Mets sweep. He allowed five runs to score while recording two outs, forcing the Mets to burn Seth Lugo to secure the victory.

Givens as a Met has allowed 11 earned runs on 16 hits in 9.1 innings pitched. He's seen his ERA rise from 2.66 when they acquired him all the way up to 4.14.

I thought Givens was a fine add, as he'd been a successful middle reliever most of the time. The Mets have their late game trio of Lugo, Ottavino, and Diaz, so I assumed Givens would fit in well as a guy who could pitch the sixth or seventh inning in a close game.

So far, I couldn't have been more wrong. Givens does have a relationship with Buck Showalter and has a track record of success at this level, but so far things have not gone well at all for the 32 year old.

I understand the reliever market was expensive, as some arms the Mets targeted weren't even moved at all. However, for a team trying to win the World Series with the bullpen as the biggest weakness, the deadline did not help them. So far with how he has performed, Mychal Givens has only hurt them which has to change if the Mets want to get where they hope to go.