2 Mets trade deadline successes, 1 failure

The New York Mets had easily the most eventful deadline of any team in Major League Baseball. They took the team with the highest payroll in MLB history and dismantled a good amount of it.

David Robertson, Max Scherzer, Mark Canha, Justin Verlander, Tommy Pham, and Dominic Leone were all moved in exchange for prospects. The Mets, who entered the day six games back of the deadline, made a decision to punt on the 2023 season and focus on the future.

Now that the deadline is officially over, there're a couple of things the Mets deserve credit for, and others that they do not.

NY Mets trade deadline success: The Mets had to pick a direction, and they did so

The most important thing of this trade deadline was for the Mets to pick a direction. They could either try and win with the roster that they had, which wouldn't have been an insane direction to take with them being just six games back, or they needed to sell. They chose the latter.

The Mets traded virtually every expiring contract that was moveable. Teams clearly had no interest in a guy like Carlos Carrasco, but everyone else was moved. With the Mets selling those players had no value, and the Mets did well to get pieces back for them.

The only two players who were not on expiring deals were Scherzer and Verlander who the Mets received big prospects for. With the Mets selling and likely not coming into 2024 with the same World Series or bust expectations, moving these aging Future Hall of Famers while they could still bring back the returns they wound up bringing back made a lot of sense.

Again, the one thing the Mets couldn't do was stand pat. They couldn't keep the expiring contracts while also doing nothing to add. Instead of trying to go for an improbable playoff run, the Mets chose to sell off those veterans and revamp their system. They deserve praise for that.