4 Mets trade reunion candidates still available on the block

Noah Syndergaard isn’t coming back to the New York Mets but could a different former member of the Amazins return to Flushing?

The MLB trade deadline is procrastinating. Soon, the dominoes will fall. We can expect the Mets to be right there in the center of some of those deals.

There will be some new faces added to the roster by the end of the day on August 2. There might even be some familiar ones. These are the four best reunion candidates the Mets could look to acquire.

4) NY Mets trade reunion: Aaron Loup

Aaron Loup hasn’t been especially good for the Los Angeles Angels this year. His masterful 2021 season with the Mets seems to be an encore performance from the veteran lefty. In 36.1 innings of work this year with the Los Angeles Angels, Loup is 0-3 with a 4.71 ERA. He has already given up more than three times as many runs—earned and unearned—as he did with the Mets.

Loup took the large offer the Angels gave him in the offseason. How could he not? He had $7.5 million to him possibly coming into his bank account in each of the next three seasons with at least a guaranteed $2 million in the third year.

Billy Eppler was never able to find the roster replacement for Loup in New York this year. He tried with Chasen Shreve. He took a chance on Joely Rodriguez. Neither worked out. Could rewinding things with Loup be in the cards?

Meh, relief pitchers are weird. Loup is probably not the preferred lefty out there for the Mets even if he would probably be more of a salary-dump deal than anything else. Should we oppose it? No. But we should demand the Mets at least have another new lefty within the organization as well.

3) NY Mets trade reunion: Wilmer Flores

There wouldn’t be anything more romantic than Wilmer Flores ending up back with the Mets for a pennant run. The day to do it was July 31 on the anniversary of his big walk-off home run. Don’t fret. He is still available. Maybe Eppler isn’t as up-to-date with his Mets history as we’d like.

Flores is having an okay year with the San Francisco Giants after starting much better. He’s now slashing .248/.328/.445 with 15 home runs and 55 RBI. He’d actually, in a lot of ways, be a great platoon piece to pair with Daniel Vogelbach. Flores can play first base, second base, and third base regularly while providing the Mets with the kind of defensive depth Vogelbach cannot. He also hits right-handed and has been pretty good against southpaws throughout his career.

A pure rental, Flores is the kind of guy a team would look to add at the trade deadline for his clutch-hitting abilities and history of coming up big. Nobody knows about this more than a Mets fan.

What Flores isn’t is a particularly good fielder or the big bopper many of us believed this team would end up with. The Mets may only have room to add one more bat outside of a potential catcher upgrade. Flores, as much as we all love him, might feel a little too minor.

1) NY Mets trade reunion: Brandon Drury

Maybe the best reunion candidate of all for the Mets to seek is Brandon Drury. We only got to know him briefly in 2021 when he was a shortly-tenured member of the bench mob. This year with the Cincinnati Reds, he has become an even better player and someone a lot of teams should be calling about.

A third baseman this year, he’s slashing .275/.336/.523 with 20 home runs and 59 RBI. More importantly, he kills left-handed pitchers. This is something the Mets have struggled to do this year. If there’s any rental out there that fits perfectly into what the Mets need, it’s him.

Drury can play all of the positions Flores can—and arguably better—plus the outfield. He’s younger and more athletic at this point of his career. The Reds gave him an even bigger opportunity than the Amazins did last year. He has capitalized on it by hitting his way toward becoming one of the best players on the trade block right now.

For as great of a fit as he’d be, there haven’t been all that many Mets rumors about him returning to Flushing. A few other teams, including the Atlanta Braves, have him on their radar. But because the Mets surprised us with the Tyler Naquin trade, we shouldn’t completely dismiss the idea.