The Mets' trade deadline moves show the real value of prospect development

New York Times

31-07-2025

SAN DIEGO — No trade market is perfect. It has strengths and weaknesses, surplus and scarcity. The best organizations are the ones that can bend the market to best fit their needs.
That's essentially what the New York Mets did Wednesday by adding a pair of relievers in Ryan Helsley and Tyler Rogers.
Advertisement
In a deadline landscape lacking a clear-cut front-line starter, Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns and company doubled down on late-game weapons. In a market replete with controllable relievers, the Mets targeted the best rental options available. They capitalized on the growth of their player development operation to make the cost high on paper but palatable in the long term.
'The Mets beat the market,' one league source said Wednesday night.
While it has performed well all season, New York's starting rotation still doesn't project to be its strength come October. Mets starters rarely pitch past the fifth inning in the regular season, and a few of them may be limited to facing an opposing order only twice in postseason games. Though the Mets could add a starter before the deadline, it's clear they took an alternate route by bulking up the bullpen even more than expected. With Helsley and Rogers joining earlier acquisition Gregory Soto, other arms the team has trusted to hand the ball to Edwin Diaz may now have to pitch in the middle innings.
'It allows me to have more flexibility to match up and be more aggressive when I need to,' manager Carlos Mendoza said. 'They just make our unit a lot deeper back there.'
On the surface, it may not seem like the prices the Mets paid for those arms are a win. The six players New York surrendered for two months of single-inning relievers are mostly guys you've heard of before.
José Buttó has been a useful part of the major-league bullpen for more than a year. Blade Tidwell made an awaited big-league debut this season, and Drew Gilbert has the chance to do so between now and the end of September. Jesús Báez has been a top-10 prospect in the system for a couple of years and even landed on a top-100 list this spring. Nate Dohm and Frank Elissalt were recent draftees but ones opening eyes in their first full professional seasons.
Thank you, José.
Good luck in San Francisco! pic.twitter.com/b0eVWeXTEl
— New York Mets (@Mets) July 30, 2025
Wednesday, however, was evidence of how much the Mets' farm system and entire player development operation have evolved over the last several seasons. Back in 2021, the last time the franchise was this aggressive around the trade deadline, it was backed into moving a single high-end prospect (Pete Crow-Armstrong, as you didn't need us to specify) because its system was so shallow. The Mets had nothing left over to acquire the starting pitcher they badly needed to preserve their division lead.
Advertisement
In 2022, the Mets were not confident enough in their developmental infrastructure to move anyone within, as then-GM Billy Eppler memorably specified, their 'top 19 prospects.'
Now, a pitcher like Tidwell, who straddles the line between a starter and reliever in the majors, is expendable. Not just because the Mets have other near-ready starters in Brandon Sproat, Nolan McLean and Jonah Tong, but also because they know they can develop other pitchers into Tidwell-like talents. Dohm and Elissalt, selected in the third and 19th rounds of last summer's draft, respectively, support that confidence. In less than 13 months, they have gone from draftees to integral parts of a major deadline trade.
If Wednesday's trades were overpays, they were ones the Mets can afford.
It's fair to wonder whether they even qualify as overpays. Over the last couple of days, a few high-ranking officials from different teams pointed to last year's trade of reliever Jason Adam from the San Diego Padres to the Tampa Bay Rays, in exchange for three prospects, as something of a new precedent.
By Tuesday night, some of the same officials complained of high asking prices for relievers with club control, especially Jhoan Duran. The next day, the Philadelphia Phillies ended up acquiring Duran from the Minnesota Twins for the steep price of top-100 prospects Mick Abel and Eduardo Tait. Duran comes with two more years of club control. Those control years are not as valuable at a position as volatile as relievers.
Executives from other teams say the calling card for Stearns and Mets vice president Eduardo Brizuela is an ability to expertly read markets. They saw evidence of that on Wednesday.
'They've crushed it so far this deadline,' a league source said.
This is the type of organization the Mets have longed to be since Steve Cohen bought them in the fall of 2020: one capable both of developing talent that appeals to other teams and of discerning if, and when, it's expendable.