Reese Kaplan -- How Should David Stearns Improve the Roster?

Looking ahead to the July trade deadline the Mets are going to have some rather difficult decisions to make in order to determine which mix of 26 ballplayers will best equip them to advance to baseball in October.  Let’s take a brief look.

Do You Change the Starting Rotation?

No one could possibly have predicted the wild success the Mets have had with their starting pitching since the season began.  Think about it for a moment.  You go into 2025 with three veteran starting pitchers — Sean Manaea, Frankie Montas and Paul Blackburn — all on the long term IL with a variety of injuries. 

Instead, you had unproven Kodai Senga, himself recovering from injury, multi-year inconsistent Tylor Megill, converted reliever-turned-starter Clay Holmes, 2024 surprise David Peterson and what-were-they-thinking free agent Griffin Canning.  How has that worked out?

Well, if your eyes don’t let you know then glance at any stat sheet and you will find the team has a collective 2.70 ERA.  That is not a misprint.  The starting pitching has been rock solid despite a few recent outings that showed the recent past efforts delivered by both Megill and Peterson. 

So sometime between now and mid July you would expect to have the three injured pitchers all available to ascend to the major league locker room, who goes?  It would seem that the easy losses would be Griffin Canning on a one-year deal and little track record to predict he would keep up the level of dominance he has shown.  Trading him away (which no one could have envisioned when he was first signed) should draw a lot of interest from other clubs.

Then there are the running well most of the time duo of Megill and Peterson.  Both are doing better than ever before.  Megill is pitching to a 2.50 ERA with 45 strikeouts in 36 IP.  

Peterson is a bit less stellar at 3.52 with 36 Ks in 38.1 IP.  However, Peterson is off a sub 3.00 ERA last sason and is left handed, both of which might make him considered more valuable.  

Do you (gasp!) sell high on Megill?  We’ve all seen him show formidable stuff at times in the past but never put it together for a prolonged period of time.

There are people right now who are anxious to get Sean Manaea back into the fold as quickly as possible but no one is doing cartwheels about the returns of Frankie Montas nor Paul Blackburn.  Neither of them would have much trade value until proving their health and value.

Ongoing Bullpen Issues

Is Genesis Cabrera the only lefty to be in the bullpen?  What about the healing Brooks Raley?  What about finding a key southpaw to replace A.J. Minter and Danny Young?

Will the Offense Still Be Offensive?

Aside from Pete Alonso and power provided by a handful of others, there are not many players in the lineup who have impressive batting averages.  While Juan Soto’s AVG is likely to rise, people are not quite as confident about Starling Marte, Tyrone Taylor, Brandon Nimmo nor Mark Vientos.  

Brett Baty is in his limited return to New York not showing himself as any better than he was the first several tries over the past few years.  How soon does poor hitting Jose Siri return?  What about thus far unimpressive Jesse Winker?  What changes would David Stearns need to make in the lineup to improve it if the less than acceptable numbers continue for the remainder of May, June and into July?