Mets’ tradeable players enter Subway Series with unknown future: ‘Have two bags packed’
Tommy Pham has twice been dealt at the trade deadline, so he’s ready for what could be coming next.
“As the deadline gets nearer, just make sure you have two bags packed, that is just how things are for me with my contract situation making me trade-able,” said the Mets outfielder, who arrived last winter on a one-year deal.
There is a Subway Series to be played at Yankee Stadium over two days beginning Tuesday, and forget about bragging rights for the Mets — it’s more about survival and avoiding further embarrassment. They have lost two of the three series since the All-Star break to fall seven games below .500 and look every bit like a team going nowhere fast.
“Embarrassment” is exactly the word that applied to the Mets in their two losses in Boston to complete the weekend. Most of that fell on the starting rotation, with Max Scherzer allowing four home runs and Carlos Carrasco getting knocked out in the third inning, but the Mets didn’t exactly pepper the Green Monster with batted balls.
Now you wonder how many Mets players have begun their final week in the organization.
Pham, Mark Canha, Omar Narvaez and David Robertson are among the most obvious candidates for trades, but Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Carrasco, Jose Quintana, Adam Ottavino and Brooks Raley are other possibilities to be dealt by next Tuesday’s 6 p.m. deadline. Luis Guillorme would have belonged to that group if not for the right calf injury he sustained over the weekend that threatens to keep him sidelined long term.
Pham and Robertson have performed at a high level as arguably general manager Billy Eppler’s two best offseason signings, at least for the short term. Pham has been among the team’s top offensive players — after playing sparingly to start the season — and Robertson has filled in for Edwin Diaz at closer and provided late-inning stability to a bullpen that has been overworked due to underperforming starters.
The reward for such competence, when playing on a one-year contract for a floundering team, is often a ticket elsewhere.
Pham was forthright Sunday when discussing the team’s chances of a turnaround.
“You can’t take it seriously until you get to .500 and then you can see if you can make something happen,” Pham said. “We’re not quite there.”
Pham’s right-handed bat might look good for a contender, and the Mets shouldn’t hesitate to trade him if there’s a deal out there that can bring any kind of return. They might have to be more judicious when it comes to Robertson given that his removal from an already-thin bullpen could turn the final two months into a complete train wreck, and ideally the Mets would like to have some level of competitiveness, even in a lost season. And yet if there’s a trade for Robertson that will improve the organizational depth, the Mets should go that route and worry later about how they will protect leads in the late innings.
Maybe the Mets can find a team willing to take a gamble on Verlander in particular — he’s been more consistent than Scherzer lately — but the logistics (no-trade clauses and huge sums of money owed to both players) make it seem unlikely.
The Mets haven’t been in this position at a trade deadline since 2018, when their only real move was to deal Jeurys Familia to Oakland for two forgettable minor leaguers. A year earlier the Mets went all-in on unloading players at the deadline, trading Lucas Duda, Addison Reed, Jay Bruce, Neil Walker and Curtis Granderson for seven minor-league relievers. Drew Smith is the most notable of those relievers the Mets acquired.
In happier times, the Mets would be headed to The Bronx with the games as the focal point. The Mets’ uninspiring play for most of the last two months has all but quashed that possibility.
“You always feel like the next series can be the one where we turn it around,” Canha said. “That’s how we keep approaching it.”
Canha might want to take a cue from Pham and have two bags packed, just in case.
