With Trade Deadline looming, Mets' young core in the spotlight
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NEW YORK -- Entering Tuesday’s play, the Mets ranked 16th in the Majors in runs per game at 4.38, which is hardly where they thought they’d be when manager Carlos Mendoza began toying with potential lineup orders over the winter. An offense featuring Francisco Lindor, Juan Soto, Pete Alonso and Brandon Nimmo didn’t figure to be this pedestrian.
Nearly two-thirds of the way through this season, those numbers tell a clear story. And yet earlier this week, president of baseball operations David Stearns offered a different perspective.
"I look at our position-player grouping and for the most part, I’m pretty pleased with where we are,” Stearns said. “I think our younger players have taken a step forward.”
As if to prove it, Francisco Alvarez hit a game-tying two-run homer in the fifth inning Tuesday, Brett Baty sparked that rally with a two-out double, then Ronny Mauricio added a hit, a stolen base and the go-ahead run in a 3-2 win over the Angels at Citi Field. It was the Mets’ third consecutive victory.
"We’re going to need all of them,” manager Carlos Mendoza said.
On a typical night, those sorts of contributions would loom large. Nine days out from the Trade Deadline, they carried even more weight.
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Stearns’ comments came in response to a question about whether the Mets would look to upgrade their offense prior to July 31. While the list of impact players potentially available at this year’s Deadline is not long, it’s also not zero.
Diamondbacks third baseman Eugenio Suárez, for example, is widely considered the best offensive player on the market.
He’s on pace for 57 home runs.
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As tempting as a player like that may seem, the Mets don’t appear primed to pursue him. Stearns identified center field as the lone position he might look to improve outside of pitching, and it remains to be seen if an upgrade is even available there. The best center fielder potentially on the market, Jarred Duran, plays for a rejuvenated Red Sox team that’s probably no longer selling. The next-best, Cedric Mullins, holds a sub-.600 OPS since the start of May.
What this means for the Mets is that they’re going to roll with mostly the same offensive players they did Tuesday at sold-out Citi Field. It also means they have two obvious paths to become better than league average going forward.
One is for superstars Lindor and Alonso to play up to their contracts. Lindor is mired in a career-worst 0-for-30 slump, while Alonso is on a 2-for-33 downturn of his own. Those two have combined for one RBI since July 12.
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The other is for Alvarez, Baty and Mauricio to keep producing. To that end, clear reason for optimism exists.
"It’s something really special that we’re all finally here in the Major Leagues,” Alvarez said through an interpreter.
The Mets’ recent uptick starts with Alvarez, who returned from Triple-A Syracuse on Monday, hit a key double in his first game back, then homered in his second. He’s reached base in five of his seven plate appearances so far, giving the Mets reason to believe that he spent his time in the Minors genuinely correcting flaws in both his swing and his approach.
Even before Alvarez returned, Baty had been quietly reestablishing himself as an everyday option for the Mets. He’s batting .343 since the Fourth of July.
Mauricio hasn’t been quite as good, but his multifaceted skillset has kept him in the Majors. Following Alvarez’s game-tying homer in the fifth inning Tuesday, Mauricio singled and stole second base, which allowed him to score the go-ahead run on Nimmo’s subsequent hit.
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"To be able to have the length in the lineup where there’s no breath -- you can’t take a breath, and you have to keep focusing on every pitch being in the perfect spot -- it wears down on pitchers mentally,” Nimmo said.
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Notably, a source said the Mets have made infielders Baty, Mauricio and Luisangel Acuña available in trade discussions. Presumably, the Mets wouldn’t want to deal more than one of those young players, but there’s enough roster redundancy there for the team to seriously consider trading one for pitching help.
Even if they do, the Mets will rely on what’s left for some second-half offensive punch. It’s a mix that worked on Tuesday.
Time will tell if it can work the rest of the way.