Mets add two-time All-Star Soto to bullpen in deal with O's

SAN FRANCISCO -- From the moment A.J. Minter and Danny Young suffered season-ending injuries in April, it seemed clear which direction the Mets were headed. No matter what the team chose to pursue before the July 31 Trade Deadline, left-handed relief pitching was going to be part of it.

The Mets made sure to address that need with plenty of time to spare, acquiring two-time All-Star lefty Gregory Soto from the Orioles on Friday for prospects Wellington Aracena and Cameron Foster.

TRADE DETAILS
Mets receive: LHP Gregory Soto
Orioles receive: RHP Wellington Aracena, RHP Cameron Foster

Soto, 30, has been one of the league’s more dependable lefties over the past half-decade in Detroit (an All-Star in 2021 and '22), Philadelphia and Baltimore, appearing in at least 62 games every season from 2021-24. This year, he’s held same-sided hitters to a .138/.271/.276 slash line, with a 3.96 ERA overall. In high-leverage spots, opponents have managed a .516 OPS against him.

"The biggest thing is his ability to come in when there’s high leverage and there’s pressure there,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “Obviously, he’s a piece that’s going to help us, and I’m excited about it.”

Soto, who is making $5.35 million through the arbitration process, can become a free agent after the playoffs.

Over the next three months in New York, he will give the Mets a second left-handed option alongside veteran Brooks Raley, who recently returned from Tommy John surgery. Those two are the replacements for Minter and Young, the Mets’ Opening Day lefties who both suffered season-ending injuries in April. Since that time, Mendoza has mixed and matched options including Génesis Cabrera, José Castillo and Richard Lovelady, but none have stuck around for long.

"There’s been a lot of faces walking through those doors,” Mendoza said. “Now we got Raley back, and we’ve seen the impact right away. To be able to add another lefty … allows me to deploy one of them earlier in the game, and the other one for the later innings … to match up with some of the lineups that we’re going to be facing.”

Barring further injuries, Soto and Raley should become New York’s permanent lefty tandem for the stretch run. Soto is due to join the Mets later this weekend -- likely Saturday in San Francisco.

"I thought it was important,” president of baseball operations David Stearns said. “With the injuries we’ve had from that side of the ‘pen over the course of the season, the importance that an arm from the left side can potentially have down the stretch -- and hopefully into October -- it was certainly something we wanted to accomplish.”

To land Soto, the Mets gave up their 19th-ranked prospect, Aracena, as well as an unranked prospect in Foster. Aracena, 20, hit 101 mph on the mound earlier this summer but was erratic at Single-A St. Lucie, walking 4.9 batters per nine innings. One scout described him as an athletic project who has recently added pitches to his arsenal and shown additional promise.

Foster, 26, is a former 14th-round Draft pick who produced a 1.01 ERA over 19 appearances at Double-A Binghamton. He could help a big league bullpen sooner rather than later, but his ceiling is lower than Aracena’s.

Rival scouts called it a reasonable price to pay for Soto, whose addition doesn’t preclude the Mets from searching for additional relief help. They could still use at least one more right-handed arm to fortify the back of their bullpen, which Stearns acknowledged Friday in identifying the bullpen as his No. 1 deadline priority.

Other needs exist, most notably in center field and the starting rotation. But both, Stearns indicated, will be difficult to fill. The Mets aren’t looking for depth pieces in those areas so much as moves that “raise the ceiling of the team,” as the president of baseball operations put it.

One such arm, Marlins ace Sandy Alcantara, was linked to the Mets Friday in a New York Post report. Other potentially available options include Arizona’s Zac Gallen and Pittsburgh’s Mitch Keller. But prices for all three figure to be high, and the Mets could face stiff competition from teams even more motivated to upgrade their rotations.

"You don’t know exactly what’s going to be available and what’s ultimately going to be traded,” Stearns said. “Acquiring starting pitching at this time of year is pretty difficult. I don’t know how many raise-the-ceiling type of players are going to be traded in that segment. But if those guys are available, we’ll be involved.”