OT: Mets 2026 Season Thread

[yesrutgers01]

I accept your challenge! Here's my list of Stearns' five worst trades:

1) Ryan Helsley for Jesus Baez, Nate Dohm, and Frank Elissalt - This trade is far and away his worst. Helsley achieved a -0.9 WAR in just two months, which is hard to do. In other words. if some rando had been in the bullpen other than Helsley, the Mets would have (according to WAR) won one more game. That one game would have put them in the playoffs.

But that is not the worst of it. Jesus Baez is killing it in AA in the Cardinals' system. He was their organizational Player of the Month for June. We may be regretting this one for a long time.

2) Freddy Peralta for Brandon Sproat and Jett Williams - Many of us thought this was an overpay at the time, but if Peralta helps us win, it will be worth it. He didn't, and it ain't. Mets will likely flip him in a couple weeks for significantly less than what they paid. Both Sproat and Williams have had their stock drop somewhat, but they still are excellent prospects (although Sproat technically isn't a prospect any more). The potential regret factor of this trade remains high.

3) Marcus Semien for Brandon Nimmo - Semien has been really bad, which is why I rank this so high. His offensive decline has been more drastic than we thought, and his defense has been disappointing to say the least.

However, the development of Benge and Ewing (the latter a year ahead of schedule!) has mitigated the loss of Nimmo. If Nimmo were here, he'd be in the way. I know we miss his smile. But if he were relegated to DH / 4th OF, I doubt he'd be smiling.

The contractual issues are also important. Mets traded a bad five year contract for a bad three year contract. Could be important if a year from now, a salary cap is in place and the Mets are well over it.

4) Cedric Mullins for Raimon Gomez, Anthony Nunez, and Chandler Marsh - Mullins was awful, no way around that. Nunez has made it to the Orioles bullpen where he has been OK but nothing special. Jury is still out on him. The other two are outside the Orioles top 30 prospects.

5) Greg Soto for Wellington Aracena and Cameron Foster - Soto was OK for the Mets, not bad, not great. Foster has made the Orioles bullpen, but he was not a top 30 prospect. I think the regret factor is higher with Aracena.

I gotta admit - Item 1 on this list was so bad that it overshadows all the good ones.

Good opinions on each. Some part of how I look at it is that Stearns has done pretty well in the smaller moves- backup Catcher, 4th OF and bullpen...but- in trading for cornerstones' of the organization - no Ace, no answer in CF (sure, you can say that it opened it up for Benge, Ewing) but that doesn't make the trades any better, a dominate bullpen arm that should have been a compliment or replacement for Diaz, and no true impact player.
His FA record may also be just as bad. We can find a few good ones- but man, the money spent on horrific moves are crazy.

And since we don't know what may happen in a salary cap in 2027...we do not know yet if Semien's shorter but higher salary will help or hurt us vs Nimmo's.

 

[Toddwills00]

I accept your challenge! Here's my list of Stearns' five worst trades:

1) Ryan Helsley for Jesus Baez, Nate Dohm, and Frank Elissalt - This trade is far and away his worst. Helsley achieved a -0.9 WAR in just two months, which is hard to do. In other words. if some rando had been in the bullpen other than Helsley, the Mets would have (according to WAR) won one more game. That one game would have put them in the playoffs.

But that is not the worst of it. Jesus Baez is killing it in AA in the Cardinals' system. He was their organizational Player of the Month for June. We may be regretting this one for a long time.

2) Freddy Peralta for Brandon Sproat and Jett Williams - Many of us thought this was an overpay at the time, but if Peralta helps us win, it will be worth it. He didn't, and it ain't. Mets will likely flip him in a couple weeks for significantly less than what they paid. Both Sproat and Williams have had their stock drop somewhat, but they still are excellent prospects (although Sproat technically isn't a prospect any more). The potential regret factor of this trade remains high.

3) Marcus Semien for Brandon Nimmo - Semien has been really bad, which is why I rank this so high. His offensive decline has been more drastic than we thought, and his defense has been disappointing to say the least.

However, the development of Benge and Ewing (the latter a year ahead of schedule!) has mitigated the loss of Nimmo. If Nimmo were here, he'd be in the way. I know we miss his smile. But if he were relegated to DH / 4th OF, I doubt he'd be smiling.

The contractual issues are also important. Mets traded a bad five year contract for a bad three year contract. Could be important if a year from now, a salary cap is in place and the Mets are well over it.

4) Cedric Mullins for Raimon Gomez, Anthony Nunez, and Chandler Marsh - Mullins was awful, no way around that. Nunez has made it to the Orioles bullpen where he has been OK but nothing special. Jury is still out on him. The other two are outside the Orioles top 30 prospects.

5) Greg Soto for Wellington Aracena and Cameron Foster - Soto was OK for the Mets, not bad, not great. Foster has made the Orioles bullpen, but he was not a top 30 prospect. I think the regret factor is higher with Aracena.

I gotta admit - Item 1 on this list was so bad that it overshadows all the good ones.

I look at trades and value them at the time they were made.

1 & 2: made sense when both were executed (easily jusifiable) Peralta was a top 3 vote getter in CY Young last year and when we got him Helsley was a top 5 NL reliever. They both either have not or did not perform here. These trades should not have been risky trades these were proven guys that did not play well here

3 was a bad trade from the jump, had to do mental gymnastics to justify (tell tale sign it was a bad deal)

4 and 5 were meh we need a CF and Reliever, neither were any good and prospects look meh also.

 

[RUnotentertained]

Carson Wiggins agrees to deal with Mets

 

[29PAS]

All part of the equation. Also- the great organizations- just continue to develop and reload their minor league system.

Everything that we have been sold on with Stearns has not worked.

The major league team is the worst in baseball over the past year and the minor league system is almost depleted.

He has made zero positive impact trades and mult negative impact trades.

He has been the architect of one of the worst negative directions of an organization that we have seen with almost unlimited funds. You all know I have not been happy with him for quite a while and vocal about his off-season moves. But a few of you convinced me to take a wait and see how his vision and plan works out this year. Since there was no way to undo what he did, I took that approach and really hoped to be proven wrong. And even if I was- As a lifelong Met's fan for 60 years- I really had hoped that we could just keep a home grown guy, so the Alonso move killed a lot of enjoyment for years to come regardless.

Unfortunately, I have been proven right and we have a POBO that is horrible and destroying the franchise.

Am I the only one who had to look up POBO?

 

[yesrutgers01]

Am I the only one who had to look up POBO?

And I was expecting knightshift to be the one to ask. lol

 

[Zak57]

I accept your challenge! Here's my list of Stearns' five worst trades:

1) Ryan Helsley for Jesus Baez, Nate Dohm, and Frank Elissalt - This trade is far and away his worst. Helsley achieved a -0.9 WAR in just two months, which is hard to do. In other words. if some rando had been in the bullpen other than Helsley, the Mets would have (according to WAR) won one more game. That one game would have put them in the playoffs.

But that is not the worst of it. Jesus Baez is killing it in AA in the Cardinals' system. He was their organizational Player of the Month for June. We may be regretting this one for a long time.

2) Freddy Peralta for Brandon Sproat and Jett Williams - Many of us thought this was an overpay at the time, but if Peralta helps us win, it will be worth it. He didn't, and it ain't. Mets will likely flip him in a couple weeks for significantly less than what they paid. Both Sproat and Williams have had their stock drop somewhat, but they still are excellent prospects (although Sproat technically isn't a prospect any more). The potential regret factor of this trade remains high.

3) Marcus Semien for Brandon Nimmo - Semien has been really bad, which is why I rank this so high. His offensive decline has been more drastic than we thought, and his defense has been disappointing to say the least.

However, the development of Benge and Ewing (the latter a year ahead of schedule!) has mitigated the loss of Nimmo. If Nimmo were here, he'd be in the way. I know we miss his smile. But if he were relegated to DH / 4th OF, I doubt he'd be smiling.

The contractual issues are also important. Mets traded a bad five year contract for a bad three year contract. Could be important if a year from now, a salary cap is in place and the Mets are well over it.

4) Cedric Mullins for Raimon Gomez, Anthony Nunez, and Chandler Marsh - Mullins was awful, no way around that. Nunez has made it to the Orioles bullpen where he has been OK but nothing special. Jury is still out on him. The other two are outside the Orioles top 30 prospects.

5) Greg Soto for Wellington Aracena and Cameron Foster - Soto was OK for the Mets, not bad, not great. Foster has made the Orioles bullpen, but he was not a top 30 prospect. I think the regret factor is higher with Aracena.

I gotta admit - Item 1 on this list was so bad that it overshadows all the good ones.

I saw Knight shift call me out that I haven't been around so wanted to say nice recap here. Baez was mediocre in high A and they moved him up anyways and playing better. Only like 15 games there so we'll see. I did not like that trade last year because I thought Baez had immense upside. Aracena in the Soto trade was traded again by Baltimore to Arizona and not performing well currently.

I've been having a busy summer so haven't been around as much and unfortunately the team has severely disappointed due to a number of factors. Hope to get posting again more soon.

 

[MadRU]

Mets signed first round pick Wiggins, full slot value

 

[Knight Shift]

I saw Knight shift call me out that I haven't been around so wanted to say nice recap here. Baez was mediocre in high A and they moved him up anyways and playing better. Only like 15 games there so we'll see. I did not like that trade last year because I thought Baez had immense upside. Aracena in the Soto trade was traded again by Baltimore to Arizona and not performing well currently.

I've been having a busy summer so haven't been around as much and unfortunately the team has severely disappointed due to a number of factors. Hope to get posting again more soon.

Good to see you posting. It's been a rough season. #LFGM.