Mets warned about 3 starting pitcher trades amid nightmare start to season originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
The New York Mets must be miserable right about now.
Coming off a terrible collapse to end the 2025 season, the Mets made a lot of offseason changes and hoped for better days in 2026.
Through Sunday, the Mets have lost 11 games in a row, and they're 7-15 overall. It's the stuff of nightmares.
ESPN's David Schoenfield wrote a new article on Monday examining trade needs, and for the Mets he wrote that they might need "blood" or "oxygen."
He lists top pitching prospect Jonah Tong as the possible means to acquiring some help.
"When your superstars are either injured (Juan Soto) or off to a concerning start (Francisco Lindor), the entire enterprise will look like it's on life support," Schoenfield writes. "The Mets probably aren't this bad. Still, most of David Stearns' offseason moves look bad so far: Jorge Polanco won't replace Pete Alonso, Marcus Semien looks old, Carson Benge was rushed to the majors, Bo Bichette hasn't hit and Devin Williams got hammered last week by the Dodgers. Of all those issues, only Bichette is a sure bet to play better."
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Schoenfield then goes a step further. He writes that if everything continues to go wrong, pending free agent Freddy Peralta or Clay Holmes could be available in trades, too.
"Clay Holmes has a $12 million player option for 2027 that he'll likely reject, so a Mets collapse could lead to two strong starting pitchers entering the trade market," Schoenfield writes.
If they don't? All the offseason changes could quickly be followed by more changes.
Explaining the absurdity of 2 MLB players named Max Muncy
This hitter has a worse OBP than his batting average
This slider is really good and moves the entirely wrong direction
This second-generation relief pitcher is on an absurd wins pace