Mets 2026 Trade Deadline Grades: One Masterstroke and Plenty of High-Variance Arms

The New York Mets' disastrous 2026 made them easy deadline sellers. There was no straddling the fence, because by mid-June, they had already fallen from the fence, broken both legs and an arm as they rolled down a hill into an industrial waste receptacle. All told, the Mets executed seven trades, shipping out eight major leaguers, and got 12 prospects in return. 

Of the players the Mets traded, only Luke Weaver and Clay Holmes had guaranteed money on the books for the 2027 season, and Holmes’ guarantee is via a player option. Since the vast majority of the Mets’ moves were rentals, the expected prospect return should be muted. MLB organizations simply don’t depart with top prospects for rentals, unless they’re a star. While that might make the Mets’ deadline fire sale seem somewhat underwhelming, it also means they haven’t completely gutted their roster for future seasons.

With those caveats in mind, let’s get out the red pen and hand out those grades. 

New York Mets 2026 Trade Deadline Grades

Trade: Mets secure Jefferson Rojas from the Chicago Cubs for Clay Holmes and Tyrone Taylor

This was, without a doubt, my favorite trade the Mets made, and the reason is quite simple. Jefferson Rojas is a global top-100 prospect. I wish more teams tried to bundle two vets to get one good prospect; instead of taking the pu-pu platter of 35 and 40-grade prospects that every organization seems to churn out, the Mets landed one big fish. On top of that, top-100 prospects rarely get moved for a 33-year-old pitcher who has missed the past two months and a career short-sided platoon outfielder. However, I’m not going to savage the Cubs for this decision. 

Holmes has been a solid starting pitcher since the Mets converted him from the pen in 2025. He posted a 3.53 ERA in 165.2 innings last season, and has a 2.39 ERA in 52.2 innings in 2026. Now, all the ERA estimators suggest he has gotten a bit fortunate, but the Cubs have one of the best position player cores in baseball and desperately needed starting pitching. On top of that, Holmes gets gobs of groundballs, which fits perfectly with the Cubs' exceptional infield defense. He fills a huge need for a World Series hopeful, and he fits perfectly with their core, even if he ends up a rental. 

Taylor has been legitimately excellent against left-handed pitching this season. He owns a 146 wRC+ against southpaws, but for his career his wRC+ against left-handers is only 101. He can also fake it in center, which is of no use to the Cubs because of Pete Crow-Armstrong, but it’s nice to have that in your back pocket. At the end of the day, Taylor is just a depth piece, which is never bad to have when you’re trying to win the whole thing. 

Rojas is by far the highest-rated prospect the Mets landed at the deadline, and he possesses a very interesting profile. He has excellent bat control, makes good swing decisions, has decent pop, and is likely to play a passable shortstop. If that sounds like a very stable prospect, that’s because he is. Rojas’ well-rounded skill set gives him a very strong likelihood of providing average or better value at shortstop. As a bonus, if any of his skills level up, he has a chance to be a star. While this is unlikely to be the Mets' revenge for the Pete Crow-Armstrong trade, it isn’t completely out of the question. Rojas is tracking for a 2028 debut, but he has a 114 wRC+ as a 21-year-old in AA, so a 2027 debut is certainly not out of the question. 

Grade: A+

Trade:  Mets Land Sammy Stafura from Pirates for Luke Weaver and cash considerations

There’s an argument to be made that Luke Weaver was the best reliever moved at the deadline, as his 1.84 ERA and 1.1 fWAR rank 11th and 19th in all of baseball. However, I’m inclined to believe his 3.50 xFIP, which supposes a league-average HR/FB, is closer to his true talent level. If you’re not a true kaiju-level reliever (e.g., Jhoan Duran or Mason Miller) with years of control, you’re just not getting moved for a top-100 guy. 

Weaver’s profile has changed markedly this season. He went from being an extreme fly-ball pitcher to now sporting a healthy 43.1% groundball rate. However, he hasn’t gotten there the old-fashioned way. Weaver still isn’t throwing a sinker; he has just traded in a few more cutters and change-ups to terrorize the local worm population. 

To get Weaver to the notoriously tight-fisted Pirates, the Mets had to chip in $2 million to help pay down Weaver’s remaining salary this season and a further $6 million to eat into his $11 million 2027 salary. That’s a heck of a reliever and a lot of money to land Sammy Stafura. 

Now, Stafura is an interesting lottery ticket for the Mets. He’s an excellent athlete and looks likely to stick at shortstop. At the plate, he has shown solid discipline in the low minors, but he has hit tool risk, and before this season, he had only shown minimal power. However, in 2026, Stafura’s power numbers have been exceptional. 

He has 19 home runs in High-A and is running an ISO of .355. The problem is power and offense has exploded throughout the minors, and it’s hard to parse what’s real and what’s the result of a juiced ball. If this level of power is real, which I’m inclined to believe at some level it is, then Stafura is a much more interesting prospect. We’ll have to wait and see if his offensive explosion is the real deal, but it certainly makes him more interesting than he was 12 months ago. My guess is some of the power uptick is legitimate because why else would the Mets be willing to move a top reliever, who wasn’t even a rental, and throw in $8 million for him?

Grade: B

Trade: Mets Flip Ben Rortvedt to the Dodgers for Chayce McDermott 

The fact that the Mets got anything for Ben Rortvedt is, on some level, impressive. Yes, he’s a great defensive catcher, but his career wRC+ of 62 is the same as Ice Box Chamberlain, Highball Wilson, and Doc Reisling’s, to name a few turn of the 20th century pitchers with 80-grade names. He’s a reserve catcher. These guys get DFA’d all the time. I’m sure he’ll make a great coach one day, but these are the types of players that flow freely between teams for a reason. 

Chayce McDermott was once a prospect. In fact, he was once a top-100 prospect. Between 2022 and 2024, he led the minors in strikeouts. He had great stuff and succeeded at a high level despite an elevated walk rate. Unfortunately, he has struggled with injuries since, and his stuff hasn’t been overwhelming enough to overcome his awful control. However, this is a shrewd pickup for the Mets. 

Sure, guys like McDermott get DFA’d all the time, but they flipped a DFA candidate with no shot of stardom for a guy who could conceivably become a valuable late-inning weapon. I think the ship has sailed on McDermott ever being a starter, but if the Mets can get his control to acceptable status, he could be a solid middle-inning option, and if he ever gets to average, he may be useful in leverage situations. This is a flyer on a guy with real upside and pedigree. For the cost of a catcher with an impossible-to-spell last name, that’s solid work. 

Grade: B-

Trade: Mets Land Luke Gabrysh and John Spikerman from Phillies for Brooks Raley

Brooks Raley, much like Luke Weaver, isn’t going to be judged by his sterling 1.96 ERA. He’s a 38-year-old left-handed reliever with average strikeout and walk figures who makes his living on contact suppression. He’s still a valuable contributor out of the pen, but this isn’t the guy you want slamming the door in the eighth and ninth innings. As such, the Mets return for him is most likely to end up as organizational depth. 

Luke Gabrysh is still starting, but command issues and good stuff have him trending towards the bullpen. You never know how a pitcher will take to the pen, but if his stuff plays up in single-inning bursts, he might not need all that much control to climb the ladder. While I’d still hold out hope that my pitching development could keep him on the starter track, he’s much more likely to debut in 2028 in the sixth inning of a random June game. 

John Spikerman has wheels, can potentially play centerfield, and is walking a ton in the low-minors. Based on his lack of power, which includes raw thump and a lack of lift and pull, Spikerman is not going to be an on-base machine as he climbs the ladder. He needs to be able to play centerfield to make it to the bigs, or else he’ll probably stall out in Triple-A as a light-hitting corner outfielder who gets overwhelmed by quality stuff. 

Grade: C

Trade: Mets Get Gabe Davis and Zach Franklin from White Sox for Huascar Brazoban

It’s always sad to see a guy like Huascar Brazobán get traded. He has been rock solid out of the middle of the Mets’ bullpen the past two seasons, and he could sell the rights to his route to the majors to one of those B-tier streaming services like Tubi. Brazoban, at age 28, was out of the minors following the 2017 season. Instead of packing it up, he just kept persevering. 

He played in the independent Atlantic League in 2018, then had visa issues that caused him to miss all of 2019,  and then COVID canceled the 2020 season. After two seasons out of semi-professional American baseball, he again headed back to the Atlantic League for 2021, and it wasn’t until 2022 when the Marlins signed him that he got back on a major league track. Somehow, he debuted in 2022, at age 32, and has been a solid middle reliever ever since. Long live Huascar Brazobán!

As noted, Brazobán is simply a solid middle reliever, so he was never going to command a haul, but I like what the Mets did here. In Gabe Davis and Zach Franklin, they landed two guys with huge stuff. Davis is the more interesting of the two because he’s still starting, stands 6’9, and has hit 100 MPH with his heater. Is the control an issue? Yes. Are the secondaries suspect? You bet. But this is a giant with a huge arm who was a reliever in college. He has a bunch of late bloomer traits, is still only 22, and has late-inning fireballer as a fallback career path.

Franklin is extremely old to be considered a prospect, but I’m intrigued by him nonetheless. He’ll turn 28 in October and has yet to throw a major-league pitch, but his fastball-splitter combo has racked up strikeouts throughout the minors. His ERA is ugly at AAA (4.37), but he has the best walk rate of his career (7.5%) and is striking out a third (32.1%) of the opposition. As so many relievers have been in the past, he has been bedeviled by an insane home run rate (2.18 HR/9). Outside of Triple-A, he has largely limited the long ball. It could be his approach is susceptible to more advanced hitters, but he’s definitely worth a look because strikeouts are the best thing a pitcher can do. 

Grade: B

Trade: Mets Acquire Aidan Smith, Emilien Pitre and Gary Gill Hill from the Rays for Freddy Peralta

Freddy Peralta’s Mets’ tenure ended unceremoniously when he was flipped for the aforementioned 45-grade pu-pu platter. The unrealized promise of Peralta has been well documented, and while his ERA estimators all suggested better than his 4.99 showing, it’s not like they were secretly sterling. That being said, there’s still a solid pitcher in there, and the price the Rays paid to land him says as much. 

Aidan Smith, Emilien Pitre, and Gary Gill Hill are all solid if unspectacular prospects. That doesn’t mean this return was light, but it means the Mets went for solid depth, as opposed to chasing high-variance lottery tickets, as they did in many of their other deadline moves. As an overall deadline strategy, I think it makes sense to get a solid mix of different prospects. 

Gary Gill Hill is the opposite of just about every other pitcher the Mets acquired. He doesn’t possess overwhelming stuff, but he has excellent command and should be able to help the back of the rotation in short order. If the Mets can figure out how to coax more stuff out of him, he could really take off, but he doesn’t have the size or the type of dynamic athleticism where that’s a realistic dream. Hill is likely to end up the type of pitcher that is valuable in an emergency. 

Aidan Smith was trending up on prospect boards in 2024. Between Seattle and Tampa Bay, he hit for a robust 143 wRC+ at A-ball as a 19-year-old. For someone with plus-speed and a projectable frame, it became easy to dream. Unfortunately, a nascent hit tool risk torpedoed his performance in 2025 and has followed him into 2026. This is purely a flier on a high-variance prospect, whose arrow is currently pointing down.  

Emilien Pitre is inarguably the highest-performing prospect the Mets acquired. He walks a ton, rarely strikes out, and has enough pop to pull the occasional home run. For 2026, between High-A and Double-A, he is slashing .308/.438/.447 for a 139 wRC+. There isn’t much bust risk, but Pitre doesn’t have the power, physical projection, or defensive versatility to have a real big-league role if he’s not an elite contact hitter. There are more and more success stories of elite contact hitters using their astute batting eye and barrel control to sell out for power, but it’s always fair to remain skeptical until that evolution is complete. Right now, Pitre has exclusively played second base, and doesn’t project as plus at the position. He’s an interesting prospect who should get a cup of coffee one day, but he’s no lock to be a regular at the highest level.

Grade: B-

Trade: Mets Get Billy Amick and Bruin Agbayani from the Twins for A.J. Minter

A.J. Minter was the first of the Mets’ trade deadline dominoes to fall. After missing most of 2025 recovering from lat surgery, Minter has been his usual exceptional self, albeit in a very different way. At his peak, he would rack up strikeouts while limiting walks. This season, the strikeouts have dried up, a career-low 21.4%, but he has virtually offered no free passes, a career-best 2.0%. His ERA estimators haven’t been quite as strong as they were in the past, but it’s pretty hard not to be an effective option when you issue a single pass every dozen innings. 

To pry Minter away from the Mets, the Twins sent Billy Amick and Bruin Agbayani to Queens. Both prospects have a 35-grade from FanGraphs, which indicates they’re viewed as marginal major leaguers. Amick has real power, but his contact issues are a glowing red flag. As a right-handed batting 3B/1B prospect, Amick is going to need to remedy his contact issues, because he isn’t suddenly going to develop 80-grade raw power. He projects as a boom-or-bust bench bat, if he reaches the majors at all. 

Bruin Agbayani is more the interesting prospect of the two, and not just because his dad is Benny “Hawaiian Punch” Agbayani. The younger Agbayani is only 19, and has a legitimate hit tool. That alone gives him a much more stable profile to build from. He’ll have to remain on the dirt and hopefully grow into average power to profile as an everyday big leaguer, but I’d rather take a chance on a 19-year-old outdoing their power projection than hoping a 23-year-old can actually make contact. 

In all likelihood, the Mets probably landed two guys who cap out in AA or AAA, but for wildly different reasons. While it would have been nice to land guys with better major-league chances, those guys just don’t get traded for rental relievers all that often.

Grade: C

Overall, the Mets did well to turn their stable of rentals into a bushel of prospects. Landing Jefferson Rojas was a masterstroke, and they did well to secure some high-variance arms. Based on FanGraphs' prospect rankings, the Mets added one 50-grade prospect, one 45-grade, four 40-grade, and six 35-grade prospects. Just as a note, the industry consensus is that a 50 grade indicates a future average major leaguer. That might not sound like much, but getting a few two-to-three WAR seasons from a pre-arbitration and early arbitration player is incredibly valuable. 

If the Mets had been willing to deal players with more team control, they could have certainly gotten a better prospect haul. Chances are about half of these players won’t even be viewed as legitimate prospects in 12 months, but that’s just fine. A minor-league system is about finding impact major-league talent, not having the most guys who get blurbs on websites. The Mets took some calculated risks, landed a stable top-100 prospect, and bulked up their organizational depth. That’s about as good as you’re going to do when you ship out a bunch of veteran rentals. 

Overall Grade: B+