Rising Apple

Convincing the Chicago Cubs to take David Peterson and his 6.09 ERA felt like a win for the New York Mets. He became unusable as a struggling starter whose best moments came as a bulk guy. In other circumstances, the Mets could have accepted this. In a year where we went through this experience with Sean Manaea and so much uncertainty with Kodai Senga, we can’t blame them for feeling the need to dump Peterson for anything at all. We graded the trade favorably the next morning.

If you collected baseball cards in the late 1990s and early 2000s, you probably had a stack of rectangular Wily Mo Pena images in your bedroom. The name alone was enough to catch your attention. A top prospect with the New York Yankees, he almost began his career as a member of the New York Mets. It was July 15, 1998, when the Mets and Pena signed a deal. However, on February 28, 1999, the contract was voided over the legitimacy of parental signature for the 16-year-old.

Not a lot has gone right for the New York Mets this season, but take a look at the National League Rookie of the Year odds heading into the second half, and you'll find three members of the roster featured prominently. Nolan McLean is the highest profile player of the trio, but Carson Benge and A.J. Ewing have certainly staked their claim to stardom as well in 2026.

One of the worst trades David Stearns has made at the helm of the New York Mets was the deal that brought Paul Blackburn to Queens. Kade Morris, the prospect New York sent to the Athletics for Blackburn, may have faded after a solid start out West, but the real reason this move goes down as a big bust is the complete lack of production the Mets got out of Blackburn. At the time, he seemed like a capable, innings-eating swingman.

Luke Weaver is a New York Mets player for the fans to debate in a variety of ways over the next 2+ weeks. Brilliant this season out of the bullpen, he has pitched his way into becoming one of the league’s most desirable trade chips. The debate of whether or not to move him is pretty simple. You keep him if offers aren’t good enough. Exactly what would be good enough? Weaver won’t bring the Mets three top 100 prospects or the kind of game-changing haul a star everyday player would.

The MLB trade deadline gets pushed back to August 3rd this year. On a Monday between a home series vs. the Miami Marlins and before taking a trip on the road to face the Cleveland Guardians, this will be the final day for David Stearns to try to restock the farm system. No Mets fan should be in denial about this outcome. There is no salvaging the season. The trade deadline is coming and these are five predictions for what we can expect.

The 162-game schedule wasn’t in action during the 1981 season when a player’s strike mid-year had MLB splitting the season into two halves. The MLB All-Star Game was pushed to August 9th, about a month past when it was originally scheduled. This was a prelude to the second-half of another lost Mets season. Not lost were some of the individual performances. Specifically, their lone All-Star, Joel Youngblood.

The “what if?” with any transaction can leave fans with a lot of questions. What about those rare “what ifs?” that came true in a completely different way. For the New York Mets, there might not be a better example than a failed trade prior to the 1986 season. In his first full year with the Mets, Ray Knight was a grave disappointment. He hit well in 1984, but in 1985, Knight batted .218/.252/.328 with 6 home runs in 290 plate appearances.

The New York Mets and Yankees rarely make trades. Even rarer is a deal in the middle of a season. Many of their in-season moves are pretty irrelevant like the July of 1989 deal swapping Marcus Lawton for Scott Nielsen. There have been actual trade deadline moves made between the teams, Armando Benitez going to the Bronx for a couple of games before getting traded again in 2003. According to some of the latest Yankees rumors, they’re looking for the same role as Benitez: a closer.

The relationship between Francisco Lindor and Juan Soto has been a driven narrative about the shortcomings of the New York Mets over the last year and a half. The club’s fall in 2025 and struggles in 2026 all seem to relate to the two Mets stars not getting along. Everything they do is getting dissected as if star players who aren’t best friends haven’t won before. The astonishing thing is there’s no way for either to win off the field.