NEW YORK — Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns acknowledged that the club’s trade deadline acquisitions haven’t delivered the impact the front office envisioned.
Still, Stearns pointed to reasons for optimism as the Mets enter the season’s final stretch. Though the team has lost its NL East lead since the deadline and is now barely holding on to a postseason berth, there’s still time for these moves to pan out.
Looking back, however, Stearns would have approached the deadline differently.
“I think if I knew exactly how our season was going to play out, absolutely no question. But we make the decisions we make at the time with the information we have,” Stearns said before Tuesday’s 8-3 win against the San Diego Padres. “I’m very comfortable with the process we went through that led us to those decisions. But yeah, we did not play well during the month of August, and frankly, for this point through September. We’ve had various segments of our team that haven’t performed at the level that we certainly anticipated as we approach the trade deadline.”
The Mets made four big trade-deadline acquisitions: center fielder Cedric Mullins and relievers Gregory Soto, Tyler Rogers and Ryan Helsley. Two of those additions have mostly paid off, while the other two have been disappointments.
The most glaring letdown of the foursome has been Helsley, the flamethrower who just last year led MLB with 49 saves. Since joining the Mets, the right-hander has allowed 20 runs (16 earned) over 14 innings for a 10.29 ERA.
Since Helsley joined the Mets, the club has determined that he was tipping his pitches. Mets manager Carlos Mendoza recently revealed that Helsley has “cleaned up” his windup.
This has resulted in him throwing scoreless innings in two of his last three outings. Still, he’s allowed two earned runs in three innings — a 6.00 ERA — during that span.
The other big letdown, at least leading up to Tuesday’s game against the Padres, has been Mullins. The former All-Star was brought in to shore up center field at the trade deadline; instead, after a 19-for-101 (.188 batting average) start with the Mets, he’s been reduced to a platoon role alongside Jose Siri.
Stearns offers an optimistic outlook for Mullins.
“I think we’re seeing him have a little more productive at-bats, staying in at-bats, getting on time with the fastball, a little bit better,” Stearns said. “And so that’s really good sign for us.”
Including Tuesday, when he went 1-for-3 with a home run against San Diego, Mullins is 4-for-13 in his last five games, a .307 batting average.
The remaining two acquisitions have been relative successes.
Before his two most recent outings, where he’s allowed six earned runs over 2 2/3 innings, Soto had a 1.98 ERA over his previous 15 outings with the Mets.
Rogers has remained steady throughout. Coming from the San Francisco Giants with a 1.80 ERA, it’s ticked up a tad to 1.90 over 21 appearances with the Mets.
