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The Mets repeated their 2015 trade deadline — alas without Yoenis Cespedes.
They went all complementary at a deadline that felt like an Oscars in which only the best supporting categories are handed out. This was a leading-man-absent process throughout the sport, which fit the 20,000-foot mindset that David Stearns — with Steve Cohen’s blessing — has instituted for 2024; namely that the team try to push into the playoffs without disrupting the potential for 2025 and thereafter.
Stearns, after all, was hired to try to turn the Mets into Dodgers East — a factory that produces difference-makers while having the resources to keep and recruit stars. Nothing that has happened under his watch has disrupted that, including this trade deadline. Nothing approaching a top prospect was moved by the Mets.
Conversely, because of that, there was no roll of the Cespedes dice. In 2015, the Mets augmented around Cespedes by also adding Tyler Clippard, Kelly Johnson, Addison Reed and Juan Uribe — all of whom performed well to help elevate an NL pennant-winning club. The Mets will have to hope that in 2024 they did not need an injection of star power, just supporting players.