With the trade deadline officially passed, the Mets have their roster for the final two months of the season, and will try to lock down a division title with what they have.
The deadline upgrades include Javier Baez and Rich Hill, but not much else. Trevor Williams was acquired in the Baez trade, but the reliever was optioned to Triple-A. Baez is the clear big splash, but with pitching deficiencies remaining, New York will have to hope that internal options can get healthy to help win the team's first division title since 2015.
Some hoped for more action prior to the deadline, but this is the team that will try to get the Mets back to the playoffs, and the minds that constructed the roster feel good about their chances.
"The whole thing is to get there," acting general manager Zack Scott said. "You win your division, you've got a good shot. There's a lot of good teams in the national league. The way that the game is structured, you look at three teams, it looks like an arms race in the NL West, but the reality is, we'll probably only play one of those teams if we get there. I think we have as good a shot as anybody. We just need to focus on playing well the rest of the way and winning the division."
New York currently holds a 3.5 game lead in the division, and is the only team in the NL East with a record above .500. The Phillies and Braves both added pieces at the deadline, with Atlanta significantly revamping its outfield following the loss of Ronald Acuna Jr., but the previously red-hot Nationals fell off and executed a fire sale to take themselves out of the running. It will come down to the Mets, Phillies, and Braves, and New York arguably made the greatest single upgrade of the group in adding Baez, despite the pitching not receiving significant upgrades.
"If we had weaknesses in the first 100 games of the season, it was inconsistent starting pitching, just because there were holes to fill every three or four days, and the second was offense against left-handed pitching," team president Sandy Alderson said. "We certainly addressed one of those with Baez. With respect to the pitching holes we had, we've got Carrasco pitching, we've got Rich Hill, and while that might not be Jacob deGrom or Jose Berrios, we're comfortable with what we currently have as we move into these last 60 games."
The Mets have lost two in a row and now have a negative run differential for the season (-2 heading into Saturday), but have fought off an unprecedented wave of injuries all season. Some injured pieces, including deGrom, hope to be a factor down the stretch, but with the deadline done, what you see is what you get. Now New York will have to hope it's enough.
"I've always felt good about this team before the deadline," Alderson said. "I still feel good about this team. We still have a lead in the division. As I've said before, we need to play better than our current record, I think we can and I expect us to."
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