With the Mets currently 17 games under .500 and 17.5 games back of first place in the NL East, there has been plenty of buzz around who the team will move by the 2026 MLB Trade Deadline.
New York has already informed teams they are open for business, SNY MLB Insider Chelsea Janes reported on July 16, and likely to deal players on expiring contracts. Janes noted everyone except Carson Benge, A.J. Ewing, Christian Scott, Nolan McLean and Juan Soto is said to be available, even including star shortstop Francisco Lindor as those potentially on the block.
Advertisement
While it does not mean that Lindor will be among those traded by Aug. 3 at 6:00 p.m., it does mean the Mets and president of baseball operations David Stearns are open to listening to offers. When asked about ruling out the possibility of trading the five-time All-Star and four-time Silver Slugger on Friday ahead of their series opener against the Dodgers, Stearns didn’t give a straight answer.
“I’m not going to rule out or in any specific player on anything. I don’t think that’s wise for me to do,” Stearns said. “What I will say is, we’ve got a group of young players and we’ve got some potential Hall-of-Famers, future Hall-of-Famers, that we view as our core. We expect them to be our core.”
Stearns went on to say the team is being “open-minded” ahead of the trade deadline while expecting to “compete in 2027, adding they aren’t “going to close any paths” at this time on who may or may not be dealt in next 10 days.
He was then asked if he considers Lindor part of the “core” he referred to going forward, and loosely included him, but did not make it clear if he’s unavailable in trade talks.
Advertisement
“I think what I said was we have a group of young players who we are really excited about, we have some couple guys who are likely headed to Cooperstown one day, and we would consider that grouping of players our core,” Stearns said. “I’m not going to get into specifics of who exactly is a name or who exactly we are or not going to trading right now.”
After missing 57 games and returning from the injured list on June 26, Lindor owns an .808 OPS with four home runs and 11 RBI over 21 games. He’s recently found some rhythm and is trending toward putting up his usual strong numbers by the end of the season (as noted in more depth here).
Meanwhile, Lindor also spoke with Janes on July 19 prior to the team’s game against the Philadelphia Phillies and let it be known he is not bothered by the hypothetical trade buzz since it’s all coming from outside of the clubhouse.
Since Stearns did not rule anything out Friday, fans can only wait and see what will happen over the next week-plus with Lindor and other Mets who could potentially be playing elsewhere for the remainder of the 2026 season.
Read the full article here