The New York Mets may not be mathematically out of the NL wild-card race, but there's enough evidence for president of baseball operations David Stearns to take advantage of a seller's market and continue to set the team up well for the future.
Obviously, three-time All-Star Pete Alonso, one of the game's elite power producers, will be the name that's most watched in Flushing. As a rental, Alonso should be of interest to a slew of AL teams, including the Houston Astros, Seattle Mariners, Kansas City Royals and Cleveland Guardians. The Mets could get a respectable return for Alonso now and still have a chance to re-sign him in the winter, even if things like that rarely pan out.
But beyond Alonso, the Mets have a slew of other veterans on expiring contracts who they can trade in for lottery tickets—Luis Severino, Harrison Bader, J.D. Martinez and Sean Manaea among them.
New York may not get any top-100 prospects back in trades this summer, but as the Royals showed netting Ragans for Aroldis Chapman last summer, you can sometimes uncover some hidden gems when you trade with teams desperate to make a World Series run.
