The New York Mets are having the kind of season that gets people fired. Carlos Mendoza already got the ax. Now the front office is staring down a trade deadline where just about everyone on the roster could be on the move. Almost everyone, anyway.
According to Jon Heyman of the New York Post, the Chicago White Sox and other teams have their eyes on backup catcher Luis Torrens. But the Mets aren’t interested in moving him. Heyman posted on X that the White Sox and others are targeting Torrens, but the Mets do not want to trade their beloved backup backstop.
That might raise some eyebrows given Torrens isn’t exactly setting the world on fire at the plate. He’s hitting .223 this season with two home runs and 20 RBIs. For his career, he’s got 292 hits. Those aren’t numbers that typically make a guy untouchable.
But here’s the thing. Torrens is reportedly well-liked in the clubhouse. And in a season where the Mets have already lost their manager and sit dead last in the NL East at 45-62, keeping a steady presence behind the plate might matter more than the raw stats suggest. The team had serious expectations coming into this year. They thought they’d compete for a pennant. None of that panned out.
The White Sox, meanwhile, are having their best season in years. They’re sitting in first place in the AL Central. Chicago wants Torrens for a postseason push. But New York isn’t budging yet.
Almost everyone else is available
While Torrens seems safe, the rest of the roster is fair game. One guy who’s spoken openly about hoping to stay is Luis Robert Jr. The outfielder was acquired by the Mets before this season after spending years with the White Sox. So this whole situation has a weird symmetry to it.
“These are things that just happen in the game of baseball,” Robert told MLB.com. “When I first got to the White Sox, I said, ‘That’s never going to happen to me.’ But once you see that happening, you know it’s always a possibility.”
Robert knows what it’s like to be on the other side of a rebuild or a sell-off. He lived it in Chicago. Now he’s watching the Mets go through something similar, and he’s just hoping he’s not part of the package that goes out the door.
The Mets are back in action Tuesday against the Atlanta Braves. They’ve won five of their last 10 games, which isn’t great but isn’t a complete disaster either. The deadline will tell us a lot about which direction this franchise is actually heading.
Leave a Comment