Yankees and Mets Could Still Deal at the Deadline. Just Don’t Expect Francisco Lindor.

The Yankees are hurting. That’s not really a secret anymore. Aaron Judge is out. Max Fried is out. And the team just dropped the first game out of the All-Star break to the Dodgers, the same team they lost to in last year’s World Series. So the trade deadline talk has shifted into overdrive, and it’s starting to get weird.

Weird because the conversation now includes the crosstown Mets. Yeah, those Mets. The ones across town who just traded Max Scherzer last summer and are arguably in a different phase of their roster cycle. But according to Jon Heyman of the New York Post, there’s at least some smoke between the two front offices.

Let’s get this out of the way first. Francisco Lindor is not walking through that door. Heyman reported that the Yankees have zero interest in the Mets’ star shortstop, and that makes sense. New York is comfortable with Jose Caballero at short and has other areas to patch up. Lindor’s contract is massive, and honestly, the fit isn’t there right now.

But Heyman did float some names that could actually move between the two teams. Luis Torrens and Francisco Alvarez are both catchers, and the Yankees could use help behind the plate. Clay Holmes and Luke Weaver are pitchers who used to wear pinstripes. Holmes in particular might sound familiar to Yankees fans, since he was actually solid for them before getting traded.

The Yankees aren’t bad at catcher or in the bullpen, exactly. But they’ve been hit by injuries in weird ways, and depth is becoming a real concern. Max Fried’s absence has stretched the rotation thin, and while the team is still 54-43 and only two games back of Tampa Bay in the AL East, the margin for error is shrinking.

What makes this interesting is that the Mets and Yankees almost never make significant in-season trades. They’ve swapped role players before, sure, but this would be a real test of how badly each side wants to win now. The Mets are technically still in the wild card conversation themselves, so unloading useful pieces to a division rival isn’t a no-brainer.

But the deadline is August 3 at 6:00 p.m. Eastern. That’s not far off. And if the Yankees keep scuffling through this homestand with the Dodgers, the pressure to do something — anything — is only going to get louder.