New York Mets – Jacob deGrom, Starting Pitcher
OK< so this one is obvious as the rumors have been bandied about for around a month. The Yankees need starting pitching and the best one that might be on the market is right in their backyard. deGrom is having a fabulous season and is a front line contender for the National League Cy Young. If the Mets are truly going to embrace a tear down and rebuild, they need to consider dealing deGrom, even if it means swallowing some of their pride and sending him to their cross-town rivals.
One fact that might be overlooked for deGrom is he’s already 30 years old. The Mets won’t be finished with a true rebuild to really take advantage of deGrom’s brilliance while he’s still got it. While deGrom has always been a high quality pitcher, he’s in the middle of his best season ever. His ERA, WHIP and HR/9 are all down to a significant degree. His strikeout rate is up and his WAR is over 4.0 already, surely to climb in the second half. It’s a reasonable position to take the deGrom will very likely not pitch better than this again in his career.
The Mets flat out need to take advantage of that fact. The rebuild will be long and deGrom will be around his mid-30’s. There’s no plausible scenario that the Mets can rebuild on the fly that quick. deGrom has two seasons left of service time before you worry about what to pay him in his free agent seasons. Pairing deGrom and Luis Severino at the 1-2 punch could at least give them a small chance at matching a rotation the the Houston Astros might throw. If the Mets are realistic about where the team is, this one should be legitimately possible.