MLB Insider: Brewers ideal trade deadline partner emerges, and it's brutally obvious

The Milwaukee Brewers have been one of baseball’s most surprising teams. After trading Corbin Burnes, losing Brandon Woodruff for the season, and watching Craig Counsell bolt to the Chicago Cubs, expectations were low in Milwaukee.

Yet through the first 60 games of the 2024 season, the Brewers have emerged as a serious threat, and boast the third best record in the National League behind the Philadelphia Phillies and Los Angeles Dodgers. And if the Brewers are to maintain that status, they’ll need to upgrade the roster, specifically the rotation, and there appears to be an ideal trade candidate.

The New York Mets.

Why Brewers, Mets could be trade partners

Few people in baseball know the Brewers better than David Stearns, the Mets’ president of baseball operations, who held the same position in Milwaukee from 2015 to 2023. Stearns and Brewers general manager Matt Arnold have already come together on one trade since Stearns went to New York (Adrian Houser and Tyrone Taylor to the Mets). Considering the familiarity and relationships between both sides, it’s possible they could do so once again.

Among the pitchers who could be traded by the Mets include right-hander Luis Severino and left-handers Sean Manaea and Jose Quintana.

Either Manaea or Quintana would make sense in Milwaukee. Manaea, 32, is an analytics favorite and has posted a 3.63 ERA and 57 strikeouts in 57 innings this season. Quintana, meanwhile, is a pitcher who dominated the Brewers when he pitched for the division-rival Cubs. He’s struggled this season, posting a 5.17 ERA and 43/21 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 12 starts, so he most likely will be inexpensive to acquire.

But Quintana, 35, could be an intriguing buy-low candidate. He is in the final year of a two-year, $26 million contract while Manaea is signed to a one-year, $14.5 million contract that includes a player option for the 2025 season.

Neither would be splashy, headline grabbing acquisitions. But they would be under-the-radar and logical considering the Brewers’ need for rotation help and the Mets’ sudden downturn. A move should not be considered imminent, or even likely at this point, but the buzz could grow louder as the trade deadline approaches.