{"id":724612,"date":"2026-06-25T06:28:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T06:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/724612\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T06:28:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T06:28:12","slug":"mets-trade-david-peterson-to-cubs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/724612\/","title":{"rendered":"Mets Trade David Peterson To Cubs"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cubs and Mets reportedly agreed to a trade on Wednesday night. Starter David Peterson<\/a> goes to Chicago in exchange for first base prospect Cole Mathis<\/a>. The Cubs will need to open a 40-man roster spot once the deal is finalized.<\/p>\n

New York and Chicago are coincidentally amidst a four-game series at Citi Field. The Cubs have taken the first three games, including sweeping today\u2019s doubleheader by scoring a combined 20 runs. A six-error showing in game two was among the lowest moments in a dreadful season for the Mets, who dropped 12 games under .500 for the first time since 2023.<\/p>\n

The Mets probably aren\u2019t ready for a complete fire sale, but it\u2019s more difficult than ever to convince themselves they\u2019ll turn things around. Peterson was a logical option to be one of the first players to move. He\u2019s an impending free agent who has pitched his way out of the rotation a couple times this season. Peterson returned to the starting five over the weekend but gave up five runs across four innings in a loss to Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

That pushed his earned run average up to 6.09 across 68 innings. The 30-year-old southpaw has a below-average 19.7% strikeout percentage against a 9.4% walk rate. He\u2019s getting ground-balls at a strong 51% clip and has been plagued by an elevated .350 average on balls in play. Peterson\u2019s underlying marks are a little more encouraging than the ERA would suggest, albeit still pointing to him as a fifth\/sixth starter.<\/p>\n

The Cubs aren\u2019t in position to be too particular. They\u2019re without\u00a0Cade Horton<\/a> for the entire season.\u00a0Justin Steele<\/a> might return late in the year, but he won\u2019t have time to build up as a starter.\u00a0Jameson Taillon<\/a> is out beyond the All-Star Break with a hamstring strain. President of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said on Tuesday morning that the front office was exploring the trade market<\/a> for depth arms.<\/p>\n

Within 24 hours of Hoyer\u2019s comments, they lost two more starters. Edward Cabrera<\/a> strained his hamstring in a start against the Mets on Tuesday.\u00a0Ben Brown<\/a>, a reliever conversion who has been their best pitcher over the past six weeks, went on the shelf<\/a> with a neck strain this morning. The Cubs will get\u00a0Matthew Boyd<\/a> back from a meniscus repair tomorrow, plugging one of those vacancies. That still left them with a four-man starting staff of Boyd,\u00a0Shota Imanaga<\/a>,\u00a0Colin Rea<\/a> and\u00a0Javier Assad<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Peterson should be a better fifth starter than\u00a0Jordan Wicks<\/a> or out-of-options swingman\u00a0Bryse Wilson<\/a>, whom the Cubs claimed off waivers from Philadelphia this afternoon. At the very least, the grounder-heavy approach should play better in front of a Chicago infield that leads MLB in Outs Above Average. The Mets were 23rd by that metric entering play Wednesday, and they\u2019ll probably drop further after tonight\u2019s ugly showing.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re less than a year removed from Peterson taking the mound at Truist Park in the 2025 All-Star Game. He\u2019d followed up a 2.91 ERA showing in 2024 with a 3.06 mark in the first half of last season. The Oregon product looked like an upper mid-rotation arm at the time, but he allowed a 6.34 ERA in 12 starts to close the season. Those struggles carried over, and Peterson has a 5.84 mark over 146 innings within the last calendar year.<\/p>\n

Peterson is playing on an $8.1MM salary in his final arbitration season. Half of that has yet to be paid. Unless there are cash considerations changing hands, the Cubs will take on just over $4MM. They entered the day with an estimated<\/a> $229MM cash payroll and $246MM luxury tax number, putting them just above the $244MM base threshold. They\u2019ll pay a 20% tax on spending up to $264MM, so the Peterson acquisition costs them an extra $800K in taxes. It\u2019ll drop New York\u2019s cash payroll to roughly<\/a> $360MM. They\u2019re paying a 110% tax on overages, so they save roughly $4.45MM in taxes as well.<\/p>\n

The Mets announced this morning that they were moving<\/a> Kodai Senga<\/a> to the bullpen. It\u2019s unclear if that\u2019ll remain the case now that they need to fill two rotation spots.\u00a0Nolan McLean<\/a> and\u00a0Sean Manaea<\/a> took the ball for today\u2019s twin bill.\u00a0Freddy Peralta<\/a>, who seems increasingly likely to be traded closer to the August 3 deadline, will go against Boyd tomorrow.<\/p>\n

The plans for a weekend series against the Phillies are wide open.\u00a0Christian Scott<\/a> will probably return from the injured list to start on Saturday. They\u2019ll either need spot starters or bullpen games for the other two contests. Jonah Tong<\/a> and\u00a0Zach Thornton<\/a> are depth options on the 40-man roster.\u00a0Tobias Myers<\/a> could work multiple innings to lead a bullpen game or tandem start.<\/p>\n

Mathis, 23 next month, was Chicago\u2019s second-round pick in the 2024 draft. A two-way player at the College of Charleston, he has been a full-time position player in pro ball after undergoing Tommy John surgery post-draft. Mathis missed a good chunk of the \u201925 season to another elbow sprain and just went back on the injured list with an undisclosed issue this week.<\/p>\n

Around the health concerns, Mathis has posted strong minor league numbers. That\u2019s to be expected for a college draftee facing low level arms. Mathis has ridden a patient approach to a .248\/.371\/.508 batting line through 310 professional plate appearances, all in A-ball. Baseball America<\/a> ranked him ninth in the Chicago farm system, while he was 13th at MLB Pipeline<\/a>. Eric Longenhagen and James Fegan of FanGraphs<\/a> were quite a bit lower, slotting him 33rd in the organization on their writeup last month.<\/p>\n

Evaluators generally credit Mathis with good bat-to-ball skills and solid but not exceptional power. FanGraphs raised questions about passivity in his approach, which has led to deep counts and slightly elevated strikeout rates. Baseball America\u2019s writeup calls him a potential second-division regular based on the hit\/power combination. He\u2019s at least a couple years away but will be eligible for the Rule 5 draft after the 2027 season.<\/p>\n

Jeff Passan of ESPN<\/a> first reported the Cubs were acquiring Peterson. Will Sammon of The Athletic<\/a> was first on Mathis as the return. Image courtesy of Wendell Cruz, Imagn Images.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cubs and Mets reportedly agreed to a trade on Wednesday night. Starter David Peterson goes to Chicago…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":724613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[1188,99],"class_list":["post-724612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-david-peterson","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=724612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/724613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=724612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=724612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=724612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}