first trade deadline big board<\/a>.) If the cost for Skubal is justifiably high and those other starters, all with control beyond this season, stay put, then Peralta should generate a lot of interest around the league.<\/p>\nSeveral of the contenders most in need of pitching \u2014 think of the St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago White Sox, Athletics and Washington Nationals \u2014 might not be ready to trade prospects for a rental starter such as Peralta. Teams more invested in this specific season, such as the Chicago Cubs or even a Baltimore Orioles team talking about buying, could be more aggressive.<\/p>\n
One thing that might give acquiring teams some pause: Peralta\u2019s team is just 1-5 in postseason games he\u2019s started. Peralta has a 4.76 ERA in those contests while averaging fewer than five innings per start.<\/p>\n
Projected return<\/p>\n
It won\u2019t be two top-100 prospects as it was in January. The best recent comp for Peralta might be the Los Angeles Angels\u2019 2023 trade for Lucas Giolito from the White Sox. At the time of the deal, Giolito had been worth 1.7 WAR that season and 7.6 WAR over the previous three seasons for Chicago. Right now, Peralta has been worth 1.2 WAR this season and 7.1 over the last three, with another month to catch up a bit.<\/p>\n
The Halos sent catcher Edgar Quero, then a top-100 prospect, along with pitcher Ky Bush, a recent second-round pick, for Giolito and Reynaldo L\u00f3pez. Given that Giolito had underperformed his peripherals in a significant way the prior season, I\u2019d venture Peralta could generate about the same value individually as Giolito and L\u00f3pez did together. So think a back-half top-100 prospect and a solid second prospect as the return.<\/p>\n
Should the Mets trade him?<\/p>\n
Yes, Peralta should still be one of the best starters available at the deadline, and trading him will allow the Mets to recoup some of the cost of acquiring him in January. They could revisit a longer-term deal in the offseason, as unlikely as that feels right now.<\/p>\n
Clay Holmes<\/p>\n
Perhaps no injury has damaged the Mets\u2019 long-term chances this season as much as Holmes\u2019 fractured leg, suffered May 15. The rotation has been unable to fill his absence, preventing the Mets from putting together series wins, let alone a longer winning streak, to get back into contention.<\/p>\n
Holmes has begun playing catch and could throw off a mound as soon as this week. It\u2019s unlikely but not impossible he\u2019ll return to a big-league mound before the trade deadline.<\/p>\n
Contract status<\/p>\n
Holmes is owed $3.8 million after Aug. 3. He has a $12 million player option for 2027 he\u2019ll almost certainly decline as long as he doesn\u2019t suffer an injury setback.<\/p>\n
2026 performance<\/p>\n
The collapse of the rotation around him in 2025 concealed how well he made the transition from back-end reliever to starter, as he made every start and exceeded most expectations. He was taking a step forward in 2026, with a 2.39 ERA (3.19 FIP) over nine starts before the injury. Only one qualified starter (Cristopher S\u00e1nchez) has a lower ground-ball rate this season. Holmes has thus positioned himself as a guy you acquire to start a postseason game for you.<\/p>\n
The market<\/p>\n
Holmes\u2019 ground-ball rate would make him a tantalizing prize for a team with excellent infield defense, such as the Cubs, Cardinals, Arizona Diamondbacks or Atlanta Braves. The Mets hope Holmes\u2019 injury timeline is relatively clear (if not over entirely) by the deadline, removing some of the uncertainty for an acquiring team.<\/p>\n
Projected return<\/p>\n
The injury is the issue. Had Holmes been starting these last six weeks and posting the same numbers he has so far this season, he could bring back the same type of return Merrill Kelly did last summer from the Texas Rangers (three intriguing pitching prospects). Holmes\u2019 injury puts a question mark next to how many starts he could make for an acquiring team, how he\u2019ll actually perform in those starts, and whether any kind of setback would make him want to exercise his option for 2027.<\/p>\n
In that sense, the closest analogue would be the Blue Jays\u2019 trade for Shane Bieber last summer, when Bieber hadn\u2019t started all season for the Cleveland Guardians. The Guardians received Khal Stephen, a recent second-round pick, back for Bieber. Now Bieber had missed more than 12 months from Tommy John surgery, compared with Holmes\u2019 two to three months with a leg injury. But he did have a longer track record as a starter (and a Cy Young on his mantel).<\/p>\n
Further, getting back a second-round pick approximated the return Cleveland would have gotten had it held on to Bieber and given him a qualifying offer in the offseason. For the Mets, that threshold with Holmes would be a fourth-round pick.<\/p>\n
Should the Mets trade him?<\/p>\n
Even if Peralta doesn\u2019t land the projected return mentioned above, he\u2019ll bring back something more valuable than the compensation pick the Mets would get if he leaves in free agency. That\u2019s not necessarily the case with Holmes, and so the Mets shouldn\u2019t simply trade him to the highest bidder if the return falls beneath that threshold. Provided he\u2019s ready to return by the deadline, or shortly after, though, Holmes should net the Mets something better than a draft pick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 With Monday\u2019s 2-1 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays, the New York Mets have lost at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":734915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,1189,99],"class_list":["post-734914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-new-york-mets","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734914","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=734914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/734915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=734914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=734914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=734914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}