Mets could swing early trade for projected $108 million ace on budget-conscious team.
The New York Mets have made a dramatic transformation since 2024’s Opening Day and could be just one blockbuster move away from World Series contention.
The team opened this past season to relatively little fanfare and fairly low expectations, but a Cinderella run to the National League Championship Series and an aggressive offseason that landed superstar Juan Soto have changed things
Now the team heads into Opening Day with much higher expectations. But a key ingredient to real championship aspirations seems to be missing.
The Mets saw Jose Quintana and Luis Severino depart their rotation this winter and, while they replaced the pair with Clay Holmes and Frankie Montas, the rotation still seems to be a relative weakness. Montas and Sean Manaea are set to miss the start of the season with injuries and it’s unclear how Kodai Senga will recover from his own ailments or how Holmes will fare after pitching out of the bullpen for the New York Yankees.
As a result, the Mets seem like a strong candidate for an early-season trade. And CBS Sports’ Mike Axisa has listed them as an “early possible landing spot” for one of the best options on the trade block in San Diego Padres ace Dylan Cease.
“Normally I would say San Diego will have to fall out of the race for a trade to become a real possibility, though I’m not sure that’s the case here,” Axisa noted. “Money is obviously tight — you only need to look at how Michael King’s and Nick Pivetta’s contracts are structured to see that — and Cease will make a healthy $13.75 million in 2025, his final year of team control. Is there an avenue for the Padres to trade Cease for multiple younger and cheaper players? Yes.”
As the Padres undergo a contentious fight over ownership of the team, it seems they could look to exit any long-term financial commitments. And Cease is headed toward a lucrative free agency, projected for a five-year, $108 million deal going forward, per Spotrac.
Cease has made the case for that payday by making at least 32 starts in each of the past four seasons, with Cy Young Award votes in both 2022 and 2024. Given the largesse of team owner Steve Cohen, if the Mets see Cease as their ace of the future, they could be willing to deal away some younger talent to acquire him before the 2025 trade deadline and get a head start on a major contract extension.
