Report: New York Mets Won’t Trade Addison Reed To The Washington Nationals

The New York Mets figure to be sellers in a few weeks, and one of their most attractive trade chips should be relief pitcher Addison Reed. Reed has been a solid fill in for closer Jeurys Familia, picking up 14 saves and recording a 2.59 ERA in the season, which should make him a solid candidate to get dealt before the trade deadline. A lot of teams are in need of relief pitching, with the most desperate team appearing to be the Washington Nationals. The Nationals currently have a 5.19 bullpen ERA, the worst in baseball, which is extremely problematic given their goals of reaching the World Series. The Mets don’t appear to be inclined to help out their division rivals, Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe reports, by sending Reed to them to help out their bullpen.

This makes sense for the Mets, who have no desire to help their biggest rivals get closer to winning a World Series title, but they should at least listen to offers from the Nationals. If Washington is willing to overpay and give up two of their best prospects for Reed, the Mets should say thank you and send Reed on his way. The price for Washington should be higher than everybody else since they are the Mets’ chief competition in the division, but there should be enough interested teams in relief pitching that the Mets can find a strong deal for Reed from a team other than the Nats.

Trading Reed, who is a pending free agent, also shouldn’t close the door on his time with the Mets. The Mets should be looking into trading Reed and potentially re-signing him over the winter, like the New York Yankees did with Aroldis Chapman last year. The Yankees dealt Chapman to the Chicago Cubs for top prospect Gleyber Torres, and Chapman helped the Cubs win a World Series before he re-signed with the Yankees over the winter. The Mets could do something similar with Reed, especially with a ton of money coming off the books this winter. That would make the most sense, but moves that make sense aren’t always the ones the Mets look to make.