The New York Mets announced Wednesday that they’ve claimed left-hander Alex Young off waivers from the San Francisco Giants and optioned him to Triple-A Syracuse.
It’s a quick turnaround for Young, whom the Giants acquired just last week in the trade that sent outfielder Austin Slater and cash to the Reds. San Francisco apparently hoped to pass Young through waivers and retain the southpaw as a depth option, but the Mets didn’t allow that to happen and will keep Young on their 40-man roster for the time being, per Steve Adams of MLBtraderumors.com.
This complicated sequence leaves the Giants with no real return for Slater, a 2014 eighth rounder who’s been a good role player for them over the years before struggling to career-worst results at the plate in 2024.
Young has pitched in parts of six big league seasons — counting his brief two-inning stint with the Reds this season. The former second-round pick has a career 4.40 earned run average in 264 major league innings and has struck out 19.5 percent of his opponents compared to an 8.5 percent walk rate.
Though he debuted as a starter with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2019, Young has worked mostly as a reliever since then and hasn’t started a game since 2022.
Young didn’t allow a run in his two innings with the Reds this season, and he’s been excellent in 24 2/3 innings in Triple-A also, putting up an impressive 2.19 ERA with a 23.5 percent strikeout rate and 8.2 percent walk rate between the affiliates for the Reds and Giants.
The lefty has a shaky 4.99 ERA in 209 1/3 career innings at the Triple-A level, although that’s been skewed by a pair of terrible debut campaigns in Triple-A with Arizona in 2018-19. He’s pitched quite well in Triple-A in each of the past three seasons now.
Mets moving from sellers to buyers?
Now that the MLB All-Star Game is behind us, the schedule is approaching the trade deadline, and the Mets are in a strange spot. While still one game under .500, they’re only 2.5 games out of a playoff spot. And in a season where they weren’t necessarily expected to contend for a playoff spot, reasonable minds could disagree on whether or not they are still in the hunt.
So, what to do at the trade deadline? Buy? Sell? A bit of both? That all likely comes down to the next few weeks, but in the meantime, there are several Mets who can at least be bookmarked as potential trade candidates.
JD Martinez, Luis Severino, and Brett Baty could all be on the move. While it has been speculated for quite some time that the Mets could move star Pete Alonso ahead of his free agency this winter, the team’s rebound after the first two months of the season makes that highly unlikely.
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