Mets not planning to eat salary in trades at the deadline, per Joel Sherman

The New York Mets are heading into the trade deadline as sellers — and per New York Post beat reporter Joel Sherman, they do not plan to sweeten any deals by absorbing salary on the way out.

What happened

Sherman reports that the Mets will not pay down salary to facilitate trades at the deadline. The club is widely characterized as a seller given the state of its season, but the approach to deal structure reportedly draws a firm line: acquiring teams should not expect New York to kick in money to make the math work.

The report also sketches the rough boundaries of what is and is not available. Juan Soto is not being traded, per the report, nor are young players identified as Nolan McLean, Carson Benge, A.J. Ewing, and Christian Scott. Francisco Lindor carries both a sizable remaining guarantee and full no-trade protection, which the report describes as a near-insurmountable obstacle to any deal. Bo Bichette, who has multiple opt-outs in his contract, is also characterized as far-fetched to move. Beyond those names, the report suggests most of the roster will circulate through the rumor mill over the coming weeks.

Why it matters

The no-salary-absorption stance is a meaningful constraint on how the Mets can operate between now and the deadline. It narrows the universe of realistic trade partners, because teams acquiring players with significant remaining salary typically expect some financial participation from the seller — particularly when the player in question is not a rental.

The contrast with recent Mets history is pointed. Sherman's report notes that the club contributed nearly $36MM when it traded Max Scherzer to the Rangers in 2023, and another $35MM in the deal that sent Justin Verlander back to Houston just days after that. Those two transactions represented substantial salary relief extended to acquiring clubs. The current front office, per the report, is not planning to operate that way this time.

That posture could complicate movement on contracts that carry meaningful future obligations. A player with years and dollars remaining on his deal is a harder trade without a check attached, and the Mets' reported unwillingness to write that check means the market will have to clear on the merits of the player alone — or not clear at all.

Does this affect who gets traded?

Almost certainly, yes. The salary-absorption question is not a procedural footnote; it is often the variable that determines whether a deal gets done at all. When a club signals it will not eat money, it is effectively telling the market that the price of acquiring a player includes the full weight of his contract. For players with team-friendly deals or short remaining terms, that is a non-issue. For players with larger or longer commitments, it raises the bar for any acquiring team's front office to clear internally.

The report does not identify specific players whose movement is contingent on salary relief, but the logic applies broadly to anyone on the roster with meaningful future dollars attached. The Mets' reported stance means those conversations, if they happen, will be about the player — not about how much New York is willing to contribute to make the deal palatable.

The numbers

The Mets carry a record of 74-88 (.457), which places them 20 games back in the NL East division race — eliminated from contention there. They are also eliminated from the Wild Card race, sitting 14.0 games relative to the Wild Card cut line and ranked 10th in that chase. The team enters this stretch on a one-game losing streak.

Those numbers are the operational backdrop for everything Sherman is reporting. A club that is eliminated from both postseason paths in July has no reason to hold assets for a run that is not coming. The question is not whether to sell — it is what selling looks like and at what price.

Where the club stands

At 74-88 (.457), 20 games out of first in the NL East, with postseason elimination already in hand on both the division and Wild Card fronts, the Mets are in the part of the calendar where the trade deadline functions less as an opportunity than as a logistics exercise. The upcoming schedule offers an interesting lens on the roster: Tuesday's game at American Family Field in Milwaukee features Zac Thornton opposing Brandon Sproat, followed Wednesday by Christian Scott — one of the players the report explicitly identifies as not available — starting against Logan Henderson. Friday brings the Los Angeles Dodgers to Citi Field, where Sean Manaea is the probable starter against Roki Sasaki.

The presence of Christian Scott in Wednesday's rotation is a small but concrete illustration of the report's logic. The Mets are not simply liquidating everything in sight; they are drawing distinctions between what they consider the foundation of a future roster and what they are willing to move. Scott pitching in Milwaukee while his name appears on the untouchable list is the club, in effect, showing its work.

What we don't know yet

Sherman's report establishes the Mets' posture but leaves a number of questions open. It is not known which specific players will draw the most trade interest, which clubs are engaged in conversations, or whether the no-salary-absorption stance is absolute or subject to revision as the deadline approaches. Reports of this kind reflect a team's current intentions; deadline dynamics have a way of testing those intentions under pressure.

It is also unclear how the market will respond to the Mets' position. If acquiring teams price in the full salary burden and find the math unattractive, some deals simply will not happen. Whether the Mets are prepared to hold players rather than move them without the financial cushion — or whether the definition of an acceptable return shifts as the deadline nears — is not addressed in the report.

The contours of what "most of the roster" means in practice are similarly unresolved. The report identifies who is not available; the list of who is available remains, for now, a matter of inference and rumor-circuit activity over the coming weeks.

What to watch

The deadline itself will answer most of these questions. Watch for whether any Mets deals get done without reported salary contributions from New York — that would be the clearest indication that Sherman's reporting held. Conversely, if a deal surfaces with the Mets absorbing any portion of a contract, it would signal that the posture described in the report shifted somewhere between now and the wire.

Christian Scott's start Wednesday is also worth noting in context: he is one of the names the report places explicitly off the table, and his continued presence in the rotation is consistent with that framing. Any change to his schedule or status between now and the deadline would be worth tracking against what Sherman reported.

The Dodgers series beginning Friday at Citi Field arrives at a moment when the Mets' seller identity will be in full public view. It is, at minimum, an interesting backdrop for whatever the next two weeks produce.