The Mets (47-66) are back in action tonight as they visit the Guardians (57-56) for a three-game series in Cleveland. Simply put, the Mets are coming off a fire sale that saw them open up five vacancies on their active roster, which was already missing the best hitter in the National League as Juan Soto sits on the injured list with his second calf injury of the season.
Watching the Mets the rest of the way will be an exercise in patience and devotion, as we Mets fans will be hoping to catch some
glimpses of a brighter future. The continued development of A.J. Ewing and Carson Benge at the major league level should provide some excitement, and perhaps some of the other younger players who are about to get their shot will establish that they are realistic options for the major league roster heading into next season.
In the meantime, it’s worth appreciating Francisco Lindor, who has been on an absolute tear at the plate since the All-Star break. In 70 plate appearances over that span, he’s hit .295/.366/.574 with a 165 wRC+. He hasn’t been stealing bases, which is understandable since he dealt with a significant calf injury this year, too, but nobody should be surprised that he’s turned around his delayed, slow, and injury-interrupted start to the season. And of course, Lindor established himself as a star in the six seasons he spent in Cleveland. An interesting tidbit is that Lindor’s career 61.8 fWAR and 56.6 bWAR are both split exactly evenly between his time in Cleveland and his time in New York at the time of this writing.
If the Mets are to compete in the next couple of years, they almost certainly need to keep Lindor and Soto on the field. If Lindor stays healthy the rest of this season and Soto actually makes it back into major league games, they’ll still have gotten roughly 55-60 percent of the plate appearances that they would have penciled in for two players who had been among the most durable in the sport before this year.
As for the Guardians, their lineup has been even worse than the Mets’ lineup when it comes to scoring runs. They’ve averaged 3.95 runs per game, which is the second-worst rate in baseball. The Mets are fourth-worst with 4.04 runs scored per game.
Chase DeLauter has been Cleveland’s best hitter with a 124 wRC+ this season, while José Ramírez has been their best player by fWAR despite having a down year at the plate thus far with a 101 wRC+. Despite missing some time with an injury, Ramírez has stolen 27 bases in the 82 games that he has played.
Run prevention, however, has been a relative strength for the Guardians. They’ve given up 4.09 runs per game, the eight-lowest rate in baseball. Add it all up, and even with a slightly negative run differential, they’re in second place in the American League Central, three games behind the division-leading White Sox and one ahead of the Twins for the third and final AL Wild Card spot.
If the Red Sox continue playing as well as they have lately, that final playoff spot could go to any one of seven teams, as the Blue Jays are just four games back of the Guardians despite having a 53-60 record.
Tuesday, August 4: Sean Manaea vs. Joey Cantillo, 6:40 PM EDT on SNY
Manaea (2026): 91.2 IP, 88 K, 30 BB, 13 HR, 4.42 ERA, 4.33 FIP, 109 ERA-
In a season that’s seen the Mets held back by significantly poor performances by veteran players, Manaea’s in-season turnaround has been a pleasant surprise. Since the beginning of May, Manaea’s been perfectly cromulent with a 3.75 ERA and a 4.30 FIP. And since rejoining the rotation in mid-June, he has a 3.88 ERA and a 4.64 FIP. That’s still a far cry from his outstanding second half performance in 2024—which made the Mets believe in him to the tune of his three-year, $75 milion contract—but is a major improvement upon his early-season work that made him look like a DFA candidate at the time.
Cantillo (2026): 113.2 IP, 124 K, 54 BB, 13 HR, 3.88 ERA, 3.88 FIP, 94 ERA-
If you’re not familiar with Cantillo, that’s understandable. The 26-year-old lefty was drafted by the Padres in 2017 and traded to Cleveland as part of the nine-player swap that included the likes of Josh Naylor and Mike Clevinger. Cantillo made his big league debut with the Guardians as a starter in 2024, worked mostly out of the bullpen while making some starts in 2025, and has been a rotation mainstay this season. His ERA and FIP are identical, which is always fun, and his career 3.78 ERA is pretty close to matching his mark this season, too.
Wednesday, August 5: Nolan McLean vs. Slade Cecconi, 6:40 PM EDT on SNY
McLean (2026): 125.2 IP, 148 K, 45 BB, 13 HR, 3.29 ERA, 3.47 FIP, 81 ERA-
If McLean keeps pitching the way he has been recently, he might get himself back into the conversation for the National League Rookie of the Year award. While he’s been out of the Cy Young picture for a while now, he’s pitching as well as anyone in baseball lately, as he has a 2.24 ERA over his last eleven starts and a 1.49 ERA over his last six. It’s been easy to overlook how good McLean is, and it would be very fun to see him finish the season with a sub-three ERA.
Cecconi (2026): 107.1 IP, 84 K, 35 BB, 16 HR, 4.78 ERA, 4.53 FIP, 116 ERA-
While Joey Cantillo was traded alongside Josh Naylor to Cleveland, Cecconi was traded in a one-for-one swap that sent Naylor to the Diamondbacks. He had a rather unsightly 6.06 ERA in the portions of the 2023 and 2024 seasons that he spent in the big leagues with Arizona, but he’s been a serviceable back-of-the-rotation starter since the beginning of the 2025 season with the Guardians. He has a 4.51 ERA in 239.1 innings of work with the team, all of which have been as a starter.
Thursday, August 6: TBD vs. Tanner Bibee, 1:10 PM EDT on SNY
TBD
Over at FanGraphs’ Roster Resource, the best guess is that Christian Scott will make this start. If so, he has a 2.99 ERA and a 3.47 FIP in 69.1 innings this year. If not, you’d have to figure the Mets will go with some sort of bullpen game as they sort through their roster following the deadline.
Bibee (2026): 132.1 IP, 100 K, 38 BB, 20 HR, 3.81 ERA, 4.50 FIP, 92 ERA-
Drafted by Cleveland in the fifth round in 2021, Bibee hasn’t quite lived up to his very good rookie season in 2023. He finished second in American League Rookie of the Year voting that year as he put up a 2.98 ERA in 142.0 innings of work. Since then, he has a 3.85 ERA, which certainly isn’t terrible.
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