Dearly Departed: A retrospective on the prospects traded for Tyler Rogers

The Mets chose a quantity of quality approach to acquire the submarining righty.

The Mets have had a very active trade deadline so far, first acquiring lefty Gregory Soto last Friday, and then getting a pair of relievers a day before the deadline in Tyler Rogers and Ryan Helsley from the Giants and Cardinals, respectively.

The bullpen was in desperate need of an upgrade — due to injuries, up and down performance, and a trickle down effect from starting pitcher injuries, the bullpen has basically been a revolving door.

Most of you reading this know who Tyler Rogers is. He is a very weird thrower, throwing from an extreme submarine slot, but I would posit to say he is underrated. Since his debut in 2019, he is 26th in ERA (2.79) and 28th in fWAR (5.0) in all of Major League Baseball, not just the National League. While fWAR for pitchers in general can be a little shaky, it is still notable he ranked within the top 30 amongst all relievers in both marks since he debuted.

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As you can see above, he is excellent at preventing hard batted balls and limits opposing exit velocity. His big flaw is he does not strike anyone out, and is part of my sneaking suspicion on why he is considered less than a back-end option, even though he is.

But enough about him. That is not what anyone is here for. You’re hear to talk about who they traded to get him, right? So who did they trade to get him?

Well, they traded three players, and you have heard of all three of them. Drew Gilbert, José Buttó, and Blade Tidwell.

The first two thoughts I personally had were: interesting, and sticker shock. All three names going to the Giants in this trade are famous. Drew Gilbert was a former Top 100 prospect who the Mets acquired for Justin Verlander two years ago. José Buttó has been around the Mets organization for what feels like forever, and has been a major league reliever for a few years. We have seen Blade Tidwell in the bigs this year as well.

Let’s start with Drew Gilbert, who is likely the most questioned part of the deal. Gilbert was, at the time the Mets acquired him, a very highly regarded prospect. Baseball America had him as the 91st best prospect, MLB Pipeline at 53, and Baseball Prospectus all the way up at 29 prior to the 2024 season. He looked like a potential future option in center field.

However, his time with the Mets was marred with injury and ineffective play. After a strong continuation of his play in the Astros organization in 2023, he had a hamstring injury that stopped his 2024 before it really got going. In 62 games across the Complex, Single-A and Triple-A (with all but six coming in Triple A), he simply did not hit. He ended 2024 with a paltry line of .205/.313/.371, good for a 79 wRC+. He went to the Arizona Fall League, which is a rarity for someone of his age, and continued to struggle, hitting .208/.380/.403 in 21 games there. The prospect shine was basically all but off of Gilbert at that point, as he dropped out of any Top 100 list. Here at Amazin’ Avenue we dropped him to sixth in the system, though due to the lower body injuries and poor play I, personally, dropped him to ninth in the system.

He was better so far this season, but did not really put himself back on the map yet. In 82 games at Triple-A he was mostly average, hitting .243/.347/.430 good for a 103 wRC+. On top of that, the defense regressed to the point where most of the public industry saw him as more of a corner outfield option than center field option, and the Mets have their corner outfield spots covered with Brandon Nimmo and Juan Soto for what feels like forever.

As for the pitchers, José Buttó has been around the organization since Fred and Jeff Wilpon were running things. Signed as an international free agent in 2017, Buttó rose through the ranks as a solid but unremarkable starting pitching prospect before his 2022 debut. His move to the bullpen was by far the best thing to happen to him. He has carved out a nice career as a middle reliever, accruing a 3.45 ERA over 167 innings. He has 17 career starts, but the vast majority of his work has come as a reliever.

Buttó is useful, but inconsistent, and does not miss many bats (and does not have the ability to limit hard contact like Rogers). He was also out of options, and frankly would have been DFA’d in all likelihood to get Rogers or Helsley on the roster in the first place.

Blade Tidwell was a case of being an interesting arm that has been lapped by a better organizational philosophy around him. Tidwell, drafted in the second round in 2022, had an inconsistent minor league career, performing well at some levels, mostly the lower ones, and struggling more as he got promoted.

As you can see from Thomas Nestico’s model, he has some legitimately good stuff. However, his command is an issue, both in terms of walks and misplaced pitches. He can be starter if he hones this in, but I can see a reliever in the future.

So, was this too much? I do not think so, but I think it has an essence of sticker shock to it. It is three players everyone has heard so much about, including a former very big prospect in Gilbert, one who was traded for Verlander to boot. Gilbert was clearly out of favor in the organization, considering they moved Jeff McNeil in center before giving him a shot at 25 years old, and that is an opinion echoed by the outside prospect evaluators as well. José Buttó and Blade Tidwell fall into a similar bucket with me: the Mets are a very, very good pitching development system, probably within the top three in the sport. This is a show of confidence that they can and will develop new pitchers to take the place of both of them prospect wise and on the Mets themselves.

The Mets chose quantity over quality, which I understand given the circumstances. Perhaps they could have gotten Rogers for one good prospect instead of three average pieces, but which the Mets being a much better draft and develop organization than we as fans are used to, keeping the higher ceiling options and dealing from a position of depth is interesting.