A front office can stare at a depth chart all winter and pretend the answers are already in-house, but the New York Mets haven’t played that game. They know their rotation is short on impact, short on certainty, and short on the kind of arms that give a contender real staying power. And as this offseason has unfolded, one truth has become impossible to ignore: the Mets are going to walk out of these winter months with multiple starting pitchers, no matter what route they take to get them.
The Mets Keep Turning Over Stones
They’ve already sifted through the top of the free-agent market and poked around the trade block. Dylan Cease was a real consideration before he landed in Toronto. Michael King, Ranger Suarez, and Framber Valdez have all floated through the rumor mill as potential fits. And in the trade department, Tarik Skubal has been the dream target, the kind of ace who changes the temperature of a rotation the moment he arrives.
But the Mets don’t seem fixated on just one path. They’ve cast a wide net, and that flexibility has opened the door to a name that feels both realistic and quietly intriguing: Minnesota Twins right-hander Joe Ryan.
Why Joe Ryan Makes Sense
The first thing that jumps out about Ryan is his stability. He logged 171 innings this past season with a 3.42 ERA, while piling up 194 strikeouts. That’s not a fringe arm. That’s a pitcher who already performs like a No. 2 and still has room to grow.
What makes Ryan particularly compelling for the Mets is how his profile fits the modern game. His fastball isn’t overpowering in the traditional sense, living around 93.6, but his vertical approach angle is one of the flattest in MLB. That low release point, the extension, the clean spin — it all works together to create a pitch that hitters simply don’t pick up the way they expect to. There’s deception baked into the shape, and that deception gives Ryan a margin for error that most mid-90s fastballs don’t provide.
A team trying to build sustained success typically starts with a pitch like that. You can stack development on top of it. You can trust it in big innings. And you can project it forward.
The Trade Match
Of course, Minnesota isn’t about to give away a controllable starter entering his age-29 season. Ryan is under contract through 2027, and the Twins have every reason to ask for something meaningful. According to Jon Heyman, they’re said to like Jonah Tong, the Mets’ hard-throwing righty who turned heads this year with flashes that reminded scouts of Tim Lincecum.
Tong’s big-league cameo didn’t look pretty on the surface — a 7.71 ERA over 18.2 innings — but the underlying numbers tell a different story. His 4.31 FIP and 22 strikeouts hinted at real talent. He’s raw, but his arsenal is loud, and teams don’t usually move off arms like that unless the return improves the rotation immediately.
That’s exactly what Ryan would do.
The Question Ahead
The Mets and the Twins feel like a natural match because both teams are operating from positions of strength. Minnesota has pitching. The Mets have upside arms they can dangle and a bunch of near-MLB-ready prospects. And both are motivated to improve in the short term.
Whether the two sides can actually align on value is another matter entirely. Deals like this often come down to who blinks first, who attaches that final prospect, who trusts their player-development system a bit more than the other.
But the framework is there. The interest is real. And the Mets, more than most winters in recent memory, are acting like a team determined to solve a problem rather than admire it.
If they believe Joe Ryan is part of that solution, the only question left is how far they’re willing to go to bring him to Queens.