Mets Acquire Starting Pitcher Chris Bassitt In Trade With Oakland Athletics

New York is sending two of their top pitching prospects in J.T. Ginn and Adam Oller to Oakland in exchange for Bassitt. 

ESPN's Jeff Passan was first to report the news of the trade, while The New York Post's Joel Sherman mentioned the assets that the Mets gave up. 

Bassitt is entering his final year of arbitration, and is projected to earn $8.8 million this season. 

The 33-year-old has overcome prior injury woes, including Tommy John surgery, from earlier in his career to emerge as one of the American League's top hurlers since the start of 2019. Bassitt, who made the All-Star team for the first time in his career in 2021, has finished in the top 10 in the A.L. Cy Young race in each of the past two seasons. 

Bassitt went 12-4 with a 3.15 ERA, 130 ERA+, 3.34 FIP, 1.055 WHIP and 9.1 K/9 across 157.1 innings (27 starts) a season ago. 

The Mets' rotation will now feature three Cy Young caliber arms in Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer and Bassitt. Behind this talented trio, Carlos Carrasco and Taijuan Walker will makeup the backend of this unit.  

Although the Mets' rotation will not feature a lefty, David Peterson is on the 40-man roster as a depth starter, and will likely begin the season in Triple-A. Tylor Megill and Jordan Yamamoto are also likely to serve as depth pieces in the Triple-A rotation in Syracuse to start the year. 

With the addition of Bassitt, the Mets' luxury tax payroll will be inching closer to violating the fourth tier surcharge level of $290 million, which was added as a tax for runaway spending in the new collective bargaining agreement.