Mets aggressively looking to add to their starting rotation, per insider

While the Mets can feel reasonably confident that Sean Manaea, Kodai Senga and David Peterson could handle playoff starts, the back of the rotation is questionable in that regard. Clay Holmes has struggled of late, as he's handling higher inning totals than he has a big leaguer with his transition to the rotation, while Frankie Montas has been inconsistent. This could create an issue for the Mets in the postseason if one of their top three is unavailable.

To this point, Stearns has dealt from the depth in the Mets' farm system, dealing away excess pieces that had more name value (Blade Tidwell and Drew Gilbert) or are further away from helping the big club (Jesus Baez, Wellington Aracena, Nate Dohm, and Frank Elissalt) than current value to a team hoping to win a title in the next two years.

The Mets have been tied to many starting pitchers on the market, including Miami's Sandy Alcantara and Edward Cabrera, Pittsburgh's Mitch Keller, Arizona's Merrill Kelly, and now Cease. The latter two are pure rentals while the others have some form of team control remaining, which could raise the cost to acquire them in a competitive trade market for starting pitching.

While Jose Butto is the only player the Mets have moved off of the big league roster, there have been rumors that New York could clear out some of their young infield log jam by moving someone like Luisangel Acuña or Mark Vientos to help another area of the roster. It also remains to be seen if Stearns is willing to move one of the Mets' prospects many deem to be untouchable (infielder Jett Williams, outfielder Carson Benge, righties Jonah Tong, Brandon Sproat and Nolan McLean) to land a front line pitcher.

The trade deadline falls at 6:00 p.m. ET today. The Mets are widely expected by insiders to add a center fielder at some point today, but Stearns may pull off a big splash for his rotation as well if the price is right.