The thing is that the expansion of the post-season gives more teams an opportunity to be buyers rather than sellers at the trade deadline because more teams than ever remain in contention much longer. Teams are not so quick to pull the trigger on throwing in the towel…even though they would have been better off selling sooner when there was more value than when they are executing a dumpster fire.

The Mets needed more than one player to make a difference. And that was before Juan Soto went down with an injury. The Mets needed upgrades in, obviously, centerfield, the bullpen (every team has this need), and the starting rotation (again, every team has this need). The Mets, for as good as their record is, they are not a championship caliber team. They have gotten to where they are by piecing things together.

So they made moves right before the deadline to acquire three arms to, hopefully, upgrade the bullpen.

And the big deadline move was to acquire former All Star centerfielder Cedric Mullins from the Baltimore Orioles.

Mullins is a really good player and had some great seasons for the Orioles. The fact is he is now four seasons removed from his All Star season of 2021 when he hit 30 home runs and stole 30 bases while hitting .291. While his batting average is still below .240, he has been hitting for power and has clubbed 15 homers while stealing 14 bases this season. And he still considered an outstanding outfielder.

Just like in 2015 when the Mets got Clippard, Johnson, and Uribe before getting Cespedes, the Mets first got themselves Gregory Soto from the Orioles, Tyler Rogers from the San Francisco Giants, and Ryan Helsley from the St. Louis Cardinals prior to the deadline.

It appears that although the team could not add to the starting rotation, they did fortify the bullpen with three pretty reliable arms.

But Cedric Mullins is not a last and final piece. He is not Yoenis Cespedes. Remember that.