Mets should cut ties with young former fan favorite in deal with Giants for Robbie Ray reason originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
The New York Mets are going to be the most interesting team in Major League Baseball to watch during the trade deadline, especially if they start to play a bit better.
If the Mets are hovering around .500 at the deadline and have an opportunity to make the postseason, the expectation around Major League Baseball is seemingly that they're going to go out and try to add a player or two. On the flip side of that, there are probably multiple guys in the Mets organization who could be traded, and one of them is right-hander Jonah Tong.
When the Mets called up Tong during the 2025 campaign, the hope was that he’d be one of the better young starters in baseball.
Fast forward to the 2026 season, and the Ontario native has been brutal in Triple-A, posting a 5.68 ERA in 38 innings. His strikeout numbers have been very good, but his inability to get outs and limit runs at a high level has been rather concerning.
Some, including Bleacher Report, are starting to believe he'll be traded. If that happens, the San Francisco Giants would be a team that makes a lot of sense for the youngster.
“If the Mets end up selling, the Freddy Peralta ($8M, free agent this winter) conversation would be quite the circus. However, two years removed from turning a 24-35 start into an NLCS appearance, it still feels wildly premature to assume they'll pull the plug on this expensive mess. It's more likely they'll trade away their top prospect in hopes of resolving whatever the biggest roster hole is three months from now,” Kerry Miller of BR wrote.
The Giants are one of those teams that I understand need more talent all around, and Tong doesn't necessarily fit that mold.
However, at 20-27 and not really having any young players to rely on in the future, it'd be best if they go out and add another starter or two to a rotation that needs to get younger.
There's an expectation that Robbie Ray is going to be traded, and replacing him with a guy like Tong would make a lot of sense.
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