About 20 minutes before baseball’s trade deadline on July 31, the Mets’ top baseball executives were holed up in a conference room at Citi Field, nearly out of options for filling their dire need for a formidable hitter in the lineup.
Two days before, the Mets, and everyone else, thought they had a deal for outfielder Carlos Gomez of the Milwaukee Brewers, only to see it fall apart spectacularly for reasons that have been disputed. The Mets had then turned their attention to talks with the San Diego Padres about outfielder Justin Upton, and with the Cincinnati Reds, who had outfielder Jay Bruce to offer.