The Athletic has live coverage of the 2026 MLB Trade Deadline.David Stearns’ trading flurry isn’t over; it’s merely on pause.That’s the takeaway from a trade deadline that saw the New York Mets deal away seven major-league players, including five impending free agents and two relievers with team control beyond 2026. Throw in David Peterson, the club’s longest-tenured player when he was traded away last month, and the Mets are turning over more than 30 percent of their roster.And the goal of all those moves? To make more trades this winter in the opposite direction, sending out some of the minor-league talent acquired over the last week to rebuild the major-league squad for 2027.“It allows us to just strengthen the overall quality of talent in our organization, whether that’s these players directly impacting our major-league team in the future — which I think many of them will — or also having players that allow you to go out and acquire other players who impact your major-league team,” Stearns said Monday. “We added a tremendous amount of talent all throughout our system — different shapes and sizes, different positional groupings, arms and bats, really good defenders.”The Mets' reconstruction on and off the fieldTim Britton and Madison EadesThe upcoming free-agent market is among the worst in recent history, offering little that should appeal to the Mets beyond obvious ace Tarik Skubal. Labor uncertainty only makes free-agent spending more complex for a team in the Mets’ position. That’s why the trade market will be so appealing to Stearns and the Mets this winter, and that’s why he didn’t much care about organizational fit or proximity to the bigs in the talent he acquired these past few days.“Our approach was: What’s the best talent?” Stearns said. “It’s so difficult to know exactly what roles you’re going to need at the major-league level at any given point in time. So, who are the players that we think have the ability to be the best major-league players?”(Of note, the general supply of relievers in the free-agent market does make it easier to fill out a bullpen with signings, hence why the team-controlled players New York dealt at the deadline were relievers.)