The Mets have designated right-hander Tommy Hunter for assignment and optioned lefty Zach Muckenhirn to Triple-A, per a team announcement. In their places, the club has recalled right-hander John Curtiss and left-hander Josh Walker to the big league roster.
A first-round pick by the Rangers in the 2007 draft, Hunter is a veteran of sixteen MLB seasons with a career 4.07 ERA in 917 1/3 innings of work. After posting strong numbers for the Mets during the 2021 and 2022 seasons, with a 1.78 ERA in 30 1/3 innings, Hunter has struggled during his age 36 season. In 2023, Hunter has posted a 6.85 ERA in 23 2/3 innings. Some of those struggles have been thanks to an unusually low 56.8% strand rate, though Hunter has allowed far too much hard contact this season, with a 13.6% barrel rate and a HardHit rate of 45.5%. Should Hunter pass through waivers, he’ll have the option to elect free agency or stick with the Mets as bullpen depth at the Triple-A level.
As for Muckenhirn, the left-hander has allowed four runs on eleven hits and two walks in three appearances (six innings) during his limited time in the majors this season. He returns to Triple-A, where he has posted a 1.11 ERA in 24 1/3 innings of work this season, to serve as bullpen depth for the Mets going forward.
Joining the roster in the duo’s place are Curtiss and Walker. Curtiss, 30, has posted a 4.85 ERA in 13 innings of work for the Mets this season after not appearing in the big leagues in 2022 while rehabbing Tommy John surgery. Prior to going under the knife, Curtiss had posted a strong 2.86 ERA in 69 1/3 innings of work since the start of the 2020 season. Walker, meanwhile, made his big league debut for the Mets earlier this year, tossing a scoreless inning in his lone appearance.
I thought it was asking a lot to throw in D-Rob in the 8th and Hunter hasn’t pitched in 10 days and was asked to pitch in a tough situation in extras.
Glory hallelujah
How long will Buck remain? More changes are needed. The Mets schedule through the all star break is brutal
Buck didn’t throw money at everyone hoping to make a team. Unfortunately though someone has to be the scapegoat and it’s usually the manager so we’ll see…
The Mets are paying the price for trading some of their best youngsters the last couple years. Pete Crow Armstrong for Baez was a bad move in particular. The best teams in MLB typically have strong farm systems.
Their farm actually isn’t too bad it’s just that it took them a while to use the guys and instead of adding a few pieces via free agency they paid for past production with a lot of mediocre players (entire outfield aside from Nimmo), and banked too heavily on elite but very old starting pitchers. Players actually regress with age and they seem to have forgotten that.
@Rsox
What do you mean? Don’t you know running a MLB team like MLB the Show set to ‘no budget’ settings, is the way to win championships in the real life MLB?
Isn’t that how the Marlins bought their two championships?
One of their championships. The ’97 team was built over two seasons and they didn’t hedge their bets with a starting staff of pitchers led by a 40 year old and a 38 year old. Plus the game was much different back then
The 2003 team was the result of all the dismantling of the ’97 team and the subsequent losing bearing fruit as aside from a handful of outside players the team was mostly homegrown
@Mets6986
Good job showing how unaware you are about other teams. See @Rsox’s comments above.
And even the 97 team wasn’t really bought as they were built upon what they already had.
The Marlins traded a package that included Trevor Hoffman to get Gary Sheffield in 1993 to build around him. They drafted Jeff Conine in the expansion draft. They drafted Charles Johnson and Tony Saunders. They signed Edgar Renteria and Livan Hernandez as international signings. They acquired Rob Nen in a trade for Walt Weiss. When they signed Devon White, Al Leiter and Kevin Brown in the 95-96 offseason, they were considered “meh” signings to stabilize a club on a 5-year plan. Kevin Brown, in many circles, was considered on the backend of his career. Moises Alou was not on the Marlins radar for the 96-97 offseason until after Albert Belle pulled off the fast one with signing with the White Sox after he agreed to sign with the Marlins. Darren Daulton was picked up at the trade deadline. So, the only real free agent targets were Bobby Bonilla and Alex Fernandez…and the very available Jim Eisenreich.
The 2003 team is laughable that you’d call them bought for.
But I guess things could be worse. The Marlins could’ve been buying no championships like the Mets have been buying for 36 years and counting.
They were 100% bought and traded off the next year because the Marlins couldn’t afford them. Just because you write nasty comments doesn’t make you know what you are talking about. None of those players were considered meh. There team payroll almost doubled from 96 to 97. Do no whats even sadder. Building a billion dollar stadium and having no fans come to your games unless a New York team is in town.
Of course a NYer is going to tell a Miami person about what he thinks is correctly occurring in Miami. It’s what you guys do. You guys always make it clear that you know more than the people who are actually at the location/scene of the situation. It reminds me of moments like, long ago, when Mike Lupica was arguing with Dan LeBatard about how hurricanes affect a community – while LeBatard had been in hurrincanes, while Lupica has seen them on TV. I imagine that’s the same here with me and you. I watch the Marlins while you’ve seen them on TV…only when they’ve played the Mets.
You know what’s even sadder than our billion dollar stadium? Building a billion dollar team, but having the longest championship drought in your division…one of the longest championship droughts in MLB.
Ahem…1986!
As a quick correction, Nen was acquired in a trade for Cris Carpenter (not the good one), not Walt Weiss. Everything else was spot on though
I lived in Forida for 6 years. I have seen many Marlins and Rays games. The Marlins averaged a whopping 11k a game last year. Both teams will eventually move out of state where owners can actually make money. It’s much worse for an organization to spend a billion dollars on a failing organization than the Mets having a rich owner that overspends his own money. Maybe the Marlins will win another one after they move up to the Carolinas where fans will actually show up to games.
Ohhhh, your 6 years of living here makes you more of an expert than me who has lived here my entire life and been a Marlins fan since Day 1. You’ve got me beat!
I didn’t realize that you are clairvoyant. You know both Florida teams are moving and you know that the Carolinas will support them.
Apparently so. You keep spouting nonsense. Baseball is a for profit business. The goal is to make the owners lots of money. The Marlins clearly fail miserably at doing that. There are two ways to do that. Get revenues up and make a profit and get the team value up so the owner can sell for alot of money. The Marlins are the lowest valued team in baseball at a little over a billion dollars. That’s mostly from the stadium the taxpayer bought for them. The Rays are 29th barely ahead of them. I would safely assume these owners or the next will want to increase their values and go somewhere where they will have more fans. It’s sad when they A’s who have a terrible owner are worth more.
Oh thanks for the education on what team goals are. I didn’t realize that us fans need to be rooting for our team’s owner to make more profits. I get confused by all the stupid fans that root for their team to win championships.
I’ve been educated. From now on, I’ll be yelling, “Go Bruce Sherman! Make that money!”
BTW, do you have a Steve Cohen Mets jersey since you cheer for him at the stadium to make his profits? I’ll try to listen for you cheering for him from now on. But be patient with me because it’ll be hard to hear through all the other fans in your stadium yelling, “Let’s Go Mets!” I’ll have to narrow my ears to capture you yelling, “Let’s Go Cohen! Make that money!”
Man, I had this fan thing all wrong. I can’t believe I wasted all these years rooting for my team to win championships when I was supposed to root for my team owner to make profits. This has been enlightening.
BTW…on the “spouting nonsense” part that you said, there’s a concept called IRONY!
The conversation was about Marlins finances and them buying championship which you were talking crap about the Mets doing. I’m glad you don’t care about fans not showing up for the Marlins or watching them on tv. When they relocate I’m sure the new fans will. Good luck with the Marlins selling all of your favorite players soon. I am a fan of Cohen. He has the Mets in a great financial place and they will be super competitive for the long term and not just one or two arbitrary years a couple decades ago. As a fan I care more about the future which one bad half season will not affect.
No but he insists on playing veterans that anre horrible instead of younger players. It’s on him too. Eppler and Showalter need to see the door.
Before Buck, I would like to see a change in hitting coach. Chavez needs to go badly
Chavez is n longer the hitting coach, he was promoted to Bench coach..
Jeremy Barnes is the hitting coach.
Then time for Barnes to leave, and hopefully take Chavez with him
Of course the Mets schedule is brutal as the season goes on. The schedule makers gave them a lighter schedule early this season, so it’s coming around to the teams that the schedule makers didn’t pit them against earlier.
I pointed this out a couple of weeks ago how things looked in the NL East with the Mets because they pretty much had the easiest schedule early on, and the teams like the Phillies and Marlins hung in there during their tougher early schedule, and are getting around to the weaker teams while the Mets get around to the tougher ones.
It’s going to be interesting as the season starts to moves into the remaining months.
About damn time!
Watch your language.
Now designate Vogelbach and bring up Mauricio, sign Luke Voit to help with 1b and DH
sure why not Vogelbach and Voit sharing DH? I’d probably rather have a pitcher hitting than those 2.
Why would the Mets need help at DH if you bring up Mauricio. Offense hasn’t been the issue lately.
Anytime when the New York teams are struggling is a good time.
The Mets are always struggling
I don’t mind them getting rid of Hunter, but I don’t see how Drew Smith, Dominic Leone, and Nogosek are still on this team. I actually used to be a big Tommy Hunter fan until he got his back surgery in 2021. Since then he hasn’t been the same. I actually said that he was finished when the Mets resigned hin and people on this site looked only at his ERA from last year and said I was crazy. The past 2 years, Tommy was only put in low leverage situations, of course his ERA was going to look better than it should. If I was the GM, I’d swing a trade for Alexis Diaz (instantly becomes our closer and then the next 4 seasons you have the best one two punch with Edwin). They can give up Vientos and Matt Allen, that should be enough. Then I’d trade for Aroldis Chapman, should cost much more than Jose Butto + maybe a Nick Morabito. Finally I’d trade for Brad Hand and Justin Lawrence of the Rockies. An even return would be David Peterson (Colorado native), Willy Fanas (top interbational signing), Grant Hartwig, and Drew Smith.
Nogosek was DFAd a couple days ago, so you got 1/3 of your wish.
No way the Rockies trade Lawrence who is making the minimum and may be their closer going forward. Hand should be available, and also Pierce Johnson if anybody wants him.
@ahh Nogosek was put on the injury list, he was not Dfa’d. He will be back
@ahh nevermind you were right, got confused reading the article with Alonso’s 10 day injury list. I still think he will go unclaimed and be back in the Mets TripleA team
Nogosek & Hunter will likely both go unclaimed and wind up in Syracuse. Which means they’ll both be back in the Mets pen at some point. Which means the Mets pen will continue to struggle big time
Cinncinati’s GM would rightfully laugh at that offer.
Reds aren’t trading Diaz anytime soon and if they did it would take a lot more than yet another Infielder (Reds are loaded with them, and frankly Vientos has shown nothing at the MLB level so far) and a Pitcher that hasn’t thrown a pitch since 2019.
Chapman going back to New York may be a disaster waiting to happen but he is 99.9% likely to be traded so we’ll see
The Rockies aren’t trading Lawrence, they may trade Hand and/or Johnson but they aren’t packaging any combination together because they are worth more individually.
The Mets probably shouldn’t trade Peterson. Even if the numbers aren’t pretty he’s given them as many innings as Verlander and more than Carrasco so having available in a pinch is a nice option to have. Plus all of your trade proposals are really awful and wreacks of yet another fan over valuing his own teams players while think they could be used to get other team’s much better players
@Rsox
But, LFGMets knows more than any of us. Just ask him.
Sitting back on my lawn chair with popcorn and lemonade…waiting to see what do I see first:
A – Bigfoot
B- Chupacabra
C- Elvis and Tupac
D – Extra terrestrials
E – @CANOsucks during a Mets losing streak
F – None of the above
G-MFB admit that Brandon Nimmo is a good player
@mookie
Admit that Harold Ramirez is a better one.
And am I supposed to use what as reference to say that Nimmo is good? The eyeball test says he isn’t and so does the majority of his stats…but I’m sure you’ll dismiss the majority of his stats and only focus on OBP and the laughable WAR.
So, has Nimmo walked his way into putting the Mets into a good season?
Wow, before you might have had a point, but definitely not now. He’s been healthy the last two seasons, and his defense has improved from poor to very good. It’s not like he’s a .220 hitter who walks his way to a decent OBP. He’s a respectable .270 and .439 slugging, to go along with his high walk numbers. Definitely not a 4th outfielder. He’s an asset that any MLB team would start.
This guy hasn’t been relevant since like ’09 lol
Glad that bum is finally off the team. Can we include Showalter and Eppler next? Hell, Vogey can go work for shake shack at this point!
Mets DFA the whole team.
LOLMets!
Whenever they lose, apparently they DFA their fan @CANOsucks. He’s never around when things are going bad for them. But when things are going good for the Mets, he’s one of the loudest yappers on this site.
About time.
Bobby Bonilla is still under contract ! Hell he could hit .200 still
Craig Counsel, not signed after this year, and David. Sterns are a available. BTW,pay for half of The Yelich contract,! I would give them all dirt cheap!
Trade some minor league players to Cincy for Diaz, maybe Aroldis Chapman, sign Hosmer to help out at 1b
Yes, trade garbage for someone good!
I’m hoping everyone not named Cohen is fired. Then hire everyone not named Sternberg from the Rays. Also, someone puts Vogelbach in a sleeper hold.
The NY MUTS will never be able to overtake the best baseball Team ever!!!!!!! gO Yankees!!!!!!! 26 titles and counting. How long since Mets last won a WS 37 years?????NUckNuCk NuCK. How’s verlander working out for you Ahahahahaha. H8R MuTZ FaNs
Obviously owners can’t buy champions, ask the Yankee owners, you guys been trying for the last 25-30 years lol, we the Mets tried this year and it’s not working
I was ambivalent toward his signing. He was good in very limited duty in 2021 and 2022, and honestly since 2013 he’s been one of the game’s better relievers, but I had no major hope that he would dominate or doing anything of consequence. I’m kind of surprised he stuck around this long.
Hunter became the prey.
“Meanwhile” belongs at the start of the sentence, not in the middle of it, set off by commas. Wonder how long it will take Mr. Deeds to learn this.