Image courtesy of MLB.

It’s time for the New York Mets to commit to a fire sale. There is simply no reason for them not to. Does anyone really think that next year they can compete with the Atlanta Braves and the Philadelphia Phillies? How about with the Washington Nationals?

Jacob DeGrom is wasting an 8.3 (!) rWAR when he could’ve been pitching on a contending team after the trading deadline, and is a free agent after the next 2 seasons. Noah Syndergaard is constantly getting injured and despite his obvious immense talent is becoming too unreliable to build a team around. He’s a free agent after the next 3 seasons. Both are aces and have a solid amount of team control left. In the meantime, the New York Mets have one of the worst farm systems in the game.

Going into next season, the New York Mets have an almost non-existent bullpen, a hole at catcher, a declining veteran at third base, a constantly injured bad contract in left field, question marks at first base and an outfield that needs Michael Conforto and Brandon Nimmo to stay consistent and ideally to improve. How many people believe that they will improve in all of these areas by next year? How about in two years? The fact is with arguably the worst ownership team in the game, they will almost certainly “patch” things up with declining veterans and rebound candidates that in typical Mets fashion will not work out. Mo Vaughn anyone? How about Pedro Martinez? Maybe Adrian González and Jose Bautista again?

The New York Mets either need to go all-in or rebuild. If they go all-in, then they need to sign one of Craig Kimbrel or Joakim Soria to be their closer, as well as at least a couple of other good arms as well. They need to convince Manny Machado that being the face of the Mets is a good idea, as well as that third base is the best position for him. They then need to move Todd Frazier to first base, or better yet shock the world and sign Bryce Harper to play there and trade Frazier. Is any of this realistic? I highly doubt that.

The answer is to rebuild the farm system and the best way to do so is by trading DeGrom and Syndergaard. Just think of the potential prospect returns… the New York Yankees, Atlanta Braves, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego Padres, St. Louis Cardinals, Milwaukee Brewers and Houston Astros could all have interest and could all offer very strong prospect packages in return.

Jack Flaherty, Harrison Bader, Luis Urias, Freddy Peralta, Walker Buehler, Sean Newcomb, Kyle Tucker, Chance Adams… should all be available for DeGrom and Syndergaard. 2015 is over and this New York Mets team isn’t going to be winning any more pennants. The time to rebuild is now and if they don’t do it now, they’ll be the New York Mets that they have always been, which is exactly why they won’t.

What do YOU think? Let me know on Twitter at @NeilfromNYC and in the comments.