The New York Mets made a trade with the Cleveland Guardians on Thursday afternoon. Cleveland acquired left-handed pitching prospect Franklin Gomez from New York. Both clubs announced the deal on social media, and Mike Mayer of Metsmerized.com reports that the Mets are receiving $1.5 million in return for Gomez.
The deal is necessary because New York needs to acquire some cash to pay for new international signings, which include Wandy Asigen, who signed for $3.9 million today. Gomez does not have a spot on the Guardians’ 40-man roster, which means there may be a corresponding roster move in the coming days.
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Franklin Gomez’s Time In Mets Organization Is Through
Franklin Gomez was a former international signing by the Mets in 2022, but hadn’t progressed through the minors like the organization had anticipated.
He’s still just 20-years-old, so there is certainly time for him to be developed in the Guardians organization, but his time in the Mets farm system is now over.
Over 238.2 innings on several of the Mets’ affiliates, Gomez has an earned run average of 3.39 and 264 strikeouts.
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In 2025, the highest-level he reached was single-A, but Gomez actually pitched rather well with the St. Lucie Mets. In 48.2 innings with St. Lucie, he posted a 1.85 ERA and gave up just one home run. Gomez gave up just 22 collective earned runs during the 2025 season over 71 innings.
Today marks the start of the international signing period across MLB, so it’s expected that a lot of these transactions will take place, as teams try to finalize their minor league rosters and farm system players ahead of the 2026 season.
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Why The Mets Made This Trade?
Why did the New York Mets make this trade? It has everything to do with gaining cash to pay their two big international free agents, who, the assumption is, New York thinks are better than Franklin Gomez.
MLBTradeRumors.com was one of the first to break this trade news, and had this to say about why the Mets made this deal:
“The Mets were initially allocated a pool of $5.44MM and the Guardians $8.03MM. Teams are allowed to trade pool space in $250K increments, but a team can’t increase its initial pool size by more than 60%. Adding pool space was important for the Mets. Most teams make verbal agreements with prospects years in advance of the official signings, so they have usually agreed to allocate most of the pool space ahead of time.”
“(Mike) Mayer suggests this deal with Cleveland allowed the Mets to have enough pool space to also sign Venezuelan outfielder Cleiner Ramirez as part of this year’s class.”
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