The Mets and Orioles announced a deal sending left-handed reliever Gregory Soto from Baltimore to New York. The O’s acquired minor league right-handers Wellington Aracena and Cameron Foster.
Soto, 30, has pitched to a 3.96 ERA this season and carries a 3.91 mark dating all the way back to 2021. He’s playing the season on a $5.35MM salary and is a pure free agent at season’s end. He still has about $1.87MM of his salary yet to be paid out, and since the Mets are third-time luxury tax payors in the top penalty bracket, there’ll be a 110% tax on that sum. That brings the total financial expenditure to about $3.925MM.
Armed with a four-seamer that averages 97.1 mph and a sinker that’s sitting 96.7 mph, Soto can miss bats in bunches but struggles to command his sizzling repertoire. He’s fanned 27.5% of his opponents this year but also issued walks at an 11.3% clip that’s pretty well aligned with his career mark.
Still, Soto has avoided too much damage from righties, and lefties may as well not even bother stepping into the box (.138/.271/.276). He’ll give a Mets club that has been focused on adding at least one lefty to its bullpen a potent weapon against divisional foes like Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber and Matt Olson down the stretch, to say nothing of potential key matchups against prominent lefties like Shohei Ohtani or Kyle Tucker in the postseason.
The Mets opened the season with lefties A.J. Minter and Danny Young locked into key bullpen roles. Both required season-ending surgery in May — Minter to repair a torn lat and Young to repair a torn ulnar collateral ligament. They’ve since re-signed Brooks Raley, who was rehabbing from his own Tommy John surgery but is now back in the big league ’pen. Soto now adds a second lefty back into the mix as well as another flamethrower who sits 97 or better (alongside closer Edwin Diaz and setup men Ryne Stanek and Reed Garrett).
Adding to the bullpen has been president of baseball operations David Stearns’ top priority as the deadline approaches. The Mets figure to continue to explore the market for bullpen help, and Stearns has at least acknowledged that they could pursue an upgrade in center field. The Mets have a healthy rotation at the moment, but one would assume that if they could find a price to their liking, a deal for a potential playoff starter isn’t entirely off the table.
In exchange for Soto, the Orioles will add a pair of pitching prospects to their system — one (Foster) that’s close to the majors and another (Aracena) who is more of a development project but comes with a higher ceiling.
The 26-year-old Foster was a 14th-round pick out of McNeese State in 2022. He opened the season in Double-A Binghamton’s bullpen and breezed through opposing lineups, pitching to a minuscule 1.01 ERA with a 34% strikeout rate and 5% walk rate in 26 2/3 innings. It’s eye-catching production, though it bears noting that at 26, Foster was noticeably older and further along in his development than his Double-A opponents. He was recently moved up to Triple-A, where he’s pitched 3 2/3 innings and been tagged for seven runs on seven hits and three walks.
Listed at 6’5″ and 230 pounds, Foster has the frame of a power reliever. He’s never ranked among the Mets’ top prospects, though FanGraphs Eric Longenhagen noted just last month that he’s sharpened his slider since being drafted and it now grades as a plus offering. He’s a potential bullpen option and, given his recent promotion to Triple-A, could feasibly get a look as soon as this season. Foster would be Rule 5-eligible in the offseason if the Orioles leave him off the 40-man roster, so it seems there’s a good chance he’ll be selected to the 40-man after the season, if not sooner.
Aracena, 20, is widely ranked within the Mets’ top-30 prospects, sitting 14th at FanGraphs as of last month and 28th at Baseball America. There’s a wide range of opinions on him due to the hard-throwing righty’s poor command. Aracena has walked 13.2% of his A-ball opponents in 2025, and that’s actually a significant improvement over 2024, when he issued free passes to 20.2% of the batters he faced.
Shaky command notwithstanding, Aracena sits 97-98 mph with a fastball that tops out around 101 mph. Baseball America’s scouting report on him also touts a heavily used cutter that sits 93 mph and a still-developing slider with more movement that checks in a few miles per hour slower. In ranking Aracena 14th in the Mets’ system, Longenhagen praises the life on all of his pitches and adds that there “aren’t really many other big league pitchers whose stuff bears a resemblance to Aracena’s cutter-heavy mix.”
Aracena won’t turn 21 until December. In all likelihood, he’s not likely to be a big league option until at least 2027, and that’s assuming continued health and progression in his development. He’s a bullpen prospect with a lofty ceiling, however, and coupling him with another late-blooming relief prospect who’s much closer to big league readiness makes for a solid return on two-plus months of a hard-throwing Soto, to whom the Orioles were never going to extend a qualifying offer.
Soto becomes the second reliever traded from the Baltimore bullpen, joining Bryan Baker (who went to the Rays). Just as Stearns & Co. surely have more additions in store for the Mets, O’s general manager Mike Elias will have several more sell-side moves to execute in the next six days. Soto’s bullpen-mate Seranthony Dominguez, first baseman Ryan O’Hearn, center fielder Cedric Mullins and starting pitchers Charlie Morton, Zach Eflin and Tomoyuki Sugano are all free agents at season’s end.
SNY’s Andy Martino was first with the trade terms.
