is back in Houston. The Astros re-acquired the defending Cy Young winner and cash for outfield prospects and . Houston designated infielder for a signment in a corresponding 40-man move. The Mets are paying a combined $35MM of Verlanders 2023-24 salary. Theyd pay half of his $35MM salary in 2025 if his option vests. In all, theyre paying as much as $52.5MM of the nearly $93MM that could still be paid out on his deal, pending that option. Verlander, 40, was with the Astros from 2017-22 and departed as a free agent this offseason to sign for a record-tying annual value in Queens. His two-year, $86.666MM contract tied his former Tigers teammate s $43.333MM AAV on a three-year deal with the Mets, but the reunion between the two future Hall of Famers will only prove to last a few months before being spun into a rivalry. The Mets shipped Scherzer to the Rangers on Saturday and will now send Verlander to Texas top division rival. The 2023 season began on a sour note for Verlander, who mi sed the first five weeks of the year after suffering a strained teres major near the end of spring training. Hes in the midst of yet another strong season, though his performance in 2023 isnt to the same level as it was in 2022, when he stunned the baseball world by capturing his third Cy Young Award as a 39-year-old in his first season back from Tommy John surgery. Verlander logged a ridiculous 1.75 ERA with a 27.8% strikeout rate and 4.4% walk rate in 175 innings last season. Hes pitched to a 3.15 ERA with a 21% strikeout rate and 8% walk rate in 96 innings this year, and seen slight steps back in his average fastball (from 95.1 mph to 94.6mph), swinging-strike rate (11.6% to 10%) and opponents chase rate (36.9% to 35%). That said, even if Verlanders overall season numbers arent quite as dominant as in 2022, theres little doubt that hes a major upgrade to an Astros staff that has lost right-handers and for the season. Righty also hit a wall recently and has been struggling, and the Stros lost right-hander for three months due to shoulder troubles. Verlanders return will add one of the most talented arms of the entire generation back to the front of a staff, where hell join Cy Young candidate , standout rookie , Javier and rookie . When Urquidy returns in the near future, its po sible the Astros will go to a six-man rotation to help monitor the workloads of Brown and France. For the Mets, Verlander becomes the fourth notable veteran theyve shipped out in the past week, joining Scherzer, and . The Mets have picked up a strong package of prospects in doing so but also waved a white flag on a season in which their $350MM+ payroll was expected to make them legitimate World Series contenders. Theyve also completely wiped out their rotation, which now consists of (a trade candidate himself) Nick Gordon Jersey , , and . and are candidates to step back into the starting staff. The only near-term pitching prospect the Mets added in that slate of deals was righty , who came over from the Brewers and had been ranked near the back of their top 30 prospects on most publications. Given Carrascos status as a pending free agent and the unproven nature of Peterson, Megill and Lucchesi, theyll head into the offseason with an enormous amount of work to do in rounding out the rotation. Its a deep crop of free agents, headlined by names like , , , , , , , and NPB ace . If the Mets plan to compete in 2024 hardly a sure thing in the wake of their deadline activity theyll need to aggre sively pursue rotation additions via either that free-agent market or the trade market. The acquisition of Gilbert and Clifford could both help if the Mets choose the latter. While its certainly po sible that both newly acquired outfielders fit into the long-term puzzle, thats no sure thing particularly for a team so willing to splash around in free agency. is already signed for another seven years, so there are only two real long-term vacancies in the outfield anyhow. Gilbert, 22, is the more advanced of the two prospects and the one whos garnered more national fanfare. The Astros top pick in the 2022 draft, hes already ascended to the Double-A level in his first full season of pro ball. The University of Tenne see standout laid waste to High-A pitching early in the season, slashing .360/.421/.686 in 95 plate appearances before an aggre sive promotion to Double-A. Hes been a bit below average in terms of his overall output there, batting .241/.342/.371 in 264 plate appearances. However, Gilbert has also shown an advanced approach, walking in 12.5% of his Double-A plate appearances against a lower-than-average 17.5% strikeout rate. MLB.com ranks Gilbert as the games No. 68 overall prospect, and FanGraphs has him at No. 49 on their list. Both reports give Gilbert a chance to be in the big leagues by next season, touting his plus speed, plus arm, great approach at the plate and growing power. He has a chance to stick in center field, perhaps pushing Nimmo to a corner if the veterans defense slips as he ages into his mid-30s. If not, Gilbert projects as a plus defender in an outfield corner. Both FanGraphs and MLB.com make note of his fiery personality, which could win over hometown fans while grating on opponents. As for Clifford, he was taken ten rounds later in the same 2022 draft not for lack of talent but for a strong commitment to Vanderbilt University. The Mets convinced him to sign rather than attend college, offering him a huge $1.25MM bonus in the 11th round after most teams had pa sed a suming hed head to school. Jim Callis of MLB.com tweets that Gilbert and Clifford wouldve been his No. 1 and No. 2 Astros prospects, respectively, on the reranking of their system hes set to publish following the deadline. Clifford hit just .247 but posted a .426 OBP in 101 plate appearances during his pro debut last year, and his rate stats in 2023 are outstanding: .291/.399/.520 in 371 plate appearances between Cla s-A and High-A. Hes slugged 18 home runs and 16 doubles, walking at a hearty 12.4% clip against a 24% strikeout rate. FanGraphs had already bumped Clifford to the Astros No. 2 prospect hes now eighth in the Mets system on their rankings crediting him with the potential to grow into 70-grade raw power. Hes a corner outfielder/first baseman with below-average speed and above-average arm strength. So long as his bat and overall offensive approach continue on their current trajectories, he could be in an outfield corner with occasional first base and DH time for the Mets at some point in 2025. The Mets have done a nice job adding to their system, acquiring at least a pair of top-100-caliber prospects (Acuna, Gilbert) and another (Clifford) who could get there before long. Theyve paid a steep price to do so, however, gutting their 2023 roster and paying down close to $71MM on the Scherzer and Verlander deals alone. Theyve also saved just over $86MM on the pair of trades, including both salary and luxury tax penalties. In the event Verlanders option vests and he exercises it, those savings would jump to more than $119MM (while the dead money theyd paid down would rise to more than $86MM). The Mets are so far into the fourth and final tier of luxury penalization, that short of getting a team to take on the entirety of the Verlander and Scherzer contracts, there was no real way of ducking back underneath that line. The Astros, meanwhile, have received enough cash from the Mets that theyll likely come in under the luxury line. Roster Resource had them exceeding the $233MM first-tier threshold by only a margin of $1.7MM even when a suming the full freight of Verlanders remaining money; that clearly wont be the case now. That wouldve been the first time Houston had cro sed into luxury territory, but theyll now have Verlander for a total of $22.777MM for the remainder of this season and next plus an additional $17.5MM in 2025 if that option vests and he picks it up. of firstreported the Astros were acquiring Verlander for two prospects. first reported Gilberts inclusion, while Nightengale was first on Clifford. wasfirst with the specificfinancial breakdown. Miami Marlins Jersey