Heading into this year, injuries were seemingly the only thing that could derail the Mets‘ league-best pitching staff. Turns out, they have! In particular, the Mets have gotten practically nothing from Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer, their pair of aces and arguably the best 1-2 tandem in the league. Through 38 games, the duo has combined for just 34.2 innings across seven starts. Verlander missed the first chunk of the season before returning last week, at which point Scherzer was suspended 10 games for illegal stickiness before immediately tweaking his neck when he returned. As such, the Mets have stumbled to a 18-20 record, in large part because it feels like a small miracle every time their pitching staff records an out—their collective 4.73 ERA is the fifth-worst in the National League. This mediocrity isn’t tenable for a putative World Series contender—here are three trades the Mets can make fix their pitching woes.

1. Mets get: Corbin Burnes

Brewers get: Kevin Parada, Jett Williams, Mark Vientos, Cole Ziegler

Over the last two seasons, Burnes has been the best pitcher alive. In 2021, he won his first career Cy Young, leading the NL in ERA (2.43), FIP (1.63) and ranking third in strikeouts with 234. Last year, he was arguably even better, amping his workload above 200 innings for the first time and striking out 243 batters, the most in the NL. Basic common sense would dictate that the Brewers would be falling over themselves to extend Burnes, given that he’s just 28 years old, has relatively a clean bill of health and, oh yeah, is incredible at baseball. Instead, the Brewers dragged him into a contentious arbitration hearing that “definitely hurt” his relationship with the team and where they blamed him for the team missing the playoffs. With Burnes set to enter free agency after next season, it’s unlikely that he’ll be a Brewer for much longer.

Whereas the Brewers are miserly and cheap, the Mets have spared no expense to acquire the best players possible; the prospect of Burnes’ free agency isn’t scary because they’ll simply give him lots of money. By adding Burnes, the Mets would create a truly diabolical three-headed monster atop their rotation—a Burnes, Scherzer, Verlander trio would make the Mets essentially unbeatable in playoff series.