The New York Mets are having the kind of season that makes every old trade resurface in the ugliest possible light. Their twelve-game losing streak was finally snapped on Wednesday, but an 8-16 record to start the season has a way of changing the conversation fast.
Fans stop talking only about the current mess and start revisiting every move that helped create it. They can dig through the deals that were supposed to help then and asking whether those moves made the future worse in the process. That’s exactly why the old Tyler Naquin trade suddenly feels a lot harsher from New York’s side.
From the Cincinnati Reds perspective, however, this is one of those rebuilding swings that keeps getting better with age. Back in July of 2022, the Reds sent Naquin and Phillip Diehl to the Mets and brought back Héctor RodrÃguez and José Acuña.
At the time, it was a deadline move for a Mets team trying to squeeze every possible edge out of a pennant race. The problem for the Mets is that Naquin gave them very little, and now the two prospects they shipped out are starting to look like legitimate payoff pieces for Cincinnati.
Reds prospects are making Mets' ugly stretch feel even worse
RodrÃguez is the one that really jumps off the page right now. He opened 2026 at Triple-A Louisville, and the bigger picture around him has changed fast. MLB Pipeline’s 2026 Reds prospect coverage highlighted Louisville as a prospect-heavy club and described it as a group led by RodrÃguez’s bat, which tells you where he now sits in the organization’s pecking order.
Better think twice before stretching two on Héctor🎯
— Louisville Bats (@LouisvilleBats) July 28, 2025
Héctor RodrÃguez fires a dart to earn this week’s Defensive Play of the Week, presented by @TadThomasLaw! pic.twitter.com/gwKbwPNtnJ
The production backs up the feeling. RodrÃguez is slashing .258/.370/.472 with an .842 OPS, four home runs, five doubles, one triple, and more walks than a lot of young hitters his age manage when they first reach Triple-A. The 14.8% walk rate next to a 17.6% strikeout rate is especially encouraging because it points to a hitter who looks in control of upper-level pitching.
Acuña is not far behind in terms of intrigue. He opened 2026 with Double-A Chattanooga, and has delivered some strong outings. He remains a developing arm in the system, and that matters because Cincinnati is not starving for depth here. The Reds are trying to build waves of usable pitching, and Acuña looks like he might actually fit that plan.
In 16⅔ innings, Acuña has16 strikeouts, hasn't allowed a home run, and owns a 2.70 ERA through his first four Double-A starts. The ten walks show there are still some things to clean up, but a 23-year-old missing bats and keeping the ball in the yard is the kind of profile teams keep betting on.
Cincinnati didn’t just flip a rental for a couple of lottery tickets. The Reds pulled two real developmental bets out of that trade, and both are getting close enough now that this can no longer be brushed off as a distant farm-system what-if. RodrÃguez is already in Triple-A. Acuña is knocking from Double-A. Meanwhile, the Mets just spent two weeks spiraling through one of the ugliest stretches in baseball.
That is the part New York fans are going to hate. This is no longer just a trade tucked away in the deadline archive. The Reds are now getting close enough to cashing in on both prospects that the deal feels alive again, and not in a way the Mets will enjoy.