The Mets aren't waiting for the trade deadline to start reshaping the pitching staff. On Thursday, New York cut ties with reliever Alex Carrillo entirely and sent right-hander Guillo Zuniga to Triple-A Syracuse on an outright assignment, according to MLB Trade Rumors. Both moves close the loop on a pair of DFAs from earlier in the week, and both are small but telling signs of how aggressively the front office is turning over the back of its roster.
MLB Trade Rumors confirmed the Mets released Carrillo and outrighted Zuniga after both cleared waivers.
Carrillo's release is the harsher outcome of the two, and it's not hard to see why. He'd posted a 5.57 ERA over 21 innings for Syracuse this year, with a wild 26 walks in that stretch, and hadn't actually pitched for the Triple-A club in over a month without landing on the injured list. Since hurt players can't be run through outright waivers, that gap is a pretty good clue his release may be tied to an undisclosed injury rather than pure performance. Either way, the Mets decided it wasn't worth carrying him on the 40-man any longer.
Zuniga's case is different. The 27-year-old Colombian right-hander, who's also pitched for the Cardinals and Angels, was only just added to the active roster on July 5 and threw a scoreless inning against the Braves the very next day. He got squeezed off the 40-man days later when the Mets needed room for another arm, but outrighting him to Syracuse instead of releasing him signals New York still wants him around as depth if the bullpen springs another leak, which, given the churn lately, feels inevitable.
Zoom out and this is just the latest entry in a bullpen purge that's been going on all week. New York has now designated five players for assignment in four days, a stretch that's swept up Zuniga, Carrillo, Matt Seelinger and others who combined for little more than cameo appearances at the big league level this season. That's the kind of roster hygiene teams do when they're preparing to add real pieces before the deadline — clearing 40-man spots isn't glamorous, but it's the plumbing work that makes a trade possible.
Neither Carrillo nor Zuniga was ever going to be the arm that swings New York's season, but moves like these are worth watching precisely because of what they signal. A front office that's this willing to cycle through fringe relievers in the middle of July is a front office actively hunting for upgrades, and the next names to watch are the ones who replace these two on the 40-man.