The Rockaway Wave
Originally Published August 8, 2025
In the final two days before the MLB trade deadline, the New York Mets acquired three players. One borough over, the Brooklyn Cyclones lost five.
The first blow came on Wednesday, July 30, at about 7:15 p.m. — 22 and 3⁄4 hours until the trade deadline. The Mets acquired Ryan Helsley from the St. Louis Cardinals for minor leaguers Jesús Báez, Nate Dohm, and Frank Elissalt. All three were Brooklyn Cyclones.
Dohm and Elissalt were both having very strong seasons, but Báez was the headliner. He was also standing on second base when Cyclones Manager Gilbert Gómez was informed of the trade.
Gómez sent out a pinch runner, and Báez walked off the field for maybe the final time as a member of the New York Mets organization. He was greeted at the top step by now-former teammate Ronald Hernández, who gave him a high-five and a hug, before continuing down the dugout for the same from the rest of the Cyclones roster.
Báez had a big smile on his face, as did Hernández, and as did everyone who lined up to pay their respects.
“It was just a shock,” Hernández said. “We talk about it, but when you see these things happen, you don’t know how to react. And then, when his energy is going down, he was going ‘Probably, I don’t gonna play with you on the same team again.’ And I said, ‘Well, the good part is, we’re gonna play in the big leagues.’”
Báez signed with the Mets on January 15, 2022, when he was just 16 years old. For the last three and a half years, he has been a New York Met.
“Especially at this stage of their career, the only thing they’ve known is the Mets,” Gómez said. “ … Obviously it’s a shock, in the middle of the year, having to go to a different place, try to get to meet new people and trust new coaches. It’s a very delicate situation, depending on the personality of the guy who got traded. Some people can handle it better than others. For some people, it takes a little bit to get accustomed to their new surroundings. But it’s tough regardless.”
Hernández is no stranger to this time of year, having been acquired by the Mets from the Miami Marlins for David Robertson at the 2023 trade deadline. He knows how scary an experience it can be to be traded from the only organization you have ever known, because he’s lived it.
“I called my brother,” Hernández said, recalling the moment he learned he was traded. “It was 1 a.m., and I said, “Bro, I’m so scared. I got traded. What does this mean? I don’t know what’s gonna happen.’ And I was crying.”
Hernández now considers himself fortunate to have ended up in the Mets organization, but at the time, the uncertainty about what was next truly scared him.
Now two years removed from when he was traded as a teenager, Hernández is 21 years old. He is just 16 months older than the 20-year-old Báez, and the two developed a close relationship.
“He’s my little brother, bro,” Hernández said. “He’s an awesome player, great person. He’s so young. I think he’s my little brother. We were talking about this before, and he said, ‘Yeah, I think I’m gone.’ As soon as he came out of the game, I was like, ‘Bro, you’re out.’ He didn’t cry in the dugout, but in the clubhouse, he was so sad.”
The Mets were quiet for the next 20 hours, and then, with just under two and a half hours until the trade deadline, struck again. This time, they acquired Cedric Mullins from the Baltimore Orioles in exchange for minor leaguers Raimon Gómez, Chandler Marsh, and Anthony Nunez. Gómez and Marsh were Cyclones.
For the second time in two days, and just minutes after defeating the BlueClaws 4-0, Cyclones players had to say goodbye to some teammates. The clubhouse, which in the time leading up to the deadline had been bracing for something to happen, just lost five players in under 24 hours.
“Now it’s just tougher, just because of the rumors,” Gómez said. “You see stuff on Twitter, you see stuff on Instagram. Everywhere you look, there’s something like ‘Mets are willing to give up x-amount of prospects for the right piece.’ Back in the day, you didn’t feel it that way. When I played, I didn’t feel it that way just because there weren’t so many exposures. But now that it’s out there, you can tell the guys, they talk about it, they joke about it, but in the end, there’s always that sense of worry.”
Hernández echoed that players see things on social media and described the impact it has on him and his teammates.
“Raimon Gómez was so scared, and he got traded. Jesús Báez was so scared, and he got [traded]. A.J. [Ewing] is scared,” Hernández said at about 4 p.m. on July 31, just two hours before the deadline. “So, everyone’s scared about it. We are Mets. We love this organization. We are so young, we want to be good with the New York Mets. But you know, this is baseball, and we have to be ready. Everybody knows something can happen, so everybody is looking at their phones every minute.”
Sometimes players even find out before the team has an opportunity to tell them. That’s not necessarily new — Wilmer Flores famously cried on the field in 2015 after learning he was traded mid-game, only for the deal to fall through — but it’s an unfortunate side effect of the social media age.
Last season, the Cyclones lost two players at the trade deadline. One, Wilfredo Lara, found out he was traded for Huascar Brazobán before the Cyclones could inform him. When Gómez pulled him into his office, Lara already knew why.
“He told me ‘Marlins, right?’” Gómez said. “And I was like, ‘Yeah, you’re going to the Marlins.’ He already knew where he was going just because he read it.”
For Gómez, informing the two players last year was the first time he ever had to deliver the news to a player that they had been traded. It can be an emotional conversation, but Gómez makes sure to emphasize that it’s not all bad news.
“It’s better than obviously delivering the news of somebody getting cut,” Gómez said. “Just making sure that they understand that this is something good for their career, that it’s just another step in their journey. They’re not gonna be the first one or last player that got traded and ended up playing in the big leagues for another team.”
Everyone understands it’s a reality of the game.
“This game is a business, so you are always available to go somewhere, so you have to be ready,” Hernández said. “No matter where you’re going, you have to be ready for it and take the opportunity.”
And ultimately, there are still games that need to be played six out of the seven days of the week.
“That’s the beauty of the game,” Gómez said. “It’s an everyday thing, so you don’t have another choice but lock in and play.”
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