Sammy Stafura was on the team bus from Greensboro to Rome on Monday afternoon when he saw a tweet saying his favorite team, the Mets, were trading reliever Luke Weaver. Then Stafura saw that Weaver was sent to the Pirates, his organization.
“I was like, 'Oh wow. I feel like this is me,’” Stafura told MLB.com late Monday night. “There's been links to the Mets for the past few days, so I was pretty confident that it was gonna be me. And then I saw my name.”
The Westchester County native was dealt from the Pirates to the Mets for Weaver ahead of the MLB Trade Deadline, moving to his third organization at just 21 years old. Stafura hopped on a plane Monday night back to Greensboro, where he’ll pack his things and join High-A Brooklyn in Wilmington on Tuesday as New York’s No. 11 prospect, per MLB Pipeline.
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Pirates general manager Ben Cherington said Monday evening that multiple teams asked about Stafura. Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns added that Stafura’s defense “jumps off the page” and, mixed with power, creates a high ceiling. For Stafura, he’s excited to join the team he’s worshiped growing up.
“It's honestly super special,” Stafura said. “This is a dream come true. To be in this situation is surreal.”
Stafura’s childhood home is 35 minutes from Citi Field, and his favorite players growing up were David Wright, José Reyes and Ruben Tejada. As a self-described “die-hard,” Stafura admitted he continued to watch each Mets game even when climbing to professional baseball.
After receiving the news around 3 p.m. ET, Stafura received hundreds of texts from friends back home. His coach at Walter Panas High School, Anthony Fata, said he received messages from coaches around their section excited for Stafura to represent in Queens. Fata saw Stafura play for the Grasshoppers in Brooklyn in April. Now it will be a lot easier for Fata and other supporters to watch him daily.
Stafura sat out four games while trade rumors circulated in recent days. The absence from the lineup was due to mild hamstring cramping, a precaution for an injury earlier in the season. Once the deadline grew closer, it became harder to ignore the noise.
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“The last couple weeks have been a little bit hectic,” Stafura said. “I'm just playing baseball, but you also got this on your mind because you're like, ‘This could happen any moment.’ I was tweaking out all day because I knew something was gonna happen. I just had that feeling.”
Teams were heavily interested in Stafura for obvious reasons. The shortstop was batting .301 with a 1.021 OPS in High-A Greensboro this season. In July alone, he put on a hitting clinic with 14 homers in 18 games. New York was interested in Stafura so much that it reportedly sent $8,123,529 to Pittsburgh to cover large portions of Weaver’s contract both this year and next.
Stafura’s season didn’t start so hot. He was long tossing in early January when he partially tore his UCL in his throwing arm. Stafura then pulled his hamstring in early May, sidelining him for nearly three weeks. Since his return to action, he’s been on a “bender,” as Cherington put it.
“Mentally, I’m believing that I'm the best player on the field and acting like that every single day,” Stafura said. “I think that's been one of the biggest parts this year, at least, is just believing that I am the person I am, and I've started acting like that the past month, and it's been showing pretty well.”
Stafura starred at Walter Panas and made the Junior Varsity team as an eighth grader. After going in the second round to the Reds, he struggled to finish the 2023 season, batting .071 with 23 strikeouts in 42 at-bats. He began training in the offseason with Jake Oliger of Lightning Lab Athletics and improved entering 2024. A key for Stafura to continue to grow is cutting the strikeout percentage, which is just over 30% in 2026. Oliger said the duo work to fix the issue by not missing pitches early in the count.
Stafura was dealt from the Reds to the Pirates for Ke’Bryan Hayes at the 2025 Trade Deadline. He chooses to look at being traded twice as a “good thing,” as teams across the industry are interested in him. Stafura hopes to learn from the mistakes of the trade process last time, not getting overwhelmed. In returning to New York, he’ll be more comfortable than ever.
“The sky's the limit with Sammy,” Fata said. “He's back home. He's back in New York. He's back where it all began.”