The Case for a Mets Teardown
By Dustin Schwartz
We are one day away from the non-waiver trade deadline and the Mets have made just two moves. The first was trading the Good first baseman Lucas Duda, one of the longest tenured players on the team, to the Rays for pitcher Drew Smith, the 30th ranked prospect in their system according to MLB. While some fans seem to have hoped for a bigger return for Duda, the front office views Smith as a future integral reliever and believe the ranking doesn’t do justice to his skill set. What the trade says, however, is that, while the Mets have some good pending free agent bats they’re looking to sell, there just doesn’t seem to be a market for hitters, especially rentals.
While Duda, Jay Bruce, Curtis Granderson, Asdrubal Cabrera, Neil Walker, and even Jose Reyes and Rene Rivera each have some sort of value, it appears that the pitchers are more highly regarded commodities. This brings us to our next trade, a more interesting one, which was trading B-level Mets prospects RHP Merandy Gonzalez and CF Ricardo Cespedes for Marlins closer AJ Ramos. Ramos is having an off year with just a 3.63 ERA, but he’s had a lifetime 2.78 ERA. The Mets now have three of these more highly regarded trade commodities, with Addison Reed and Jerry Blevins being the other two. Some clubs have expressed worry that the former has been overused while the latter is less likely to be dealt because the Mets like his option for next year (despite the fact that it increases his value). The Ramos deal, however, now corners the market on Reed and also gives Mets more flexibility to be creative with packaging Ramos elsewhere, even though it’s believed that the Mets plan to use him and his year of control next season to rebuild the bullpen with Smith, Blevins, and a returning Jeurys Familia.
So what happens now with just a day left? The Mets have a lot to consider given how close the deadline is and the glaring questions going into next season, a year in which they still want to contend. Who will be their starting third baseman with David Wright most likely out again due to spinal stenosis? Will they platoon utility players TJ Rivera (who just got diagnosed with a partial tear of his UCL) and Wilmer Flores at 3B and also share them at 2B with Gavin Cecchini in whom the Mets front office doesn’t seem to have much faith? Who joins Michael Conforto and Yoenis Cespedes in the outfield if Brandon Nimmo shares a 4th OF spot with Juan Lagares (both dealt with injures this year)? And what happens if Cespedes is hurt most of the year again? Speaking of health, can we expect another mostly healthy year out of Travis d’Arnaud (TDA)? Will he improve at the plate? Will Matt Harvey, Zack Wheeler, and Steven Matz bounce back after disappointing injury-plagued years? Where do you place Seth Lugo, who’s got a partial tear of his UCL, and Robert Gsellman, who’s also had a disappointing and unhealthy sophomore year? Will Noah Syndergaard and Familia come back stronger after missing most of the season? Will Familia be healthy? Will Blevins continue to succeed after his 49 appearances this year at 33 years of age? Will Ramos bounce back and return to form? Will Smith be ready? And how much can we expect from our two biggest prospects, shortstop Amed Rosario and first baseman Dominic Smith, who will likely face some growing pains?
Some of these holes could be potentially solved by free agency. It’s been rumored they’re considering bringing back Bruce and, yes, they could spend on Lorenzo Cain, Mike Moustakas, and Yu Darvish, with plenty of money coming off the books. It’s safe to say, however, that given their financial history, they may not want to pay too much for long-term deals. This is even more amplified since they’ve gotten back very little on return from their Wright and Cespedes contracts. Moustakas would be another 3B commitment on top of Wright, Cain is heading into his mid 30s, and Darvish missed all of 2015 with Tommy John surgery and has posted just about a 4.00 ERA overall since his return. Bruce makes the most sense, but it might be best for the Mets to consider moving Conforto to RF despite his pleas to play in CF. All of these players would look good as complements to teams one to two pieces away from contention. The Mets on the other hand need to plug several holes, and it just doesn’t seem to be in the cards for them to sign all of them long-term. One of these players may not be enough, especially with not much depth coming from the minors internally after the Rosario and Smith promotions. Their top pitching prospects, for example, all seem like 2019–2020 call-ups, and their current rotation is crowded as it is with uncertainties. Even having deGrom, Thor, and Darvish as your 1–2–3 might not be enough if juggling Harvey, Wheeler, Matz, Lugo, and Gsellman becomes messy.
Given the amount of holes and question marks the Mets have on their team, and given the lukewarm free agency options, it may be in the Mets best interest to punt next year and rebuild for 2019 and beyond. Just focusing on the teams in their own division, one can see a season next year tougher than this one. The Nationals look like a powerhouse with just a few nips and tucks away from competing next season as well. The Braves will have graduated more top prospects from their farm, one of the best in baseball, and should help sustain them for many years to come. And the Phillies will most certainly promote a couple of top minor leaguers of their own and improve.
The Mets have several quality/useful players under control that, if flooded the market right now, could bring back decent returns if packaged correctly with or without the rentals. Flores is having his best year. He provides depth on the infield, has about 3 years left of control, and turns 26 next week. He’s also garnered interest from teams such as the Red Sox. An AL team such as the Sox could make lots of use for him as a DH from time to time. Lugo has also garnered interest from teams such as the Cubs. The Mets would probably prefer to hang onto him because he just came up last year and could probably be best used in relief under normal circumstances, but he does have a limited ceiling and pitches with a partially torn UCL. Perhaps, using Flores in a trade with Lugo and Rene Rivera could net the Mets Ian Happ given how full their team’s IF is. At the very least, they might be able to get Javier Baez or top prospect Jeimer Candelario. Baez or Happ could pencil in as their future second baseman or Candelario could be their guy at third.
Another couple of players that you don’t hear about in trade discussions that could provide some useful pairing in a deal is Familia and TDA. The former has been sidelined for most of the year after having surgery to remove a blood clot in his arm, but he’s poised to return sometime next month. He’s 27 and has been phenomenal the past 3 seasons. He’s also under control for the next 2 years. Perhaps, sending him to someone like Cleveland to pair with Andrew Miller in the bullpen could net the Mets their top prospect, catcher Francisco Mejia. Throwing in TDA, who’s under control for multiple more years, to compensate for depth at that position, as well as a couple of prospects, like SS Luis Guillorme, could get the job done. Familia and Miller as an 8–9 innings duo would be lights out both this season and the next one.
As far as rentals go, it’s possible that pairing offense like Granderson, Bruce, Cabrera, and Walker around relievers like Blevins, Ramos, and Reed could net fairly decent prospects at the deadline as well. Prospects like Jay Groome of the Red Sox, or Alex Verdugo or Yadier Alvarez of the Dodgers come to mind. You could broach the idea of adding Matz to one of those packages, despite his decline in value, if it meant bringing back both of those Dodgers prospects. A change of scenery and a new pitching coach could set him straight despite the injury history. He is 26, has another 4 years left of control, and is a LHP. He’s had success and has the potential to still be a star. He could fill in nicely now and for a while for that team. If not, the Mets could give Matz another shot next season and flip him if he succeeds then.
Last but not least, Jacob deGrom should be considered getting flipped. Their best pitcher and one of the best in baseball, deGrom is having a record run at the moment. The Astros, one of the best teams in baseball, have expressed strong interest him. He’s under control for 3 more years and would be the icing on the cake in their rotation. You can expect a haul for him from the Astros, who have one of the best farms in baseball, seeing as how much the Cubs gave up for Quintana, who is under less control and is not as stellar. You might get a 3B in Alex Bregman, an OF in Kyle Tucker, and a couple of starting pitchers in Francisco Martes and Forrest Whitley. Martes and Tucker could be ready as soon as next summer, while Bregman is already in the majors. Whitley can come right into the fold towards the end of 2019. This trade becomes a short-term and long-term fix for the Mets. Although deGrom is viewed as irreplaceable because he’s that damn good, and trading him removes depth on the main roster and a stronger chance for success for the next year, the Mets are in somewhat of a purgatory position at the moment. Dealing him may bring them out of it and steer them into a new and promising direction. He turns 30 next season, so he’s not necessarily young. Given the Mets’ issues, the current market, deGrom’s value, and the special attention paid to him by a specific ballclub, it might be best to pull the trigger if the Astros blow them away with their offer.
Many in the media and front office, especially Mets General Manager Sandy Alderson, believe a “teardown” is not what’s needed now and that trading deGrom would be foolish. Given the problems and inconsistencies of this team, the forecast next season looks realistically unattainable if they’re looking to go all the way. Now might be the best time to sell high on everybody so that the rebuild would be quick and 2019 would be the goal for contention. An outfield with Conforto, Cespedes, and Tucker, and an infield with Bregman, Rosario, Happ/Baez, Smith, and Mejia could be dominant, especially if Syndergaard, Martes, Whitley, Groome, and Alvarez are playing as a group or close to being ready to join. And let’s not forget the team’s own pitching prospects, David Peterson, Justin Dunn, and Thomas Szapuchi, the last of which just went down with Tommy John. Not everyone will work out, but the farm will have plenty of young pitching from which to choose, whether they use them to fill their rotation and bullpen during the rebuild or they trade them later during the 2019/2020 summers to put the finishing touches on a legitimate World Series run.
Lest we forget, waiting another year before spending seriously on free agency might be more beneficial to the Mets. The 2018–2019 classes include some of the best players at their positions, including Chris Sale, Bryce Harper, and Manny Machado. Saving until these players hit the market might be the smartest move, no matter what they ask for in a contract. They’re each worth it, especially for a team that has plenty of players under control for a while. If Bregman doesn’t work out at 3B, there’s always Machado. Sale and Thor could become the best 1–2 duo by then with some of the other pitching prospects following them in the rotation. And Harper playing alongside Conforto and Cespedes would be a dream scenario. Tucker could then fill Cespedes’s void when his contract is completed and serve as a 4th OF until then. Additionally, the Mets can spend solely on Reed next year for multiple seasons and then seek to bring back Ramos and Blevins in 2019. They can also consider Miller, who will also be a free agent by then.
It can be argued that this would be the first time in a while the team seized the opportunity for a proper rebuild. When Alderson took the reigns of the Mets in 2011, he did so with the intention of cleaning payroll and starting over, especially after the Bernie Madoff crisis and previous GM’s Omar Minaya’s failures. Alderson only traded Carlos Beltran for Wheeler, who couldn’t even contribute during 2015’s run. He let Reyes walk during a year in which he was competing for a batting title, while he extended Wright the following season after he hit .306 in 156 games. Despite trading RA Dickey for Syndergaard and TDA, Sandy didn’t make too many other moves for the long-term. He traded Marlon Byrd and John Buck for Vic Black and Dilson Herrera, both of whom are no longer on this team — the former didn’t contribute at all during 2015 and the latter was flipped last season for Bruce. Players that could’ve been packaged away before 2015 include Reyes, Wright, Daniel Murphy, Jon Niese, and even Scott Hairston, who had a solid 2012 before the deadline. The returns would’ve obviously changed the outcome of 2015’s World Series run, but they also might’ve brought more stability to the team before that and thereafter and allowed for a young core of position players to accompany the young core of pitching prospects Minaya already drafted and Alderson brought back through trades.
The 2015 run itself was an amalgamation of many things going right at the same time during a mostly unstable year. The quickly successful Syndergaard, Matz, and Conforto promotions, the Reed, Clippard, Uribe, Johnson, and Cespedes trades, the healthy abbreviated stints and returns from Wright and TDA, the offensive surge from Murphy, and the collapse of the division rival Nationals allowed for the Mets to do something they didn’t do in 15 years. But, again, this was a year of chance where everyone was healthy and solid at the right time, and while the Mets did make the second Wild Card the year after, the cracks from 2015 were already starting to show in 2016, as Wright’s conditioned worsened, Murphy walked without a long-term heir to the throne to second base intact, and the pitching, which had dealt with its fair share of surgeries prior to 2015, unfortunately started to unravel. The Mets hung on by a thread thanks to Rivera, Lugo, and Gsellman, and decided to go for it again, unrealistically this time around, when it might’ve been best to sell some of their pieces. This season worsened, and the Mets are now having trouble selling what they’re not considering keeping in the long run. And as much everyone would love to see a year of Syndergaard, deGrom, Wheeler, Matz, and Harvey — the core five starting pitchers of the “rebuild” — healthy and dominant for at least one season, it will most likely not come to fruition. The Mets should finally break from the narrative, even it means sacrificing one of the most consistent of the five to rebuild. They can longer afford to get hung up on that gimmick. We all knew they weren’t going to keep all of them in any case.
While the team may play better next year, it may not be enough to go for it all again without a real teardown. And it may sting them, again, thereafter. Most of the Mets controllable assets worth selling have 2–3 years left of value. If the Mets believe they’re going to contend next year, the year after that, and the year after that, with their current mindset, they may not win with these players and miss the boat selling them at their best value. The window for players like Conforto, Syndergaard, Rosario, etc. gets smaller and smaller, and the right moment to sell and rebuild might end up coming at a time when those three get considered getting dealt away. Why not avoid that?
It’s understandable for the Mets to want to contend soon, as they’re very concerned about the “window” before players start to become costly and past their prime. It’s understandable that control is essential and has value to the club that originally owns it. But this is a more different market than ever, and trading valuable players like deGrom and others can help transition into a new era with a new window, with the focus on young, budding stars, like Syndergaard and Conforto, even if the team has to go through one more year of hardship and misery Mets fans know all too well. A young, promising fresh start towards a brighter future may make that last year of hardship much more worth it.
