Talkin' Baseball - Hot Stove, Cold Stove

Good morning.

Here’s the question –

            Here’s the Hot Stove tally –

We get A.J. Ramos for around $8.5mil next year. We lose Lucas Duda for more if he stayed.

We get RP Drew Smith and lose SP Merandy Gonzalez and OF Ricardo Cespedes… but first base opens for Dominic Smith.

We get three top 30 prospects from Boston (all relievers: Gerson Bautista, Jamie Callahan, Stephen Nogosek) for the expiring Addison Reed

How’d we do?

Reese Kaplan says –                    

It could have been worse.  He could have shipped out a top prospect for a sore-armed pitcher Dan Warthen thought he could fix in 15 minutes.  I saw better returns going to other clubs for what they had to offer.  The one I'm most excited about is Drew Smith, though I wonder when he's been moved twice already (shades of Travis d'Arnaud).  What makes other clubs think he's expendable?

The Boston returns are not all that exciting -- fast pitchers who can't get it over the plate.  We already have one of them in Josh Smoker. 

Thomas Brennan says –

When you watch the Yankees trade, they are impressive and really make a splash. The Mets once again we're able to make some moves, but by comparison to the Yankees it feels like kissing your sister. I give Sandy Alderson a C rating on this trade cycle. I would have liked to have seen more guys get traded.

Clay Ramsey said –

I feel like with what the trade value was for this year and the needs for the Mets, I'd say this was a pretty successful deadline. Although we traded for Ramos, we still got younger and we've built a solid future bullpen. Big fan of trading for Nogosek; I think he can be great.

Would've liked to have seen us part ways with Asdrubal Cabrera this deadline as well. He made it clear he didn't want to play for us anymore so, for me, it was imperative we trade him. I fully expect an August waiver trade for him.

Could this have been a more successful                        deadline, probably, but it certainly wasn't a                  bad one in my opinion.

Richard Herr says –

I feel it's a plus that we got something in return for otherwise expiring contracts. I'm disappointed we've still got a bunch of lame-duck guys that couldn't be moved.

I worry that Merandy Gonzales might have the highest ceiling of all of the minor league pitchers that moved in these deals.  I could see him hitting the majors in a couple of years.

I also detected a bit of spin-doctoring going on with the press releases. All of the guys coming from the Red Sox were variously labeled as the "10th best pitching prospect" on the club, not the overall 10th best.  That means you could probably double the rankings to get closer to the overall ranking. In other words, 10th-best becomes 20th best.

MetsMusings Mack says -

I would say we did pretty good.  I hated to lose Merandy Gonzalez but you have to give up something to get something.  Alderson managed to start the bullpen rebuild for next year, as well as getting some pieces for down the road.  As always, time will tell.

David Rubin says -

I have heard from someone outside the Mets org that Sandy worked the phone relentlessly, was underwhelmed by offers for his expiring contracts, and did indeed hold out with the Red Sox to get one additional arm, as Mack said. The one thing we have to remember is the old George Carlin line: "How come my stuff is shit and your shit is stuff?" We as fans tend to over-value our own players because of both the emotional attachment and the desire to "fleece" another team out of their top prospects. It's no longer the days of Beltran-for-Wheeler; and following the minors and prospects, you soon learn that almost ALL of those who rank minor league systems tend to rank relief pitchers anywhere from mid-20's to not-at-all. A starter can always become a reliever, but rarely does a long-term reliever become a starter, and just like first basemen, tend to be ignored by the so-called experts, unless it's a Dom Smith-type talent. No one was willing to offer top prospects for what we were selling, and the team wasn't willing to eat any of their salary, so what we got will hopefully strengthen the bullpen in the bigs for 2018 and beyond!

I am happy that Sandy was able to restock the bullpen at the minor/major leagues, and wouldn't be surprised to see Reed back in a Mets' uniform next year if he's not offered a closing role with another team. Ramos mostly scares his own team, a la Benitez or K-Rod, but he's also a pro and once you get past the inconsistency he does have a good arsenal. 

IMO - Sandy did as well as he could at the deadline- now bring up Dom, let him get 1.5 months in the bigs under his belt, and how about THIS for a radical idea for 2018:

CURTIS GRANDERSON FOR METS MANAGER IN 2018!!!!!!!!!