Q and A - Should The Mets Start Over

Mike Friere asks –

                       Despite the great start to the year, the last month has been the opposite.  Should the Mets "start over" by trading established players for prospects, or should they "go for broke" and try to upgrade the roster this year?

           Reese Kaplan says –

That's a tough question considering the lackluster return the club received for all of the players they peddled at the deadline last year.  Sandy Alderson has aguably made one decent trade in 7 years and at that time he had a Cy Young Award winning pitcher to offer up.  So, no, I'm not confident we would obtain anything of value in return.

The flip side is trying to be buyers means that you have to have something to give -- prospects from Sandy's farm system?  Don't make me laugh!  Money from the Wilpons' pocket?  Ditto.  So that seems an untenable approach as well.

As it is right now the only tradeable commodities at the major league level would appear to be Asdrubal Cabrera who is on a one year deal and Todd Frazier who is on a two year deal.  Both have modest salaries and could be appealing to another club.  Jay Bruce hasn't done anything yet and I'm not sure if another Ryder Ryan is worth the loss of his bat.  Yoenis Cespedes is untradeable due to his contract size.  Michael Conforto, Brandon Nimmo and WIlmer Flores might have some takers but if you're building for the future you don't do so by trading away your youngest players.

On the pitching side of the ledger you're not going to get much for Matz or Wheeler.  Vargas is untradeable.  You would find takers for deGrom, Syndergaard, Gsellman, Lugo and Familia, but again trading your youngest players during a rebuilt makes little sense.  The only one of that group POSSIBLY to consider moving is Familia who is set to be a FA.  I would peddle AJ Ramos but he's not going to net much the way he's pitched.  If you did move Familia then you would have to test drive Gsellman, Lugo or Sewald in the closer role or (heaven forbid) promote Tim Peterson. 

So to recap, I could go the trade route with Cabrera, Frazier and Famlia as options.  I would also throw in Adrian Gonzalez as a throw-in option to some club looking for a 1B option and promote Dom Smith or Pete Alonso or, here's pure heresy, let Wilmer Flores actually play.  I would hand 2B to Luis Guillorme and bring up Gavin Cecchini or Jeff McNeil to play 3B. 

In return for these players I would want TOP prospects to restock the barren farm system, not "hard throwers" with no control.  I want some BATS in the system. 

           

Mike Friere says –

            This question seems to split the fanbase into a couple of different "camps", not unlike politics, right?  

Some folks want to start over, while others think it is prudent to stay the course and see what happens.  The hot start, was overshadowed by a poor stretch in the middle put a lot of folks in the "start over" camp.  The most recent streak of solid play (albeit against a struggle Diamondbacks team, followed by one of the worst teams in baseball), will most certainly send some of those folks back to the original group.

My feelings haven't changed, however.   I want sustained success, to include a legitimate chance at another championship or two.   The current edition of the team is flawed and I don't think they are capable of prolonged success, never mind competing with some of the better teams in the league (Astros, for example). 

The best way to get there is to perform a surgical rebuild with 2020 as your target, but that would require dealing SOME valuable pieces from the current roster, but not necessarily all of them (it is possible to do both if Sandy chooses wisely, but that's another story).   

Erica Lay says –

            I think it's too early to tell either way. I'm not giving up on this season at this stage. If we're in the race, we have enough young talent on this team to support a run knowing that we have some pieces in place for the next few years. And Jake is under control for two more years so we can trade him next year (or in the off-season) if things don't work out this year. I know giving up that extra year of control will limit the return on Jake, but I don't think we'll ever get back enough to match his true worth anyway.

World Series or bust!

Eddie Corona says –

            The truth is this team was badly constructed and required everything to go perfectly (health, career years, surprising performances, etc.) to contend.

Unfortunately there is not a crop of young talent to build around. You have Degrom ,Thor and perhaps Conforto with a outside chance of Rosario. Not exactly the Core Four surrounded by Bernie, Tino etc.

So yes, it’s time to blow this up yet again. We cannot make the same mistakes we made with Reyes and Wright where the return was Kevin Plawecki. Even if we miss we must try to parlay any asset to maximize its value.

So if Cespedes and Bruce must be a salary dump to participate in this free agent class or if we have trade both Thor or Degrom to restock the pipeline with A+ talent (that sometimes fail) we must steer this ship to where there is hope for a future. The current course of actions have not been successful. what is the definition of insanity?

Jack Flynn says –

            As of this writing, the Mets are 3.5 games out of first place and only a game out of a wild card spot. That we are even discussing the notion of a reboot with this team is nothing more than conformation of how comically impatient the team's fan base is.

In November, Met fans complained that ownership wouldn't spend enough money to fix the holes on a 69-win team. But by the time the Amazins broke camp, they had added Anthony Swarzak, Jay Bruce, Todd Frazier and Jason Vargas, who between them will make over $30 million in 2018. The team's payroll is now approximately $150 million, and while that still doesn't place them in the upper reaches of MLB team payrolls, it is no longer an embarrassingly low figure for a team playing in a major market.

Now we are in late May and talk has shifted from the club not spending enough in team payroll, to the club not trading off its "assets" quickly enough to trigger a rebuild. Never mind that none of last winter's free agent signings have even a modicum of trade value right now. Never mind that the Mets currently have a middling to poor farm system with precious few prospects with a ceiling high enough to even sit on a major league bench one day, let alone contribute to a pennant winning team. Somehow it has become accepted wisdom in certain aspects of fan culture that a massive teardown and three years of last-place finishes automatically leads to a championship at the end of the rebuilding rainbow.

That's not how the sporting world actually works, however. Nearly every general manager in baseball has figured out that prospects with six years of control are more valuable than veteran players on short contracts who have passed their 30th birthday. Even the much maligned Sandy Alderson refused to trade Brandon Nimmo for Andrew McCutchen or Josh Harrison, a deal that Mets fans would've applauded in December and lamented today.

It's natural to assume that some Mets fans are suffering from recency bias, having seen the prospect packages that the Yankees fetched for Aroldis Chapman and Andrew Miller before the 2016 trade deadline. However, that ignores the unique confluence of events that led to those trades - the desperation that the Cubs and the Indians felt given the long championship droughts each were suffering through, and the premium placed on elite relief pitching in today's game.

Jacob de Grom and Noah Syndergaard could each fetch an interesting return, perhaps, but they are just as likely to bring back a modern day version of the Ryan Thompson/Jeff Kent package. One assumes that Nimmo, Michael Conforto and Amed Rosario would be unavailable, and no other position player or reliever on the Mets would bring back even a Top-50 prospect, let alone multiple blue chippers.

Bruce, Frazier, Yoenis Cespedes and Asdrubal Cabrera are all more valuable to the Mets than to other teams. Adrian Gonzalez and Devin Mesoraco wouldn't bring back a live arm in A-ball if they were offered out for trade. There isn't a single position player in the entire farm system ready to replace someone on the 25-man roster and make a positive contribution to the team.

At some point, Mets fans have to accept this team for what it is; good, but not great, and perhaps two players away from being a tough out in a short series. Sandy should focus on finding those two players in 2018, not daydreaming about a mythical powerhouse in 2023.