The 2018 Winter meetings from Las Vegas, Nevada came and
went by fast without the New York Mets making any impact trades.
I thought the
Mets were going to make a trade with the Florida Marlins for catcher J.T.
Realmuto, because they were really interested in him and needed an upgrade at
catcher. He was one of the best catchers in baseball and hit .277 with 21
homers and 74 runs batted in last season.
The New York Yankees were supposed to
be part of the three-team deal, because they were very much interested in Noah
Syndergaard. The Yankees needed another front-line starting pitcher to get by
Boston and Houston. Last season, Noah had a 13-4 record with a 3.03 earned run
average.
It was disappointing that both the Yankees and Mets could
not pull of the deal. As a rule, both teams do not do business with each other
which had me bewildered throughout the years. Since both team’s respect and
know each other well you would think that they would talk business for a change
and make a deal.
The last time the two teams made a trade with each other was
back in 2004. So, I thought that both teams would be long overdue and finally
make a trade. The reason is that both teams have the players that they need to
be contenders.
I would have liked to see a trade of Gary Sanchez to the Marlins
for Realmuto; then, the Yankees could have traded Realmuto and Dellin Betances
to the Mets for Noah Syndergaard, Bobby Wahl and Kevin Plawecki.
This could
have been the biggest impact trade the two teams ever made with each other,
because in my opinion both teams would have been good enough to be World Series
contenders.
In free agent news, the Mets signed
relief pitcher Jeurys Familia who will be returning to the Mets on a $30
million, three-year contract. He had 123 saves for the Mets and will pitch in a
different role for them which will be as a setup man. His goal was to return to
the Mets all along.
Then, the Mets signed outfielder Rajai Davis to a minor league
contract and will report to spring training. He provides some speed that the
Mets were looking for. Davis has a .262 career batting average.
Finally, the Mets signed
catcher Wilson Ramos to a two-year $19 million contract. He played for both the
Tampa Bay Rays and the Philadelphia Phillies last season. He had 15 home runs
and was an All-Star.
He is an offensive upgrade compared to what they currently
have on the roster. He does have health issues, because of his bad knees.
The
Mets still might be looking to add to the bullpen.
5 comments:
Tony, I think you are in a small minority on wanting the Realmuto trade - I think most fans wanted Ramos and keeping Syndergaard.
We all have to remember if we are fortunate enough to get to the playoffs healthy, a trio of Jake, Thor and Zach could be extremely formidable. I wanted that trio intact going into 2019 for that reason.
I definitely think one or preferably 2 quality pen arms need to be acquired. I think (without analysis) that Diaz and Familia raise this pen from 2018's 28th ranked pen to about 15th - two more reliable quality arms would move the pen into the top 10.
Brodie needs to keep plugging - I am confident he will. I'd still love to see two outfield dimension changes to help hitters at home:
1) get rid of the outward dip at the bullpen and have it go straight across.
2) In CF, it currently cuts straight out, then is straight across in CF, with dead center at 408. I would round off the fence, bringing in the fence a bit where the left field and right field fences intersect cuttently with the CF straight across portion. I would also make the 408 depth 8 feet closer, at 400 feet. My guess is that about 40 balls per year now hit to those areas for 30 outs and 10 doubles would become 20 doubles and 20 homers.
Do that, and have hitters defy the shift, and the hitting could be largely solved.
That fence change is still modest. Whether we'd want Bryce Harper or not, he'd likely not want the Mets vs., say, the Yankees, because over 10 years, he'd probably hit 50-75 more homers to right in Yankee Stadium than at Citifield.
If you want to be considered, when you're done playing, as one of baseball's all time greats, losing 75 homers to a deeper park is not what you want.
In the past we always saw them make minimal effort to improve, hoping to catch lightning in a bottle from someone else's scrap heap or going after tertiary level FAs under the guise of them being "value" picks. Put another way, if you throw a lot of crap at the wall, eventually some of it is going to stick and crap doesn't win championships.
Reese -
So Wilson Ramos and not loosing any of your core players is crap?
I think we are a better team with Thor and Wilson, versus JTR and another available free agency starter (or even worse, dealing more prospects for a Thor replacement).
Not a huge difference between Ramos and JTR, at least not to justify losing any existing talent in the process.....just my 2 cents.
I said in the past I. E. Sandy Alderson approach...
Post a Comment