Reese Kaplan -- Trading Noah is a "Thor" Subject

One thing Brodie Van Wagenen has done in his tumultuous first season as the Mets’ GM is to keep his cards close to his vest.  No one saw the Familia signing coming.  No one saw the Lowrie signing coming.  No one anticipated the Stroman deal.  The many moving pieces of the Robinson Cano/Edwin Diaz deal were in the news but no one had all of the right facts.  It seems he has closed up some of the media leaks that plagued the previous administration.

While you could fill a novella with the things that have gone wrong with his deals, he is certainly not shy about making moves, and sometimes he goes off in directions none of us would have predicted.  As the 2019 season draw to a close and the club must decide what to do to move the chess pieces forward in 2020, perhaps he will surprise us again by using the exclusive negotiating window to explore a contract extension with Zack Wheeler who has had an up and down season, and thus may not command as much as a free agent that he would have anticipated when the year began.  If he does, that means you go into the 2020 season with Jacob deGrom, Zack Wheeler, Steven Matz and Marcus Stroman all sewn up. 

Notice I didn’t include Noah Syndergaard in this group as he now opens up a possibility to right some wrongs.  Syndergaard has been a bit vocal about wanting his own person catcher a’a Steve Carlton and Tim McCarver.  I’ll be on board with that when Thor wins 27 games.  Until then, I have this quaint and silly belief that it is the manager who should decide about who is and who is not in the starting lineup on a given day. 

Just as BVW showed no allegiance to Sandy Alderson draft choices, I can’t imagine he’s suddenly going to be overcome with the warm and fuzzies for his big blonde righthander he inherited from the previous regime.  If the price is right, let’s make a deal. 

At the July 31^st trade deadline some pundits ventured that the price for Thor would be a top 30 prospect and two other solid pieces.  Although his ERA is significantly higher this year, his strikeouts are pretty much where they’ve always been, and marketable players with two years of financial control remaining who can hit triple digits on the radar gun are not easy to find.  Consequently, I think the price will remain roughly the same. 

If that is the case, are the Mets better off keeping Syndergaard around in the hopes of extending his contract, or extending Wheeler and trading Thor to address other needs?  Mack has gone on record he’s in the second camp.  I can surely see the merit to it as well.  Wheeler would cost less to extend than Syndergaard, trading him can help replenish the upper levels of the minors.

The team to target would be the Astros who know how to develop players and who will likely have a gaping hole in their rotation when Gerrit Cole goes off in quest of his pot of gold.   In addition, they stand to lose number five starter Wade Miley to free agency as well and he’s had a cromulent year that should nearly double his paycheck.  With a pair of $30 million plus starters in the rotation, they obviously need to balance out that moolah somehow and Syndergaard might be a way to do that. 

Now the first obvious get for the NY Mets is Kyle Tucker, a speedy outfielder who has played mostly centerfield in his minor league career and just finished his minor league season with a .266/33/94 and 30 SBs.  He’s a lefty swinger and on a team that already features guys like Michael Conforto, Robinson Cano, Jeff McNeil and Brandon Nimmo who swing from the left side, perhaps that’s less than ideal. 

Another pitch to make would be an even-up or slightly sweetened deal of Thor(+?) for George Springer who is a right handed hitting centerfielder who has a 2017 Silver Slugger already and this year is hitting .294/33/89.  He currently earns $12 million but, like Syndergaard, is not due for free agency until after the 2021 season completes.  Yes, he earns more than Thor, but the incremental difference in salary is miniscule when you consider what you’d be getting in return.  Lest you think there is no way the Astros would do that, remember that Thor’s career ERA is actually better than what both Justin Verlander and Zack Greinke have on the back of their respective baseball cards. 

Whether it’s the Astros or another team, I think you can see from this exercise that trading Syndergaard would either bring back the inexpensive prospects to fill gaps or the veteran talent to do so at only a incremental cost delta.  What do you think – keep Syndergaard and play the QO game with Wheeler?  Try to sign Wheeler and keep Syndergaard for one more year?  Or trade Syndergaard to fill vacancies?