Remember 1969: Who Won? Mets Trades thru the years: 2010 to 2014

 Mets Trades through the years:  Who Won? 

I will begin combining years now, as we are moving into a 15 year stretch without any World Series appearances, and really only a few noteworthy deals.    This installment will cover all trades from November 2009 through October 2014, a five year period.    I’ll still go backwards by year.   

The 2013 – 2014 season was marked with only one trade all year, just after the start of the 2014 season.

(1)  New York Mets traded Ike Davis to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Zack Thornton and BlakeTaylor.   (04/18/2014)  

Notes:   This was the culmination of a lot of press and fan questioning of "Davis or Duda, who do they keep?"    

It is hard to judge this trade by itself.  By the time they traded Davis, he was pretty close to done, although he finished out 2014 with about 400 largely average at-bats with Pittsburgh and then had roughly 250 plate appearaces with Oakland in 2015.   The Mets actually made out better by keeping Duda. 

Taylor was a nice piece as a left handed reliever, had only they not traded him later on.

Another interesting snippet is that Ike Davis of the Mets was the second Ike Davis to play in the major leagues.  In an odd career, Ike Davis 1 had almost 700 plate appearances as a shortstop for the Chicago White Sox in 1925, hitting 31 doubles, driving in 61 runs, but nary a home run (but 40 sacrifice bunts in one year) .  After 582 at bats in 1925, he never had another one in the majors.     

The 2012-2013 season featured five trades, none bigger than the first one.

(1)  New York Mets traded R.A. Dickey, Josh Thole, and Mike Nickeas to the Toronto Blue Jays for Travis d'Arnaud, John Buck, Noah Syndergaard, and Wuilmer Becerra.   (12/17/2012)

(2)  New York  Mets traded Jefry Marte to the Oakland Athletics for Collin Cowgill.  (12/18/2012)

(3)  New York Mets traded Collin McHugh to the Colorado Rockies for Eric Young, Jr.  (06/18/2013)

(4)  New York Mets traded Collin Cowgill to the Los Angeles Angels for Kyle Johnson  (06/25/2013)

(5)  New York Mets traded Marlon Byrd and John Buck to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Vic Black and Dilson Herrera.   (08/27/2013)

Notes:   This off-season was somewhat of a toss-up.   Syndergaard showed a lot of promise, but really did not produce outstanding results in the nine years he was with the Mets.    d’Arnaud had trouble doing two things – staying off the injury list and throwing out base runners.   Those deficiencies are a bad combination if you want to be a major league catcher very long. 

John Buck had a very nice start in 2013, but returned to earth by May and finished his Mets tenure with a .215 BA and .285 OBP in 400 plate appearances before being traded to Pittsburgh.

Marlon Byrd was having a good year with the Mets in 2013 before the trade.  

Both Black and Herrera were promising players coming back, but neither developed into a true win for the Mets.   I remember being a fan of Vic Black for a time, but also remember that he career ending injury issues.  

November 2011 through October 2012

There were just two trades the entire year of 2011-2012, one in the off season, and a non-waiver deal in August:

 (1)  New York Mets traded Angel Pagan to the San Francisco Giants for Andres Torres and RamonRamirez  (Dec 06, 2011)

 (2)  New York Mets traded Pedro Beato to the Boston Red Sox for Kelly Shoppach  (Aug 14, 2012)

 Notes:  The Mets lost this year, as Pagan went to San Francisco and had a few decent years with the Giants as their starting center fielder.

I did not realize Kelly Shoppach had as much of a career as he had.  Certainly nothing outstanding, but he had over 1600 at bats and 70 home runs (just 3 with the Mets as he was winding down).   

November 2010 through October 2011

2010-11 had only four trades, but only the final one was particularly noteworthy ones in a while:

 In the off season:

 (1)  New York Mets traded Mike Antonini to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Chin-lung Hu  (Dec 07, 2010)

 Near the end of spring training: 

(2)  New York Mets traded Eddie Kunz to the San Diego Padres for Allen Dykstra  (Mar 29, 2011)

And in season:

(3)  New York Mets traded Francisco Rodriguez to the Milwaukee Brewers for Danny Herrera and Adrian Rosario  (Jul 12, 2011)

(4)  New York Mets traded Carlos Beltran to the San Francisco Giants for Zack Wheeler  (Jul 28, 2011)

Notes:  The trade deadline deal that brought Wheeler to New York is the way a trade deadline deal is supposed to work (see 2017) where they get back a top prospect for a critical piece to a club trying to win a pennant.     And like Syndergaard later, Tommy John surgery stole the best of Wheeler’s years under team control. 

I also remember the trade for Chin-lung Hu.  He was supposed to be a good utility infielder who was supposed to vie for the starting second base job in 2011.   He was sent to Buffalo after 22 games with only 23 plate appearances and a .141 OPS.   That is not BA or OBP. . that is OBP + Slugging.    1 hit and 1 walk in 20 official AB.   He never made it back to the majors.  He later played 8 years in the Chinese Professional Baseball League and hit .353 with an .896 OPS in over 3200 plate appearances.  

November 2009 through October 2010

 (1)  New York Mets traded Brian Stokes to the Los Angeles Angels for Gary Matthews, Jr.  (Jan 22, 2010)

 (2)  New York Mets traded Jeff Francoeur to the Texas Rangers for Joaquin Arias  (Aug 31, 2010)

 Notes:  Are we back to the Francoeur days by now?    The Mets probably should have stayed on the sidelines in 2010.   

Matthews was done by the time he came to New York and hit less than .200 before being designated for assignment on June 04.     

Frenchy finished up strong with Texas in 2010 and had a couple more decent seasons in 2011 (very good, actually) and 2012 before running out his career 2016. 

Next Week:   The early 2000's