Reese Kaplan -- The First of Perhaps Several Shoes Has Dropped

So the great dismantling and sell off has begun.

Who among you had Eduardo Escobar at the top of the list?  Watch carefully about the process that just took place.  The Mets paid all of his remaining salary but the pro-rated major league minimum.  In return they got a couple of top 20 prospects (depending on whose lists you consider valid).  

The players acquired were not monumental but two AA level pitchers for someone who would cost you a buyout at year's end to remove him from the roster is not bad.  He would not have been give an QO, so you would have gotten nothing after paying his full salary for 2023 and then his buyout for 2024.  Instead you got a few possibilities from not coincidentally Billy Eppler's old associates in Anaheim.  

Now that the rest of the league has seen that the Mets are tiptoeing towards the reality of the 2023 results expect to see similar types of deals to reload the upper minors by ridding the team of veterans on expiring contracts.  The prepayment of salaries is not costing the Mets anything above what they already committed to spend as doing nothing would cost them the same amount.  However, don't expect top five prospects for the likes of Mark Canha, Daniel Vogelbach or Tommy Pham.  

For David Robertson you will perhaps get a top ten prospect but that is a slim possibility at best.  Take the Cubs, for example.  They recently took quite a blow to their bullpen with multiple pitchers going under the knife for season ending surgeries.  Bringing in a top quality arm like Robertson might help balance out the "Get Steve Cohen" mentality a bit as they may think October baseball is in their future and you can't get something for nothing.  

This week Jim Bowden ventured forth an idea you read here earlier in the week when it was suggested by yours truly that the Mets should entertain the possibility of making trades of their two ace starting pitchers.  Now these entities are quite a bit different from the lesser veterans they might like to move.  You would expect a Tommy Pham to net a similar result to the Esobar deal, but an offer for Max Scherzer or Justin Verlander should require the acquring team to swallow hard when they ponder saying yes to the proposed deal.

Going into 2024 the Mets know they will have Kodai Senga and Jose Quintana on their staff.  After that it's a bunch of question marks not adequately answered by either David Peterson nor Tylor Megill.  Joey Lucchesi is still lurking about in Syracuse after winning honors for his recent stint.  There are some AA pitchers recently promoted who could have a future.  Jose Butto is out there, too.  The thought here is that more free agent acquisitions will need to be made if they trade off all their expendable pieces this year.  

For now, however, it's good to see the front office taking action.  It won't help in 2023 and is possibly of value in 2024 and beyond.  Escobar was rendered fairly useless by the commitment given to Brett Baty and perhaps it means that hot hitters like Mark Vientos and Ronny Mauricio may be Queens-bound if the sell off continue.  Hey, at least it will get the turnstiles moving again when there's something new to see for the future if the team really means the future is now.