Jack Flynn - Thoughts on Yesterday's Trades

As the Hot Stove season wears on and the ranks of attractive free agents continue to diminish, the Mets seem to be marching to the beat of their own drum. New general manager Brodie Van Wagenen, after signing Jeurys Familia and Wilson Ramos to multiyear deals earlier in the offseason, has instead focused on the trade market to continue his makeover of an organization that has missed the playoffs in each of the last two seasons.

Van Wagenen recently swung two trades that, given the deeply rooted lack of faith in club ownership, has left some portion of the fan base muttering, “same old Mets.” A closer look, however, suggests an intelligent and rational approach to organization building that had been lacking under former general manager Sandy Anderson.

It’s easy to dismiss the acquisitions of Keon Broxton and JD Davis as weak alternatives to Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, especially considering that one is an outfielder and the other is a third baseman. It’s also lazy and shortsighted.

Broxton and Davis aren’t being brought to New York as alternatives to Harper and Machado. Both players are here because they were blocked in the previous organizations and can help the organization either as backups with the major league club, or as starters in Syracuse.

Broxton is a glove-first center fielder with good speed, a skill set that makes him, at the very least, a legitimate OF5 on just about any team in baseball. He was blocked in Milwaukee by that club’s dynamic outfield and spent most of 2018 in the Pacific Coast League, which reduced his perceived value to the point that the Mets were able to acquire him for significantly less than it would’ve taken just one year ago, when he completed a 20 homer-20 steal campaign as the Brewers’ primary center fielder.

There’s been talk that Broxton will have a shot at the center field job, especially if Juan Lagares could ever be traded, but I suspect that is just posturing as Van Wagenen continues to explore the trade market. Even if the Mets strike out in finding a more established center fielder, there is legitimate value to having Broxton’s glove between Michael Conforto and Brandon Nimmo, especially on a team that will live and die with its starting pitching.

Davis is more intriguing in that he is younger than Broxton, with better prospect pedigree. He, too, was blocked last season by the embarrassment of riches that is the Houston Astros’ stable of position players. Until very recently it was assumed that the Astros would go into 2019 using Davis as a four-position backup in the mold of Marwin Gonzalez. Now, he seems a lock to play a similar role for the Mets, with an outside shot at winning the third base job if Van Wagenen can find a taker for Todd Frazier.

Both players aren’t even arbitration-eligible yet, which means that the Mets will likely commit less than $1.3 million in salary to the both of them in 2019. If there was ever a path to signing Harper or Machado, neither Broxton or Davis could possibly considered an impediment. Realistically though, there’s little reason to believe that Harper or Machado even *want* to play for the Mets, barring a willingness to massively overpay to a point that would border on madness.

The clever reader not only knows that this is true, but by now will have also picked up on something else. Van Wagenen just traded for two players that feature at the exact same positions as the the two position players laboring under the worst contracts in the system. That means there are now credible replacements for Lagares and Frazier under contract, at a fraction of the $18 million owed both men in 2019.

Van Wagenen has options now. He can use Broxton and Davis as role players on the 2019 club, while auditioning them for starting roles in 2020. He can also try to trade Lagares, Frazier or both men at once, knowing that younger and possibly better players are now in the organization and capable of replacing them.

This can be approached two ways – either as an effort to either free up payroll or, in what is a far more realistic scenario given Lagares and Frazier’s negative value, engineer a financially neutral swap in an attempt to acquire a bounce-back candidate at a position of need.

It’s also worth considering that Davis may not be ticketed for Queens at all, and is actually destined to spend most of his summer in Central New York. The Mets have a vested interest in a successful Triple-A franchise now, given that they bought the Syracuse club two years ago and 2019 will be the first season of Mets control. Davis could start the season in Triple-A, especially if the Mets find no takers for Frazier, but would be the first man up in the case of injuries or ineffectiveness by corner infielders or corner outfielders.

In the meantime, Davis would anchor a Syracuse lineup that could also include Dominic Smith, Rajai Davis and Gregor Blanco. Van Wagenen appears to be showing an understanding that depth and talent at Triple-A is an important aspect of a modern approach to organization building. This always seemed to escape his predecessor, and it ultimately became one of Alderson’s undoings.

There’s nothing sexy about trading for Keon Broxton or JD  Davis. But there is something intelligent about it, and sometimes intelligence can prove to be sexy as well.

(Added later on in the day... Dammit, just saw the Plawecki news. I don’t get that at all. I don’t see how I can weave this trade into the narrative of what I just sent you.)