The New York Mets desperately need offense. Everyone in the world knows this crop of position players are not capable of doing anything in October—if the Mets even make it that far.
While New York possesses one of the best pitching staffs in baseball, the offense is an anemic accoutrement full of incompetent hitters who don’t know what winning baseball is. Juan Lagares is the only 4 WAR position player on the roster and even he is struggling this year, whether it’s because of an injury or not, remains to be seen.
The Mets may be notorious for their wait and see approach. Why rush things, why push to make a splash today when maybe things fall into place in the future? While the pitching staff is young and under team control for at least three years, each pitcher, aside from Noah Syndergaard has undergone Tommy John surgery.
New York has one of the hardest throwing staffs in baseball, each pitcher—not counting Bartolo Colon and Jon Niese—is capable of sitting at 96 mph or higher. Power pitching is great, but it does have its price when factoring repaired UCL ligaments and iffy mechanics. Matt Harvey does the dreaded Power T which garners more velocity, but results in his arm being late when his foot is planted, putting stress on his elbow and shoulder. Jacob deGrom shows the ball to centerfield, which is another risky trick that boosts velo but adds unnecessary stress to the arm. Thor, his arm action is a little funky and it remains to be seen how much longevity he possesses. Steven Matz has the cleanest mechanics of the bunch, but he’s sidelined with a torn lat muscle. Zack Wheeler…his inverted arm action doesn’t project to give him much of a career, unfortunately. This isn’t meant to be a fear mongering piece, but rather, a rationale for why the Mets must go all in today rather than hoping for the future to play out peacefully.
While these guys may stay healthy and throw 95+ for the next decade, anything can happen, and in theory, their arms are ticking time bombs because of the mechanical flaws and repaired UCL’s. It would be dreadful if the Mets let this season slip away from them and in the future, the franchise never has each of these starters fully healthy and ready to torture their opponents.
Two moves can be made that label the Mets as serious contenders and should be enough to catapult them from fringe Wild Card team to a legitimate World Series candidate.
Justin Upton
Justin Upton is a big slugger who is only 27 years old. He’ll be a free agent at the end of the year and the dreadful San Diego Padres should be open to moving him in order to salvage the way they decimated their farm system in the offseason.
Upton has hit a little bit of a snide of late, but he’s been battling a sore oblique. When healthy, he’s a guy who can hit .280 or better, launch 25-30 homeruns and drive in 100 runs while stealing 20 bases potentially. He can have strikeout woes at times, but overall, he’s the slugger the Mets need to help legitimize the offense and relieve pressure from Lucas Duda.
The Padres have holes across their entire lineup. They severely lack a short stop, second base is weak, third base is miserable, centerfield is nonexistent, right field looks like an overpaid mess. The Mets have the means to fill some of these holes without impacting New York negatively. Everyone thinks in order to land a big bat, trading one of the core five pitchers is necessary, but that isn’t the case.
In order to get Upton, who is a rental—unless the dreaded Wilpons decide to do the right thing and pay him—trading three or four second tier prospects should be enough to acquire him. A package of Brandon Nimmo, Rafael Montero and Dilson Herrera could be a good starting point. The Padres may ask for Gavin Cecchini as well, depending on whether or not James Shields is traded to the Chicago Cubs for Starlin Castro or another shortstop.
New York would be wise to deal those three or four players for Upton and re-sign him at the end of the year, giving them the much needed slugger in left field who can generate a 4 WAR or better each season—who is also still in his prime as a 27 year old. Acquiring Upton would strengthen the Mets bench and allow Michael Cuddyer to platoon with Lucas Duda and occasionally Curtis Granderson.
Carlos Gomez
Juan Lagares is a great fielder, he’s signed to a team friendly contract, he’s only 26 years old, but he isn’t Carlos Gomez. Gomez is under team control for a reasonable price for the next 1.5 years. As talented as Lagares is, he’ll probably never provide the impact that Gomez offers.
Gomez is a true five-tool player. He can hit for average, power, field very well, steal bases and throw runners out. He can slot in as the Mets lead off hitter, moving Granderson into the two-hole, and he can be the spark plug needed to electrify this lackadaisical bunch.
The Milwaukee Brewers are in the dumps and Gomez will be moved at the trade deadline or the winter meetings. It would be very wise for the Mets to push for him and add him alongside Upton for the stretch run this year. Although he’s a tremendous player, he won’t paralyze the franchise in order to acquire him.
Sure, the Brewers would want one of the power arms, but they’d be willing to settle on a package that doesn’t include Matz or Thor. They may even be willing to gamble on Zack Wheeler. So there’s two scenarios in play here. The Mets deal Lagares, Dominic Smith, Jhoan Urena and Michael Fulmer for Gomez. Or, the Mets send Lagares, Wheeler and maybe Fulmer or Gabriel Ynoa to the Brewers.
These moves would deplete the Mets farm system somewhat, but none of the players being traded are capable of contributing before 2017 so it isn’t something that can seem catastrophic when factoring in the World Series possibilities that Upton and Gomez give the team.
Wheeler is a tremendous talent, but his mechanics don’t give him the best chance to maximize his potential, plus he hasn’t even started throwing yet so who knows how his recovery goes. Smith hasn’t shown any power in the minors and may project to be more of a James Loney type of player. Urena could become a very good pro, but he’s two to three years away. And Fulmer profiles as the next Joba Chamberlain. The Brewers would get a bunch of solid young talent who should help the franchise rebuild— it’s potentially one of the fairest deals for both sides out there.
Likelihood
Unfortunately for Mets fans, the front office rarely makes power moves as such, but these are two scenarios that rebuild the team without mortgaging its future. Thor, Matz, Kevin Plawecki and Michael Conforto get to stay put, and two monster veteran bats are plugged in to legitimize this franchise.
Wheeler is talented, he’s got great stuff, but with his mechanics and recent surgery, he’s honestly a wild card who may never be who many expected him to become. If he’s needed to land Gomez, he needs to be included in the deal. Regardless of how talented Lagares is, he just isn’t ever going to be as good as Gomez.
The Mets desperately need offense and these power moves solve their woes and position the franchise to make the World Series run fans desire. These two trades would electrify the fanbase and will lead to Citi Field selling out every game from now until the last game that is played. No one will be able to fault the Mets for making these two moves, especially if New York managed to pull this off without surrendering Matz, Thor or Conforto. These are realistic scenarios that need to play out in order to turn this franchise into a World Series team.