You couldn’t draw a bigger contrast between new Mets GM Jared Porter and his predecessor Brodie Van Wagenen than the one shown in their first big trades on the job. Where Van Wagenen traded away the team’s best prospect for a broken-down ex-superstar with an albatross of a contract plus an unreliable closer, Porter traded less and got a bona fide superstar plus an above-average starter. The former trade made the Mets more famous, but Thursday’s trade for Francisco Lindor and Carlos Carrasco makes them more dangerous, and on par with the best teams in the National League.
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The Mets haven’t had an above-average player at shortstop since José Reyes’ last good season there in 2011, but with the trade for Lindor, whose 2018 WAR of 7.8 is higher than any shortstop in Mets franchise history has ever posted, they now have an all-around superstar who’ll make their offense and defense better. Lindor’s 2018 was his best year, and since then he’s lost some of his discipline at the plate, chasing more breaking stuff at the edges of the zone and out of it, resulting in small hits to his walk and strikeout rates and OBPs well below his 2018 peak. There’s nothing in his batted-ball data to say he can’t hit as he did in 2018, and perhaps a new environment and better team will convince him to go back to his earlier, more patient approach. He averaged 34 homers a year from 2017-19, slugging over .500 in each season, which would put him in the top 3 or 4 in the Mets’ lineup, behind guys who play the corners. He’s also a better fielder than Amed Rosario, who was included in Thursday’s trade, and has more range than Andrés Giménez, who played at the peak of his ability in 2020 and will also go back to Cleveland. The Mets got about 3-4 wins better in this deal just from Lindor, and that could become 5+ if he returns to the approach that made him a nearly 8-win player in 2018.
The Mets also get Carrasco, giving them one of the strongest rotations in the National League and an actual surplus of starters. Outside of his 2019 season, when he was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia and still came back after less than three months on the injured list, he’s been an above-average starter every year since 2014. He works with a four-pitch mix and a traditional approach, getting ahead with the four-seamer but getting swings-and-misses with his slider and changeup, the latter a plus pitch for him going all the way back to his time as a prospect in the Phillies system. He’s gotten a huge whiff rate on his high-spin curveball the last two years, but seems to use it less than his other weapons because he doesn’t land it as consistently for strikes.
The addition of Carrasco, who slots in with Marcus Stroman behind Jacob deGrom, gives the Mets at least three viable starter options for the last two slots, four if Noah Syndergaard is ready to return this year from Tommy John surgery. Seth Lugo, David Peterson and Steven Matz have all shown at some point they could be capable major-league starters, although Lugo and Matz struggled with the long ball in 2020 and Peterson gave up too many walks for a finesse pitcher.
Cleveland gets a return that will likely be pilloried by fans, but the truth is this is a reasonable return for the situation. Lindor has one year left until free agency and expressed no interest in staying with Cleveland. The economy is down due to the pandemic, and MLB owners are on street corners asking for alms for the poor, so there are few buyers for premium free agents and stars available in trade. There are also a lot of shortstops available in free agency (including Marcus Semien and Didi Gregorius) and fewer contenders looking for help there than there are in most winters. We can certainly criticize Cleveland’s ownership for being cheap, but there are also a lot of outside factors here that were beyond the team’s control and left them worse off in the end. They weren’t getting an elite prospect back for one year of Lindor this winter, and it does appear that, given that constraint, they prioritized moving more money instead.
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They did get four players in return, a couple of whom are talented enough they might make fans feel better about the trade in time. Amed Rosario was among the top prospects in baseball when the Mets first called him up, but he struggled to recognize breaking stuff in the majors and regressed badly on defense, to the point that the Mets talked about moving him to the outfield. He still has plus bat speed, can run, and has the hands and arm to handle shortstop, although he might be better off in center field or as a super-utility player who can handle just about any position other than catcher or first base. It’s going to come down to the bat, which showed signs of progress in 2019, especially against offspeed stuff, but all of that progress was lost in the shortened 2020 season and the Mets seemed inclined to move on. There’s still a lot of untapped potential here, and Rosario is young enough to make a big jump in the next year, but the odds are now tilting against him.
Andrés Giménez is the opposite sort of prospect — high floor, low ceiling, reliable on defense, projecting to no impact. He can handle shortstop, with good instincts, and average speed out of the box with more once he’s underway. At the plate, he makes a lot of contact, but it’s very low quality, and there’s nothing in his swing or build to make anyone think he’ll be a high-impact hitter in the future. He could be a soft regular at short for a while, maybe a José Iglesias type of player who balances below-average offense with above-average defense.
Cleveland also gets two prospects, both of whom were recent high draft picks by the Mets. Josh Wolf was their second-round pick in 2019, a skinny, projectable high school right-hander from Texas with a great arm but not much polish to his game. He has mid-rotation upside, but is probably four years away from the majors and has the risk of any 19-year-old pitcher. Isaiah Greene was their second-round pick this year, and really impressed the Mets in instructional league this past fall, playing great defense in center field and hitting well off pitchers who were mostly older than he is. He has plus speed and very quick hands at the plate, showing good poise in the batters’ box and very good instincts in center. If there’s a sleeper in the deal, it’s him, as he wasn’t as famous as most elite California high school prospects are. This is a solid baseball return, but it’s also hard to avoid seeing it as a deal that cleared money in Cleveland’s budget at the cost of any short-term competitiveness.
(Photo of Lindor and Carrasco in 2019: Chris O’Meara / Associated Press)
