Brodie Van Wagenen Ruined Mets Payroll Flexibility And Prospect Depth For Nothing
While Sandy Alderson had his faults as the Mets General Manager, he left the Mets in a very good position. The next General Manager would have at this disposal the assets and core necessary to build a real World Series contender sometime within the next three years. If done, properly, this could have been a stretch akin to the 1980s Mets.
First and foremost, there was a young core still under control. Michael Conforto rebounded from shoulder surgery in the second half, and he appeared ready to return to his All Star form. Brandon Nimmo had a breakout season where he was the second best hitter in the National League. Jeff McNeil emerged to hit .329/.381/.471 in 63 games showing a great contact rate while playing well at second base.
The team still had a very good starting rotation. Jacob deGrom is the reigning Cy Young winner. Zack Wheeler‘s second half was as good as deGrom’s. Steven Matz finally made 30 starts in a season. Noah Syndergaard came back from a finger issue and pitched well. Over his final eight starts of the season, he was 5-1 with a 2.35 ERA.
The team also did not have an onerous long term deal which would stand in the way of really improving the team. After the 2019 season, the contracts of Todd Frazier, Juan Lagares, Anthony Swarzak, and Jason Vargas were set to come off the books. That was $32.5 million coming off the books. Combine that with Wheeler’s $5.975, and that was $38.475 coming off the books.
With respect to Vargas and Wheeler being pending free agents, the team did have internal options. Justin Dunn had a breakout season, and he re-emerged as a Top 100 prospect with an ETA of last 2019 or early 2020. With a similar 2019 season, you could see him realistically being part of the 2020 rotation or possibly the bullpen.
Behind Dunn, Anthony Kay and David Peterson had an opportunity to make a push to put themselves in a position to have an ETA of 2020. Between the three pitchers, the Mets realistically only needed one more starter via trade or free agency.
Those three pitchers were not the only near Major League ready talent the organization had. Pete Alonso was Major League ready. If he wasn’t, the team still had Dominic Smith who would spend the offseason addressing his medical issues and continuing to get into better shape.
This was all part of a very promising farm system which could have made a charge to the top of the game. In addition to the pitching and Alonso, the team had Jarred Kelenic, who appeared to be a once in a generation talent. Behind him was an impressive collection of teenage talent which included Andres Gimenez, Ronny Mauricio, Shervyen Newton, Luis Santana, and Mark Vientos.
If handled properly, the 2021 or 2022 Mets could have had a rotation with deGrom, Syndergaard, Matz, and at least one of Dunn, Kay, Peterson, or possibly Simeon Woods Richardson. The infield would been Alonso, McNeil, and two from the aforementioned group of teenage prospects. That’s if Amed Rosario didn’t have a breakout season or move to the outfield. Speaking of the outfield, an outfield of Nimmo-Kelenic-Conforto would have been the envy of the game.
Sure, not all of the prospects would have developed, but you also could have had someone like a Ross Adolph or another prospect emerge much like we saw with McNeil in 2018. There was also the impending 2019 draft class to consider. The overriding point here was the Mets had a deep well of prospects, and they had payroll flexibility.
Whoever was going to be the next General Manager of the Mets was going to be, they were taking over a job in an enviable position. There were difficult decisions in front of them like which players do you extend, and how hard exactly do you push to contend in 2019 or 2020 knowing what was on the horizon. Certainly, you had to do some of that because taking over the job was likely going to require you to sell a vision of contending in 2019.
While players like Bryce Harper or Manny Machado would have been well worth pursuing, realistically speaking, the Wilpons were not going to green light those signings. On the trade front, the only player available worth the Mets top prospects was probably J.T. Realmuto, but the Marlins have never seemed inclined to be reasonable in a potential deal with the Mets.
With that in mind, whatever the vision for the new General Manager, there needed to be an element of restraint. No matter what the new General Manager did, they needed to maintain that level of payroll flexibility while also not damaging the farm system to pursue short term fixes and/or underselling prospects in order to find ways to circumvent not being able to spend.
Well, in one trade, just one, Brodie Van Wagenen completely failed. In trading Dunn, the Mets lost their lone near Major League ready starter. That was important in case of an injury in 2019, and it was important because with Wheeler and Vargas being free agents, the Mets needed to find at least one cheap option for the rotation.
Worse than that, the team added Robinson Cano‘s onerous contract. Over the next five years, the Mets had $20 million on the books for a player who was going to have a steep decline in one of those five years. That player was coming in at a position already filled by McNeil and at a position which was going to be filled with young talent during the duration of Cano’s contract. You also weren’t moving Cano to first due to Alonso and/or Smith.
Yes, this is where many point out the Mets obtained a cost controlled closer in Edwin Diaz. That’s true. However, he came with a debilitating contract. He also came at the expense of Kelenic. Certainly, a prospect of Kelenic’s level is worth more than a closer both in terms of value in a trade and just in terms of a future impact on a team.
Brodie Van Wagenen would then worsen things. He would trade prospects in Adolph, Adam Hill, Scott Manea, Felix Valerio, and Santana with Bobby Wahl to add J.D. Davis and Keon Broxton (who didn’t last two months with the team). No matter your impression of those players, that’s a big chunk of prospect depth for two players who were really nothing more than bench players.
That’s not a good allocation of your assets, especially when your organization does not have the ability to absorb Cano’s contract in stride and spend their way around losing this prospect depth. Anyone taking over the Mets job knew this, Brodie Van Wagenen included.
However, despite that knowledge he went all-in on 2019. He did not maintain the payroll flexibility needed to address the loss of two rotation spots, a third baseman, and a center fielder in free agency. He traded away not just two top 100 prospects but also quality depth prospects thereby harming their ability to add at this year’s trade deadline (if everything worked out) or to build the 2020 team. Mostly, he lost Kelenic who was a franchise altering prospect, who aside from Darryl Strawberry, the organization has not seen.
Overall, not only did Van Wagenen fail to build the 2019 Mets into a contender, he hamstrung the team’s ability to build that contender in 2020 and beyond. The reason is the team does not have the payroll flexibility or the prospect depth truly needed to overcome the way the Wilpons choose to operate their team.
Consider for a moment if Van Wagenen did nothing, the Mets would have been a fourth place team much like they are now. However, if he did actually do nothing, the Mets would have had a deep farm system and real payroll flexibility to attack this upcoming offseason. That’s all gone now, and seeing what he did to this organization in less than a year on the job, it’s difficult to have any faith he can turn things around and get the franchise back on track.
How did the committee that brought in Swarzak mess it up?
It is high time Wilpon talks to the press and owns up, as COO to this Swarzak mess. He was in charge!
Or time to hire away Epstein or Friedman.
Below Wilpon:
Was it also Eiland or Callaway’s management of Eiland?
Sandy was long gone when Swarzak made a go of it off the DL.
Every other year?
Callaway was consulted on the Cano / Diaz bonanza?
Do relievers need time after certain injuries?
Swarzak’s FB command from section 16 looked way off to me.
Diaz has a wonderful slider and FB but with his locating now, when lower velocity arrives he with current location will be…?
This Swarzak fvckup is on the baseball predident and COO than anyone else …
Everything wrong with this team emanates from the Wilpons. That said, BVW has been worse than anyone could’ve imagined, and digging deeper than that just deflects blame away from where it belongs.
Wilpon could not pay off the stadium debt nor to wait until 2020 or 2022 when the settlement debt was finished so he dumped Sandy under the bus!
Sandy give a washed up closer three years and $30m?
Take on – above 93 mph I can not catch up – Cano until he was 40?
No, Sandy did none of those things.
I FIGURED OUT CANO’s DOUBLE PLAY PROBLEM:
His knees are shot.
Watch the videos, there sure are many….
He can not bend THEM when HE IS batting?
Hey, he got caught with roads at 34…
You can not rule out that Cano took steroids (legal in DR)
for 18 years or more?
The issue is Chili Davis. He emphasizes ground balls and the like.
Hmm, is that what they call situational hitting vs uppercutting it (launch angle)?
If you ask me, the Gomez, Rosario and Cano club are swing up at pitches that drop below their w swings.
Do you have any suggested links of the great Cano from the last 15 years, he sure looks lethargic to me…
Rosario really shows an effort to not swing at the down and away stuff.
Gomez, talks himself to take pitches when it is obvious he must take a strike, yet if we have to consciously think that, how can we laser focus on waiting for the pitch we want in a specific zone to drive?
Launch angle is not about upper cutting it per se. it’s about getting the ball into the air with an increased velocity to drive the ball somewhere. The goal isn’t just fly balls. It’s line drives too.
Not teaching that approach is not in tune with what actually succeeds.
Well said, MD, and I’d argue little of it is hindsight. I was making most of these points this offseason, and I was hardly alone in that. When the first big move was the ludicrous Cano deal, especially when relievers were available for a) nothing but cash, and b) less than what Cano will eventually cost the Mets in salary, it was easy to spot the extraordinary incompetence at work in the FO.
Impossible not to notice, too, that with all the team’s holes, Wags actually picked up Lowrie in case Alonso couldn’t cut it. With 8 significant holes on the team, Wags actually chose to spend 2/3 of Charlie Morton’s deal on Lowrie just in case a minor leaguer, Alonso, who had dominated all six levels of the minors he’d played in, somehow couldn’t put up 1.5 WAR or better.
Alonso’s closest minor league comp was Giancarlo Stanton, but instead of assuming he would be at least tolerable as a regular and spending limited resources on areas of real need, the Mets added a 3rd starting 2Bman so that they could shift Frazier or the pointless Cano to 1B in case Alonso faltered–even though there’s no precedent for a guy like him dominating six levels of the minors his first time through at an appropriate age for those levels, failing to be at least adequate in the majors for several years.
== This was all so predictable. It’s even worth noting the number of things going right for these Mets. Vargas having for him a monster year. The good health of the rotation, generally. Alonso having a monster year by any standard. Dom Smith breaking out. McNeil continuing from last season without missing a beat, and being far better on D than it was reasonable to expect. Conforto apparently all the way back. Todd Frazier being actually productive. Ramos surviving his ridiculous overuse–3rd most games played on the team, for a 31 yo catcher with a significant injury history. JD Davis turning into an adequate MLB hitter…
For ownership, this disaster is well-earned. It’s well-deserved. The Wilpons got the GM they wanted, who with their input built the team the three of them wanted.
Yes, the Wilpons got theirs…. and if it is a payback…. it will go on and one….holy cow what about the Mets Nation…. we deserved this?
They should have signed the great athletic infielder from Colorado…
But beyond the Cano mess…. is the Familia contract!
The Wilpons pay off the Madden debt in 2021 the last year of the Familia contract is also in 2021.
They got Diaz’s control years and gave those away all of that away ++ with Cano, Familia and little money to spend until 2022.
Kelenic will get his first MLB start next August, a twenty years old…..
The Mets are NOW fourth from the bottom in the NL with the lower Pirates expected to finish strong?
The Mets fans who defended the Cano trade deserved this.
Weird how there is zero mention of Cespedes in this article.
“The team also did not have an onerous long term deal which would stand in the way of really improving the team.”
Cespedes’ deal expires after next season, and they’re currently collecting insurance money.
In no way is that an onerous last term deal.
While I agree with almost everything you wrote, one cannot mention the Cano contract in isolation. It was taken on while also getting access to the best closer in the league (at the time) with multiple years of team control – an enormous value. Don’t forget, they shed $12m of Jay Bruce and $7m of some reliever.
So while I’m not saying it was a good idea, I put the implied value of Cano’s contract below $20m per year after deducting the payroll savings the Mets shed and figuring that it would have take $10-15m per year to sign an equivalent reliever out of free agency.
This overlooks trading Kelenic and Dunn in the deal, each of whom was too much value to give up to get Diaz.
I’d also note you don’t part with major assets for a fungible and volatile position like closer, especially one with significant bone spurs