Trade Worsens: Cano Somehow Worse Than Bruce & Swarzak
When looking at the trade where the Mets acquired Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz, there are already a number of developments to show why this trade was horrible for the Mets.
The most obvious is the respective performances of Jarred Kelenic and Justin Dunn with both of them shooting up the prospect rankings. That goes double for Kelenic.
There’s also the performance of Cano. By the looks of it, the Mets may not even get one good year from the 36 year old second baseman coming off a PED suspension. Remember, this is just year one of a five year $100 million commitment.
As bad and/or injured as Cano has been, no one could have reasonably predicted he wouldn’t be as good as Jay Bruce has been this year. For that matter, he hasn’t even been as good as Anthony Swarzak. To make it all the worse, the Mariners traded Swarzak to the Braves and Bruce to the Phillies.
Essentially, the end result of the trade is Bruce, Swarzak, and Cano have been working to keep the Mets out of the postseason. That’s well beyond what most assumed would be the reasonably pondered worst case scenario for this trade.
And again, this is just year one of Cano. Mets fans should shudder to see year five . . . and that’s when Dunn and Kelenic should reasonably be contributing at the MLB level.
Not good. Not good at all.
While there is a lot to agree with in this post, one has to remember that the Mets got the guy who many considered to be the top closer in the game. At the end of the 2018 season, Diaz was certainly in the top 3 in everyone’s book. He hasn’t been as good as last season or his billing, but he’s been pretty darn good. Does that mitigate the rest of the deal? Me thinks not. Getting Diaz and Cano and dumping the salaries of Bruce and Swarzak in no way compensates for the loss of Kelenic and Dunn. The Mariners made the smart play all the way around, especially dumping the Cano contract and then trading off Bruce and Swarzak for more young talent. If both Kelenic and Dunn make it to The Show, the Mariners made out like bandits and the Mets got hosed. On another note… there is something very unsettling about the fact that Cano, Lowry, Frazier, Cespedes, DeGrom, and Syndergaard are all former clients of BVW or his former agency.
Diaz in exchange for Kelenic and Dunn on its own is a horrid deal. Saddling him with Cano makes it worse.
No way.
Any GM who would be close to a flag would ANY DAY do that deal!!!!!!!!!
Speak to Dombroski or Epstein.
Yet, because the Mets were assumed to be stuck w Bruce and Swarzak, historically dreadful in dumping contracts that few teams would ever assume in the start — they put themselves in a dreadful place if having to take on Cano.
The $20 in Cano salary relief, add $24 for Bruce and $7 for Swarzak is actually $51m.
So conceivably in theory Cano is $120-$51 or $69/5 years.
Seattle not only had a superior and/or patient GM and thus quickly traded off the “assets” the Mets could not peddle or peddle in the NL East.
The Mets were not a closer away, and no team is trading two top 100 picks while taking back a five year $100 million commitment to a 36 year old 2B coming off a PED suspension b