Like most people, I like to play the projection game going into a season. I’m curious what other people think about the Mets. A vast majority of us are really using gut instinct and intuition to make these judgments. A site like Fangraphs uses hard data to arrive at their projections.

While much attention has been made about the projected standings, not at lot of attention has been paid to the different drivers to that calculation. Specifically, I’m referring to the Mets decision to trade Jon Niese for Neil Walker. At least according to Fangraphs, the way too early returns on this trade are not good for the Mets. It’s not the whole reason, but it’s at least part of the reason they are projected to finish behind the Nationals. 

Let’s start at the switch from Murphy to Walker. Last year, Murphy hit .281/.322/.449. In his career, he’s a .288/.331/.424 hitter. He’s played most of his career with Citi Field as his home park.  Last year, he worked with Kevin Long and saw some increased power. His replacement, Walker, is projected to hit .258/.329/.427. Essentially, Fangraphs sees Walker as a downgrade from what the Mets previously had offensively at second base. They see Walker as a downgrade from a player who really wanted to return to the Mets. 

As we know, the side effect of the Walker trade was Murphy signing with the Nationals. Now that he’s away from Citi Field, he’s projected to hit .308/.351/.440. Effectively, Murphy is taking the place of Ian Desmond because Danny Espinosa is moving from second to short. Desmond hit .233/.290/.384. By the Mets not re-signing Murphy, it allowed the Nationals to do so, and as a result, their 2016 team projects to be a lot better than the 2015 version. 

Sure, you could argue Murphy’s projected 2.3 WAR isn’t significantly better than Walker’s 2.2 WAR. This does neglect the fact that the Mets could’ve had Murphy for nothing. They had to give up Jon Niese for him. Niese has a reasonable, team friendly contract with team options for $10 and $11 million respectively in 2017 and 2018.  Niese was a big trade chip. They used it on Walker, who isn’t even an upgrade. 

Don’t believe me?  Consider this.  For his career, Niese has a 3.91 ERA, 3.84 FIP, and a 7.0 K/9. Wei-Yin Chen has a career 3.72 ERA, 4.14 FIP, and a 7.0 K/9. Both are left-handed. Both put up similar stats. Niese is 29, and Chen is 30. Chen just received a five year $80 million deal. Niese makes $9 million this year. If he gets injured, a team can walk away. If Niese is good, a team has him on a two year $20 million deal. Niese’s production and his contract carry a lot of value. 

The Mets used Niese and didn’t even upgrade at second. They treaded water. Their old second baseman has gone to the Mets main competition in the NL East and has made them markedly better. To make matters worse, the Mets don’t have Niese to use as a trade chip for a big bat this year. Instead, they have the 42 year old Bartolo Colon, who has next to no trade value next year. This leaves the Mets hoping everyone outplays their predicted production. 

As a result, the very early returns suggest the Mets made a bad trade and will regret losing Daniel Murphy. 

Editor’s Note: this article also ran on metsmerizedonline.com