The Metropolitan: Mets land a superstar
Everything you need to know about the Francisco Lindor trade
Good Morning,
After the biggest trade since Mike Piazza arrived in Flushing (and I will write why I rank that trade next to this one in another newsletter), we are going to structure today’s email a little differently. This one is all about The Trade.
Walk me through the important details of the trade…
☀️ No, you weren’t dreaming. It’s a new day and it’s still real: the Mets acquired superstar shortstop Francisco Lindor and veteran starter Carlos Carrasco from the Cleveland Indians in exchange for middle infielders Andrés Giménez and Amed Rosario, along with two prospects in RHP Josh Wolf and outfielder Isaiah Greene.
Isn’t Lindor a free agent after this season?
Yes, why do you think the Mets were able to pull off this trade? The recently-turned 27-year-old will be a free agent next offseason. Sandy Alderson told reporters after the deal, “There’s every reason to talk about some sort of long-term relationship.” He said they would address a possible contract extension with Lindor and his agent beginning in the next couple of weeks.
Wait, I like Andrés Giménez, and they gave up Amed Rosario, too, plus some prospects?
🏷 I’ve seen people sleep in tents to save 50% off a big box item at Best Buy on Black Friday. The Mets gave up some things to acquire one of the best players in baseball and a solid starter. For all of the attention on Steve Cohen’s money, that helps the Mets in keeping Lindor long-term, but the price to acquire him was not significant. Brodie gave up more to pay Robinson Cano to fail a drug test. The two prospects going the other way who ranked 9th (Josh Wolf) and 10th (Isaiah Greene) among Mets futures now rank 12th and 16th in a deeper Cleveland system.
Will the Mets still spend on free agents this offseason?
💰 Yes. And no. Depending on which estimates you use for arbitration and minor league split contracts, the Mets can spend roughly $25 million before reaching the initial luxury tax threshold, which could be closer to $22 million depending on how Lindor’s 2020 performance impacts his arbitration amount. That would seem to take them out of contention for Trevor Bauer or George Springer, unless they move salary in another deal. (Remember, Cohen has said he doesn’t want to spend like a drunken sailor this offseason.)
Alderson on the luxury tax: “It’s a significant demarcation. I wouldn’t say it’s a line that cannot be passed. But it’s definitely a significant consideration when you get to that level. So we’ll see where we are when we start the season.”
🍎 Shortly after the trade was announced, Bob Nightengale reported, “the Mets still are also engaged with free-agent center fielder George Springer and free-agent closer Liam Hendriks, and have had recent trade talks with the Chicago Cubs for third baseman/outfielder Kris Bryant.” Jon Heyman also reports the Mets are still in on Springer.
🗣 While the Mets might still be monitoring Springer, he could quickly become too expensive. Andy Martino reports the Connecticut native is seeking somewhere around $175 million, with the Mets willing to offer a 5-year deal closer to $150 million. The Blue Jays have already made an “opening offer” for around $115 million, per SNY.
Breathing Room: Martino noted on Twitter the Mets would like to begin the season $5-$10 million under the tax to add players in-season.
Who is going to be the back-up shortstop?
When asked about his middle infield depth by reporters yesterday, Sandy Alderson said, “I would remind you we still have a guy named Luis Guillorme who has tremendous versatility.”
What about Carlos Carrasco?
We kept waiting to see if the Mets would sign one of the middle-market starters in free agency, if not Trevor Bauer. With this trade, they have found their rotation depth in Carlos Carrasco. He becomes both a salary dump for Cleveland (thus depressing the trade value for Lindor) as well as a key addition, which is a win-win for the Mets.
Any other news from yesterday?
🗣 The Mets have also been in contact with free agent outfielder Jackie Bradley Jr., per Michael Mayer of MetsMerized Online. A possible cheaper alternative to Springer with Lindor already secured.
🗣 Mayer also reports the Mets have talked to the Mariners about third baseman Kyle Seager, who is owed $18 million this season and has a club option that becomes a player option for at least $15 million in 2022 if he’s traded (with performance incentives to grow $5-$20 million higher).
Mets land a superstar
🧓 by Jeffrey Bellone
When the Los Angeles Dodgers acquired superstar Mookie Betts last offseason, they announced to the rest of the league that they were tired of first place finishes that didn’t end with champagne and diamond covered rings. The best team added one of the best players. Team president Andrew Friedman knew if he got Betts into sunny California, he wouldn’t let him leave unless it was for a road trip or a vacation in the winter. The result, unlike most things in baseball, followed a predictable path with LA locking up Betts to a long-term deal and winning their first World Series championship since 1988 (screw you, Mike Scioscia!)
Fast forward one year and the New York Mets have acquired superstar Francisco Lindor in a similar trade and contract situation as the Betts deal. Unlike the Dodgers, the Amazins haven’t sniffed the playoffs since 2016, their fan base is used to being stepped over by the mighty Yankees on their way to signing another high-priced free agent, and before Thursday, the team was more than one player away from competing for a championship.
But new owner Steve Cohen, who finished second in bidding for the Dodgers ten years ago, didn’t purchase the Mets to finish runner-up again. By trading two intriguing but replaceable major league players, along with two non-elite prospects, the Mets added a superstar and a starting pitcher, who both, at the very least, help turn the Mets into a contender in the National League East next season.
And once you get into the playoffs, with the baseball firmly gripped in Jacob deGrom’s right hand for a greater percentage of the team’s innings, anything can happen.
Luckily, the game is played on the field instead of the bottom of a spreadsheet — but that cold reality has actually been unfortunate for the Mets, who have been highly regarded in recent seasons among prognosticators, but unable to translate their projected talent into actual wins. That said, adding one of the game’s best everyday players and a strong, veteran starter catapults their projected winning percentage to third in all of baseball according to FanGraphs’ latest projections for 2021.
And Steve Cohen’s front office isn’t even done yet.
The market for Lindor
General Managers in baseball are no different from the investment bankers Cohen is used to lapping with his prodigious hedge fund. They are market makers. Francisco Lindor is one of the best players in all of baseball: he is a 4-time All-Star and one of the best defensive players at the most difficult position to field.
Since 2015, only two players have produced more WAR than the Mets’ new shortstop: Mike Trout and Mookie Betts.
However, as noted earlier, Lindor is due to become a free agent in 2021, when the owners of the league might blow up the sport in a collective bargaining dispute, crying poor while sipping whiskey in wood-paneled rooms with decorations that are worth more than they’re willing to spend on a starting shortstop. The number of teams able to sign Francisco Lindor next winter is extremely small. That made the trade market challenging for Cleveland.
You could argue the Mets shouldn’t have given up anything of real value. But when you consider what they are receiving (with Carlos Carrasco as a pretty big cherry on top), it’s hard to squabble about the players going the other way. And frankly, they didn’t give up a lot of value relative to the return.
This isn’t the NBA. I’m a Knicks fan; I have spent my entire adult life waiting for them to attract a franchise-changing player to Madison Square Garden. The movements of a select few basketball stars can shift the entire competitive landscape of the sport. In baseball, by contrast, we have seen Alex Rodriguez finish in last place while putting up steroid-induced numbers (couldn’t help myself) and Mike Trout has only reached the playoffs once - six years ago - despite being overwhelmingly the best player to swing a bat and squeeze a glove in the modern era.
But adding a baseball player projected to produce 6.4 wins to replace player(s) who were expected to add 1-2 wins is a big deal. We don’t know if MLB will expand the postseason again next season, but even under the rules from 2019, if the Mets roster was talented enough to win 85 games without Lindor, his sensational play could make the difference in putting them into the playoffs. There are plenty of scenarios where they can be much better than that, too.
What did the Mets give up?
Send your best arguments about the futures of Andrés Giménez and Amed Rosario to a local bar owner in Cleveland for when COVID restrictions are lifted. They can debate whether either player will turn into anything better than an average middle infielder. When Rosario had his best season in the majors, he hit for league average (100 wRC+) and 14 shortstops produced more WAR that year.
Giménez became a fun story in an otherwise forgettable 2020. Given the unique circumstances created by the pandemic, the 22-year-old skipped his Triple-A progression to play in the majors, and he ended up slashing .263/.333/.398 while adding much-needed speed and defense to the lineup. He might turn into a pretty good shortstop. It’s not impossible, but far from inevitable that he makes an All-Star team (like Lindor has, four times already).
How strong your feelings are about Giménez probably dictates your opinion on Rosario, who at one point represented the future of the Mets during some dark years. After an underwhelming start to his career in the majors, he showed promise in 2019. It’s a small sample size and everything was just weird in 2020, so maybe we should ignore this next point, but as good as Giménez looked last season, Rosario looked the opposite. The Mets are selling low.
New York also gave up two recently-drafted prospects from the Brodie era. The Mets paid $800,000 over slot to select right-hander Josh Wolf in the second round of the 2019 draft. While the pandemic kept him off a minor league mound this past season, the Houston native worked with a private instructor on his velocity which scouts indicate “cost him control and feel for his secondary pitches,” according to Baseball America.
Isaiah Greene is a 19-year-old outfielder who was selected last summer with the compensation pick the Mets received from losing Zack Wheeler to the Phillies. Former MLB executive Jim Bowden says Greene is the “sleeper” in this deal. But he has a wide range of possible outcomes from turning into a speedy outfielder with plus power, to struggling to make it long-term in the major leagues.
As Sandy Alderson reminded reporters in the press conference following the trade, if the Mets were to improve their roster by signing two big free agents, they would consequently forfeit two draft picks. So if Lindor effectively replaces the Springer plan, and the Mets use their leftover money elsewhere, you can sort of net out one of the prospects lost in this trade (relative to the compensatory pick it would cost them to sign a star player).
Don’t forget Carlos Carrasco
There will be plenty of time to write in more detail about Carlos Carrasco, but I will give you a little idea here. After winning 35 games with a 3.33 ERA and impressive 23.8 K-BB percentage between 2017-2018, he struggled in 2019 when he was diagnosed with leukemia. After recovering to full health, he looked his normal self during the pandemic-shortened season.
Perhaps the best way to think about Carrasco is in relation to free agent Jake Odorizzi. We will see how the market evolves, but Odorizzi is expecting to sign a three-year deal in the $36-42 million range, according to a recent report by Ken Rosenthal. While the former Twin is three years younger than the newest Met (almost to the day), he isn’t as good. Steamer projects Carrasco to produce nearly double the value (3.3 wins) of Odorizzi (1.8 wins) next season.
Carrasco is set to earn up to $38 million over the next three years (strikingly similar to Odorizzi’s asking price), but he has a club option in 2023 which is only guaranteed if he pitches 170 innings in 2022 and is expected to be healthy entering the 2023 season, per Baseball Prospectus. The Mets could easily get higher value from Carrasco than Odorizzi — who might have been their likeliest free agent target had they not made this trade — while possibly paying less, and with a club option in the third year to protect against his advanced age.
The bottom line
Believe the hype. This is a Mets trade for the ages. They acquired one of the best position players in the game — a 27-year-old star who will improve the team’s run production, speed and defense, while hitting from both sides of the plate — and a legitimate #2 or 3 starting pitcher. And the price was one promising major leaguer, another with no clear role on the team, and two young minor leaguers outside their top echelon of prospects. Welcome to New York, Francisco Lindor and Carlos Carrasco. And you, too, Jared Porter.
⚾️ In baseball’s latest scandal, fired Angels clubhouse attendant claims Gerrit Cole, among others, asked him for illegal substances: “Hey Bubba, it’s Gerrit Cole,” the star pitcher allegedly texted him. “I was wondering if you could help me out with this sticky situation [winky face emoji]”
⚾️ Making the Mets’ pickup of Carrasco look even more savvy, Japanese free-agent starting pitcher Tomoyuki Sugano failed to sign with an MLB club by his posting deadline and instead agreed to a four-year, $40 million deal to return to the Yomiuri Giants, with three opt-outs, per The Athletic.
⚾️ The Astros are signing right-hander Ryne Stanek to a one-year deal worth $1.1 million, per Mark Feinsand and Joel Sherman.
⚾️ Yankees signed free-agent pitcher Jhoulys Chacín to a minor league deal.
⚾️ The Dodgers’ interest in free agent reliever Liam Hendriks “has recently dissipated” according to the Los Angeles Times. In the same report, Los Angeles has “significant interest” in right-hander Kirby Yates.
🔗 Francisco Lindor trade shows the new Mets can be a big-market bully, by Ken Rosenthal, The Athletic: “Yes, this is what Mets fans wanted to see, their team acting like a big-market bully. Whether all this translates to success, even short-term, is an open question. But at least the Mets finally are operating in accordance with their market size, and at least they’re barging forward at a time when other teams, including the Yankees, are limiting their spending after playing without fans in 2020.”
🔗 ESPN Insiders Grade the Trade: “It's an A. They got Francisco Freakin' Lindor! He's the perfect face for the Mets' sudden emergence, the ideal personality for a market like New York, and a star who could make every bit as much of an impact as the one Mookie Betts made for the Los Angeles Dodgers.”
🔗 Get to Know Carlos Carrasco from a 2017 article he wrote for the Player’s Tribune about his baseball journey to America: “I didn’t know any English, so I couldn’t really speak to anyone. I didn’t even talk to my mom until a week after I arrived because I didn’t know how to get a calling card — or how to ask anybody for help getting one. When I finally figured it out, I called her right away and told her everything — about all the new cars I had seen on the roads, about my teammates, about my pitching. I told her how much I missed home, but how happy I was to be in the States … to be playing baseball. To be living out my dream in America.”
🔗 The Athletic ranks Gil Hodges 13th in their countdown of the 100 greatest eligible players not in the Hall-of-Fame.
Thanks for reading! Enjoy your weekend. Talk to you on Monday!
And please check out our newsletter about the Knicks, too.
Great writing and analogies !