Jay Bruce Traded To The Indians For A Low-Level Prospect In What Seems Like A Salary Dump
ESPN- The Cleveland Indians acquired veteran outfielder Jay Bruce from the New York Mets in a trade Wednesday night. The Indians have agreed to pick up the roughly $4.2 million that’s left of Bruce’s $13 million salary this season, a source confirmed. Minor league pitcher Ryder Ryan is headed to New York in the trade. Ryan, 22, was a 30th-round pick by Cleveland out of the University of North Carolina in the 2016 MLB first-year player draft. He’s 3-4 with a 4.79 ERA for Lake County in the Class A Midwest League this season. He has recorded six saves while appearing in 33 games — all in relief.
I missed this trade last night since I am a washed up loser and was asleep by 10 pm. When I woke up and saw the iPhone notifications that Jay Bruce was traded, I wasn’t surprised. I know him, Grandy, and other Mets passed through waivers and can be traded at any moment. But I was hoping that the Mets at least got some sort of prospect in return. And I guess the fact that Ryder Ryan is 22 years old qualifies him as a prospect on age alone. From the blogging side of thing, I love that we already have a shirt ready for him if he becomes a stud.
However, having an ERA near 4 and 5 his first two seasons is kind of a red flag. I’m definitely more of a basic stats guy as compared to an advanced stats guy because of the brain power I am able to produce. I was wondering why the Mets would trade a legit Major League bat for such a raw prospect when their window of having these starting pitchers under contract for cheap would be the case. So I did some digging on Twitter and found this.
Definitely follow Marc if you don’t already. He’s my go-to Mets reporter on Twitter
Young, Not A Washed Piece Of Shit Clem wouldn’t have minded this part of the deal too much because missing out on a few prospects would be worth keeping Jay Bruce, who can become Babe Ruth during his hot streaks, from the hated Yankees. But as an older, maybe wiser man, I realize it’s not the Yankees that I hate. Well I never really hated the Yankees. I hate 95% of their dickhead fans. Anyway, it’s the Mets that have caused me all this heartache for 3+ decades of my life. I shouldn’t blame Chipper Jones or Yadi Molina or that fuccboi Conor Gillaspie for trying to win. I should blame the Mets for ripping my guts out while falling short. Or the Wilpons for being cheap ass fucks that haven’t seem to be truly invested in the team since Bernie Madoff played them off as absolute suckers and basically walked out of Shea Stadium with bags of money. I don’t care how many free Shake Shack burgers my coworker Dave gets from Jeff Wilpon. Or how many cups of soda Boy Toy Borelli throws back in a suite. The Wilpons are the problem here just like James Dolan is for the Knicks. Moves like this only hammer the point home. It’s the reason the Mets have about one season where they can win the World Series and then enter back into a decade of misery while the Yankees are able to compete in a rebuilding year. Again, I hope Ryder Ryan is good for a multitude of reasons (the shirts are definitely in the Top 3). But damn, not pulling the trigger for the best deal because of money is a tough pill to swallow for fans of a New York team. Unless Bruce refused to lift his no-trade to the Yankees. The point still remains about the Wilpons but just not in this instance.
As for Bruce, it’s crazy to think that Mets fans are actually going to miss him after he batted a robust .183 his first month in Flushing. But Jay Bruce ended up being who we thought he was, so we let him off the hook. Bruce got crazy hot, crazy cold and always got his numbers in the end while also being a guy that sounded like he was getting booed but the fans were really just screaming his name. There’s always room for a guy like that on my teams.