Mets Miss On Zobrist, Castro...What Now?
Listen Ben Zobrist is a fine baseball player. He’s more than that. Hes a very very valuable baseball player. He’s a WAR Machine. He just hit about 1 thousand doubles in the playoffs this year on his way to winning a World Series. He can play 1 thousand positions. He would have been a great fit at second base and backing up David Wright. All that being said, I’m not about to lose sleep over missing out on Ben Zobrist. If the Mets were going to have to go much higher than 4 years, 60 million to lure him away from Joe Maddon and Chicago, thats a move the Mets undoubtedly end up regretting. The first 2 years of that contract are probably enjoyable, the last 2 years end up being disastrous. He’s a very effective player but he’s not exactly an impact player. If the rest of the Mets lineup was set and formidable, Ben Zobrist is the type of guy that puts you over the top. Upgrade of defense, a professional hitter, savvy vet – thats a “missing piece” type of player. But with everyone departing the Mets or getting a year older, they still have enormous holes to fill and so Zobrist isnt make or break at the moment.
Plus as much as I want to give Zobrist the benefit of the doubt as a current World Series Champion and a guy whos led the league in wins above replacement multiple times, we all know exactly what would have happened had he signed with the Mets. He’d be Michael Cuddyer 2.0 and Jason Bay 3,0. A rock solid, at times stellar, veteran who just falls off a fucking cliff once coming to Queens. Its one of those situations where you see a great GM like Theo grab him and you’re like “Fuck, that means we should have done more to get him,” but theres like a 90% chance The Mets Effect takes hold and that signing blows up in their faces immediately.
So I’m not about to jump off a bridge because of missing out on Ben Zobrist, per se. But I am about to jump off a bridge because this signals no spending again for the Mets. As a big market, New York City franchise that just came off a World Series appearance, they should be able to sign Cespedes and Zobrist, upgrade the pen, and go right back out there and try to win a World Series again. Sure, Zobrist probably aint worth 70 million. Cespedes probably aint worth 150 million. But David Price probably isnt worth 231. Shark definitely isnt worth 90 million. But when teams are committed to winning and have a need to fill, they go for it. Overpay to land their man and go out there and try to win. 200 mil is the new 100 mil. Revenue numbers are constantly skyrocketing and that means so will salaries. The Wilpons either need to get with the fucking times or kill themselves. Sadly, we all know neither is happening. And its EXTRA sad knowing the Mets probably have a $1.5 billion dollar rotation for a total of about $2.5 mil and STILL wont open up the wallets and throw some cash around. Again I’m not saying those moves are quote unquote smart. But when you factor in your window of opportunity, the amount of money you’re saving given how cheap your pitching is, the market you play in, and the fact that you were just in the World Series, now is the time to be overly aggressive even if it means overpaying.
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But its pointless wasting your breath talking about these things. The Wilpons will never spend so whats plan B? Go out on the trade market and make some moves. Starlin Castro and all of the extra Cubs bats have been available for about 9 months now. We’ve known that. Starlin Castro, for all his ups and downs, is a young, All Star second baseman. And the Yankees sneak right in there and grab him for a swingman pitcher and a scrub. I dont know where the Mets were on that one, but I’m almost inclined to not blame them in this case. The trade market is bizarre for the Mets right now. They dont have those middle of the road type of guys. They have studs or duds and every time they open up trade talks you got people asking for fucking “Noah Syndergaard plus one other” or some absurd nonsense like that. Its bizarro world when you see what people were asking for and what they end up settling on. The Red Sox ask for deGrom or Wheeler for Cespedes, end up taking Porcello. The Blue Jays looking for Syndergaard and settle for Reyes and some prospects (albeit good ones). The Cubs initially wanted Noah for Stalin and end up settling for a reliever and a nobody. Its bananas. Cant even fault Sandy and Ricco right now. Nobody is a reasonable trade partner with them.
So whats next? Probably nothing. Probably go crawling back to Daniel Murphy and just deal with him sucking, but now at a cost of about 50 million dollars. Goodbye Cespedes, goodbye Dark Sexy, goodbye Bartolo, hello to absolutely nobody of impact. Awesome.
PS – I dont want to sound overly pessimistic about a team that was literally just in the World Series like 6 weeks ago. I know this team is going to be a contender with that pitching no matter what else happens. But there’s something flat out revolting and sickening about ownership wasting this window of Mets pitching. So far its only been a portion of one off season, and I’m not trying to overreact, but I think we all know where this is headed and can envision the sort of team they are gonna be trotting out there on April 1. Every year that goes by where the Mets dont push their chips in the middle with this rotation is a year of wasting a potential World Series title, and that may be worse than just being plain old bad. Sandy pulled a rabbit out of his ass in 2015, maybe he (or whoever is operating in his place) can do it again. But we shouldnt have to even be worried about this. It should be a given, and its not.