Mets Apparently Drop Out Of The Running For Yoenis Cespedes
CBS- If Mets fans are still holding out hope they may yet find superstar outfielder Yoenis Cespedes under the tree, they can forget about it. The signing of Alejandro De Aza seemed to pretty well close the door on Cespedes, and sources say the Mets’ foray into the Cespedes market was brief. And now it is over. (It may have been over for a while.)
The Mets are still looking for a right-hitting outfielder, but it won’t be Cespedes, according to sources familiar with their thinking. They seek someone to complement the three lefty bats that will man left field, right field and first base (Michael Conforto, Curtis Grandersonand Lucas Duda), and it is believed they are looking at Steve Pearce and others in that category.
As for Cespedes, the Mets at some point this winter suggested a short term deal of perhaps “two or three” years for the star outfielder, according to sources, and word is they never even named a price. That’s probably just as well on the price since Cespedes would be expected to find a deal for at least five or six years on the market.
Obviously nothing is official, but it sounds like we may have seen the last of Yoenis Cespedes in a Mets uniform based on that Jon Heyman story. Yo’s finals moments as a Met were him wincing in pain after taking a foul ball to the knee with no outs and the bases load in the last game of the season and being unable to muscle a Kirk Gibson-esque home run. Yup, sounds like the perfect way for Mets fans to say goodbye to their one-time hero.
Now clearly this all comes back to the Wilpons. The Mets struck gold this summer after they fell into the Cespedes trade following the Gomez disaster. We watched Yo rake in a rejuvenated offense, saw the young pitchers blossom in the playoffs and realized that Cespedes probably was out of the Mets’ price range, which is still crazy to think of, considering they are a New York team.
But due either to his cooling off in October, his age, or a myriad of other factors, the market for Yo doesn’t seem to be as hot as we thought it would be. And instead of trying to lock him up at maybe a slight discount, it looks like the Wilpons again went the lowball route and angered the entire fanbase along the way. Now if you want to tell me that the front office never loved Cespedes and were almost forced to go with him after the Gomez debacle, I would say fine. But there are plenty of other right handed hitting outfielders in free agency better than Steve fucking Pearce. Pitching is the most unpredictable commodity in sports because of the high injury rate. The Mets should view their window of being World Series contenders as 3-5 years, as these pitchers enter their prime and are cheap. Go for it now and plan on getting your offensive minor league potential studs up in the future, when the franchise needs the young, cheap help to offset whatever pitchers sign long-term, massive contracts here. A $100 million payroll (likely around the 23rd-highest in MLB) for a New York baseball team in 206 is simply unacceptable.
But like I said when the trade happened, Yo was always the summer love that you knew would never last. I don’t think any of us saw him becoming basically the best summer fling of all-time, but he was. And we will clearly compare every other future deadline rental to him. Better to have love and lost than live with regret, right? Then again, we constantly live in regret because we have the cheap ass Wilpons as owners. At least JT’s wonderful pipes can remind us of better days. Take it away, Justin.