Being Thankful The Yankees Are Not The Mets
I woke up today to read that the Mets are actually considering trading for Robinson Cano. My first reaction was to check my calendar to make sure that it was not April Fools Day.
The Mets would be trading for the last 5 years of Cano’s contract at $24 million per year and would be getting his age 36-40 seasons. They would also receive Edwin Diaz, who is certainly one of the game’s top closers. The kicker is that the Mets are actually considering giving the Mariners some top prospects.
This is a stunningly bad decision on so many levels it’s hard to believe it’s actually true.
Cano, while he performed far better than I expected in his age 35 season, will eventually go into serious decline. His $24 million will be an absolute lodestone.
Baseball players tend to get hurt at an increasing frequency as they age.
The Mets play in the NL and have no DH. So if Cano can still hit in 3 years and can’t field, there is nowhere for him to play.
Having a great reliever is fantastic but it doesn’t help much if the rest of your team is mediocre and he can’t close out games for you.
If the Mets really want a closer, there are several very good ones that are presently free agents and do not come paired with Cano’s $120 million remaining deal.
The Mets need to be adding prospects, not trading them away.
In any case, this just made me grateful that the Yankees have Cashman as GM and Hal Steinbrenner as principal owner. It seems that the days of ridiculous moves that cripple the franchise are in the past.
