On Wednesday night, word got out that the Brewers traded Carlos Gomez to the Mets for injured pitcher Zack Wheeler and infielder Wilmer Flores. News spread so far and so quickly that it apparently reached Flores himself before it did Mets manager Terry Collins, and Flores choked up in tears on the field while playing what he thought were his final innings in the organization. But the trade never actually happened.
Reports have offered various explanations for the breakdown, including that the Brewers backed out over Wheeler’s medicals, that the Mets backed out over Gomez’s medicals, and that the Mets balked at paying all the money remaining on Gomez’s thoroughly reasonable contract. Whatever happened, the situation was so obviously bungled somewhere that the league will reportedly hold a meeting with executives from both teams to determine what went wrong.
But the Mets bounced back from that from that debacle minutes before Friday’s non-waiver trade deadline, adding outfielder Yoenis Cespedes from the Tigers for a pair of minor league pitchers. Pending medicals, of course.
The acquisition of Cespedes, in addition to smaller deals the Mets made in advance of the deadline, makes the club appear far more fit to stay in contention than it did a couple weeks ago. In Cespedes, Kelly Johnson, and Juan Uribe, the Mets essentially double the number of credible Major League hitters on their roster. Plus, catcher Travis d’Arnaud is back from an injury, helping the Mets lineup look decent even if David Wright can’t return from back issues and maybe even good if he does.
The move likely spells doom for recent call-up Michael Conforto’s playing time. And it does not address the Mets’ immediate need in center as defensive wiz Juan Lagares’ struggles on both sides of the ball while playing through an elbow injury.
But it decidedly makes them better: Cespedes’ .829 OPS will be the best among all his teammates with significant playing time in 2015. The Mets’ starting pitching is good enough that they don’t need the best offense in the world to compete this year, but teams do need to score some runs to win games. So that’s a big plus.
Zack Wheeler (PHOTO: Julio Cortez/AP Photo)
On top of that, the Mets now hang on to Wheeler, maintaining some of their depth in young Major League starting pitching. Wheeler likely won’t pitch until sometime next summer as he recovers from Tommy John surgery, and he’ll likely face limited innings in 2017. But the Mets will probably want those innings: Assuming all the other starters will remain healthy and effective seems borderline insane, as pitchers, sadly, get hurt all the time.
And Flores — now instantly a fan favorite in Flushing for how much he apparently likes being part of the Mets — isn’t exactly a throwaway player, either. At 23 and with a history of good minor league numbers, Flores could still easily contribute to future Mets teams even if has disappointed to date in 2015.
So the Mets cross the trade deadline with a big bat they desperately needed, a couple new complementary players that mark huge upgrades over the ones they had, and a strong newly added bullpen arm in Tyler Clippard. And they did it all at the cost of five young pitchers, none of whom ranked among their top prospects entering the season.
They look a heck of a lot more likely to reach the postseason in 2015 now than they did on Thursday, if not quite as much as they did for a little while on Wednesday night.
