Ultimately would a team in need of Carlos services be willing to fork ocer a player on the 25? of course not. The only type of team that would give you anything for Carlos is one that’s in a pennant race. Their adding to their roster, not subtracting, especially pitching.

It will first and foremost come down to a team that needs what Carlos offers and then whether there is another team with the same need. That and Carlos health and how much cash we kick in is what will determine what his value is.

AA or AAA prospect(s) good chance. Major league ready prospect? No chance.

Beltran can get you more than just a quality Prospect.
He could get you a ML ready Pitcher or a Solid 2B with bat just as easily and might net you another prospect in addition.

It’s dumb to trade a perfectly good and fruitful tomato plant for 3 seeds that may or may not spout or one you think might be better but still do not know it will sprout either.

Beltran can help us fill a ML hole such as the one at 2B or in the starting rotation that allows you to then turn someone like Young or Capuano into something as well!

Maybe even Pelfrey!

But if all we are going to do is collect minor leaguers all you really doing is making Buffalo Better not the Mets.
Unless your very lucky and the odds and past performance of such deals shows that it’s really a suckers bet!

In this case the quantity IS somewhat known.
Just as we weight and judge players based on numbers and percentages it is also wise to look at the percentages of deals and common transactions.

We would not trade a .300 hitter with a .350 OBP for a player with a .400 OBP but a .200 BA. Why? Because the percentages don’t really work out most of the time the guy with the higher BA will not only do more but bring more value.

Yet when we go to make deals for top players for multiple prospects the percentages say it is almost ALWAYS a bad move! Never works out for the guy who gets Quantity except that now he has more money to go buy some other big name player. And that may make some sense here in regards to Beltran who we are unlikely to resign no matter how good he does this year.

But Reyes is a much different picture. Wright as well.

In the end it really is a numbers game. Yes you can turn one roster spot into 3 or 4 potential players but they are unknown quantities and even if ALL become players you still have to find the room to use them. Many fail because there is no room or reason to promote them. Other just plain don’t pan out.

I believe if we want to restock the Minors then the best way to do that is via the trade sweeteners that get thrown into the deal not the focus of the deal itself.

I would rather see us get a good pitcher who could start in trade for Beltran than 3 Minor kids who may not help us at all or if they do won’t show until 2 or 3 years from now. By then we could even have a new GM who doesn’t like those guys making them even more worthless!

The whole purpose of making a trade is to get BETTER than you gave. And the best multiplayer deals are always the ones who get you two adequate ML talents with one prospect thrown in to fill out the value.

Those are the trades we should be looking to make. The ML players can be moved to someone else for a KEY prospect as well.

The reason for my Caveat Emptor was because I have noticed that many of the people here are all about the instant gratification and the “What have you done for me Lately”

These same people are ready for a house clearing but they are notprepared to wait the 3 or 4 years it will take for those deals to pay off.

And unless you find a team who is under the illusion of “WIN NOW” your not really going to get any value in quantity they will simply sell you the prospects they believe are failed and not the guy they expect to get promoted soon and contribute on a timely basis.

And like the tagline for the movies wargames goes.
Sometimes the only winning move is not to play!

Beltran is pretty much a can’t lose proposition here. But instead of trying to re-stock the draft off him (which I don’t think he can do) I would rather see us use him to fill other ML positions such as SP or 2B with one or two Minor Leaguers we can develop.

Then the pay off is more timely, the risk is less, we saved money to buy some OTHER Beltran if we want and we filled a Major League hole in the proccess.

Thats better than getting three kids who the percentages say will never give us what Beltran could have!

The two picks we would get if Jose leaves will almost certainly be better than the prospects but there’s a fly in the soup here. Those picks will command a signing bonus of anywhere from 4-6 Million. The prospect(s) traded will have already have had their signing bonus paid and the impatient Wilpon will angle for lesser quality for lesser money paid out and the potential to do less up here but be able to it sooner rather than wait 4-5 years. The Wilpon must not be allowed to get away with what he did with Wagner. Selling those two high draft choices for window dressing.

Now top shelf talent like Zach Wheeler from SF or Mike Trout LAA, that’s a different story but a AAA designated hitter? That would put us back into the ice age of the De Roullet years for a very long time to come.

This is a real problem. Having lesser talent on this team is the reason we have gone home October 1st 17 times in 20 years. Omar has already pumped the farm system with depth, what we need now is true top shelf quality and the only real chance to acquire 4, 5, 6 guys with it all at the same time is by selecting the absolute cream of the crop in the next couple of drafts with whatever picks we can get our hands on.

If K-Rod’s option doesn’t vest we could offer him arb and let him go. He won’t take it and risk injury and the loss of a 3 or 4 year deal that would pay him 3 or 4 times as much. That’s two more top shelf amateurs anywhere from #16-60. Wright the following year, two more 16-60.

Between Reyes, K-Rod, Wright, Feliciano, any other guys we could acquire on the cheap who become type B free agents like Young, Capuano, Paulino or anyone else we pick up and our own #1 and #2 picks we could easily have 15-25 picks in the first two rounds of the next 3 drafts. If we leverage those picks with going over slot to get top 10 talent in the supplemental round we could walk out of there with a rotation like the Giants and 4 good starting position players and 4 good arms in the pen. Add that to what Omar left us and we could have 4 more starting position players and a credible bench from there. All of it in it’s prime, well schooled, developed and GROOMED by us for us and already playing with each other for 2-4 years in the minors.

That’s the best case scenario but it wouldn’t all come together. It would be a gradual ascension from about mid 2012 with Omar’s guys and late 2014-2018 with the draft of the next 3 years and more of Omar’s guys but if kept going would provide us with 1 or 2 top shelf prospects every year and prevent all these crash and burn cycles.

The question is would you like to watch s**** baseball for 4 years until this starts paying dividends and then leads into a competative team capable of winning the World Series every single year for a solid decade or would you prefer to just keep patching it up and watch s**** baseball for the rest of your life?

It is easy to say Trade a (lets say for arguments sake) Reyes for a few prospects. But history will show that at best only ONE of the players you get in return will ever actually be a decent major leaguer and Rarely will they ever give you as much as you gave away even when they are all combined.

The player for prospects transaction is almost always about the money not the players. It is in essence trading a winning jackpot lottery ticket into multiple tickets hat could all be losers and even if a few are winners they would not pay you off as much as the original player traded away to get them.

The only ones who seem to win in those deals are the team that gave away the prospects. We gave away Preston Wilson, Ed Yarnall and Geof Goetz for Mike Piazza. Would the Marlins have made that deal today if Money was not the issue? Did the players they got flood and fill their minor leagues with talent? Hardly!

Most of these player for prospect deals involve guys in their walk year who are due a big payday the team is not willing to pay. This makes Reyes and Beltran the two most likely trade baits on the roster. Some feel well trade them for something before they go to FA as they can get 3 players instead of the one or two compensatory picks they will get if they sign somewhere else.

3 sounds like more than two but there is a significant difference.
With the three you don’t really get to choose the three but with the compensatory you have a much wider choice from untested and unFAILED talent to pick from.

Now Beltran can not net you this compensation. Reyes can. So it stands to reason that Beltran is the most likely to be traded for prospects since he will be FA and he can not be offered arbitration.
But what exactly would you get for him? Probably not much in the way of prospects considering all the other side is really getting is a half a season and first crack at signing him to a big money risky contract.

Does it make sense to trade him for prospects as good as the Marlins got? HELL NO! but it might be acceptable to trade him with some deal kicked minor leaguers to get a top of the rotation (#2 – 4) pitcher who could replace, free up and or take over for a Young who is a risk to not finish his contract or a Pelfrey who seems unable to take that next step in his career or even to replace Dickey who so far has not been as miraculous as last year and is the oldest of the bunch.

Trading Reyes might seem to be the deal that could net us the most prospects in return but he is very likely to get us those two compensatory picks where the quality and pickings is much more and we can be selective as opposed to letting some other team decide who they want to let go.

You at least have a shot at getting the next Reyes in the draft but if you trade him for prospects it is highly unlikely you will hit on one of those potential lottery tickets, teams simply would not trade them if they were.

A trade is inevitable here. Who it will be can be guessed at but the question is if one goes why not all of them?
If you believe trading a player for prospects works then you should support a firesale.
I personally don’t see it as a good bet as it never has been before. The team who gives up the prospects 9 times out of 10 is the winner even if they only get a year out of the player they still get more than the three prospects combined would have.

The trade deadline will be the pivitol point in the direction of this franchise.
I believe Sandy came in with an idea of what he neeeds to do but he is using the early part of the season to determine and evaluate if that thinking is correct.

He came in and pretty much threw the gauntlet down to guys like Reyes, Wright and Beltran and you have to say they have pretty much responded well to that throw down for the most part.
It makes Sandy’s decision and choices that much harder.

I will bet that NO ONE roots harder for Beltran to go on a tear than Sandy does because Beltran is the riskiest guy to try and resign. He is right now the most likely trade candidate. And what we get will depend on his numbers at the time of the trade.

Trading him makes the most sense both from a business standpoint and a baseball standpoint. He will get you SOMETHING decent and his knees just make a big contract a very high risk bet.

I hope he takes the Quality over Quantity approach in any trades he makes for these names that are getting thrown around.
I would rather give up Beltran and Duda for a Top Pitcher than just Beltran for three kids who may or may not ever see the grass on a major league field.

And if we do go for Quantity, if you think things are bad now, that losing is wholesale, just wait until all the guys who are playing well are traded for guys who fill the Buffalo roster!

I know I can be patient and let that play out but I doubt very highly many others here will. We can’t get people to show up to see David Wright, Ike Davis, Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran and K-Rod. WHO is going to go to see Tejada, Duda, Evans, Bay and Gee?
No ticket sales means a very empty and quiet offseason because they won’t spend more money on a team that does not draw!

SO I am just giving the obligatory, “Be Careful What You Wish For, You Might Get It!” warning here.

It always sounds like a great idea to trade one really good player for multiple lesser players. Probably stems from our days of the baseball card trades where getting a rookie card was more valuable that the 7th card of some Veteran because if they do well they are worth more and if they suck it was just a piece of cardboard! No big loss!

But when trying to build a championship it doesn’t always work that 3 minor leaguers are worth one Major Leaguer! Not even when you combine them!

Just look at the deals of the past and see how many of those deals returned as much as they got.
You will find one or two among the decades and it will encourage you, that is until you compare it to how many deals like that were made in total and ultimatly was a bad deal.

Reyes, Wright, K-Rod, Santana, those guys do/will have some serious value and the best return for Jose will be the two picks in a deep draft. One will be around #35 (we took Wright #38) and the other one 16-30 or 45-60 but we’ll have to be patient, wait 4-5 years, do it right, but I’m afraid the impatient and signing bonus hatting Wilpon will insist on dead ass minor leaguers like Chris Carter to save having to sign truly talented top shelf prospects.

For a team that hasn’t resolved right field since Strawberry left in 1990 and Left Field requiring an expensive free agent 8 times since 1980 since we have no one for that position and forget about 2B. We have had one MVP caliber second basemen in our entire history and we can’t even provide ourselves with a RH compliment to Josh Thole or anyone other than Bobby Parnell in the bullpen, it’s an absolute disgrace that the Wilpon would go and make Minaya sell those two #1 draft choices for window dressing.

Make no mistake, Carter was just a guy who Boston was going to be taking off the 40 man roster to make room for a real prospect come the rule 5 draft in December. They were gonna risk giving him away anyway, what the hell did they care? What did we want him for? Window dressing, that’s it. Another guy on the bench making minimum. He certainly couldn’t help us cause you couldn’t put him in the field, everyone knew that. He can’t even DH in Tampa after they lost half their team. He’s back in the minors but to us he was worth 2 #1 draft picks all just to save us from having to spend on signing bonuses. No wonder we can never field a full team around here.

The #1 pick we gave away to SF for Moises Alou didn’t even have to be given away. If Omar waits a week to sign Alou we probably keep that pick. Perhaps we draft our long missing right fielder or a starting pitcher. We shouldn’t be spending these picks on 40 year old chronically injured out fielders anyway but to just voluntarilly hand it over like it was a tip or something……That’s akin to sabotaging your own team.

Why give away #1 draft choices for absolutely nothing?

It just doesn’t make any sense that we spent two # 1 draft choices for a season of Chris Carter and another #1 draft choice for 100 games of Moises Alou.

No wonder we haven’t developed a corner out fielder since we drafted Strawberry over 30 years ago.

Lastly, that Billy Wagner move still irks me to this day. What were they thinking?? I disagree, I think that Sandy Alderson was brought in to do just that — shake it up. However, he couldn’t shake things up with the team at its lowest value at that point. Now that the season is playing out, he’ll have a better shot of doing so.

Unfortunately, the financial situation of the team might dictate which players the Mets get in return if and when they do decide to trade away their high-salaried players. Right now, that could mean trading for prospects, which would not help the team compete right now. In New York, hearing “we’ll be better in a few years” just won’t cut it.

Also, some of the players with higher price tags (Johan Santana, Jason Bay, Carlos Beltran) also have recent injury history. A player like Santana would have gotten a lot of attention from teams because he’s not due to become a free agent anytime soon, but with his injury history, he might not get as much in return as he would have a few years ago. Bay was also a player who could get quality players in return, but with a poor half season last year and his absence from the field since last July (not to mention all the dollars committed to a player who hasn’t performed well since 2009), no one is going to be offering their best prospects for a question mark of a player. The Carlos Beltran from 2006-08 would have netted the Mets a fortune. The Carlos Beltran from 2011? Not so much.

Just look at the case of Billy Wagner. He would have gotten the Mets quite a bit had they traded him prior to his injuries. When they did trade him to Boston in 2009, all they got in return was Chris Carter, who is now in the Tampa Bay Rays’ minor league system.

I’m all for shaking it up, too. I just don’t have that much confidence that they’ll shake it up the right way.