Speaking to reporters at the Winter Meetings in San Diego, Mets general manager Sandy Alderson described his inability to trade one of his pitchers as follows: “Everybody’s looking for something for nothing.”
As most of you already know, the Mets are actively trying to deal at least one of their bottom three starting pitchers; Bartolo Colon, Dillon Gee, and Jon Niese. As we’ve pointed out on several occasions, the main hurdle for the Mets thus far has been trying to move one of those arms in what is currently an extremely pitching rich market.
Top free agent starters like Jon Lester, Max Scherzer and James Shields still remain unsigned this offseason, while even more options like Johnny Cueto, Cole Hamels, Jordan Zimmermann and Ian Kennedy are reportedly available in trade.
As one MLB executive put it last week, “This might be the worst time in history to be out in the trade market with pitching.”
“Every organization now thinks it has pitching. Maybe not as much as the Mets, but more than in the past. No one can find bats. I just think the teams with bats are king right now.”
Marc Carig of Newsday spoke to general manager Sandy Alderson this weekend, who understands what he’s up against and will wait the market out if he has to.
“I don’t think any of the top, most highly rated pitching free agents have signed, so it means that everybody is still out there on the market,” Alderson explained.
“I guess I would agree that there has been a run on position players, and we’ve been part of that. But at some point, people will turn to pitching, and then it’s a question of who’s available, who signs, who gets traded. At the end of the day, there’s always somebody that needs more pitching, so I’m not too worried about that.”
There’s no shortage of teams who are actively pursuing top of the rotation starters, however nobody puts Gee, Niese or Colon in that category. In fact, several MLB executives have told Joel Sherman of the Post that “none of the three is likely to bring back a particularly robust return.”
Instead, the Mets are hoping that they could swap one to address one of their minor needs, namely a left-handed reliever and a right-handed bat for the bench.
If they do intend to trade for an upgrade at shortstop, they’ll have to give up a younger and better arm like Zack Wheeler, Jacob deGrom or Noah Syndergaard and Sandy is very reluctant to do that – especially when none of the available shortstop options are an ideal fit.
The Mets are hoping that the Winter Meetings will help to alleviate the glut of quality starting pitching options and that it somehow will shift attention to Gee, Niese and Colon. The plan is to be patient – and that could mean waiting until January or February before we see one of them get dealt.
This does not mean the Mets can’t still make a trade this week, only that the historical advantages associated with having as much pitching depth as the Mets, do not currently apply.
