John Harper of the Daily News reports that it’s no secret the Mets would love to trade for Carlos Gonzalez, and one baseball executive with insight into the Rockies’ thinking says Colorado is likely to seriously consider offers for Gonzalez and even Troy Tulowitzki this winter as it looks to rebuild.
However, the Rockies would be looking for a package built around young position players, as opposed to pitching, making it unlikely the Mets would be a good match.
A source says the Rockies consider it too risky trading for young pitching, given the difficulties they’ve had developing pitching in the high-altitude, hitter-friendly conditions in Colorado.
Especially in a case where they’d be trading star players — with the idea of re-investing, a la what the Red Sox did, some of the money saved on the big contracts — the Rockies’ brass would want to make sure it was getting value it could count on in return.
With that in mind, a source says the Rockies have little interest in any Mets’ position players, other than perhaps catcher Travis d’Arnaud. They’re not high on either Ike Davis or Lucas Duda, and while their scouts see potential in Wilmer Flores’ bat, they don’t see a positional fit — they don’t think he has the range to play second base, or the power for first base, and they believe in Nolan Arenado as their third baseman.
So while the Rockies may well be motivated to trade Gonzalez, who is guaranteed $63.5 million over the next four years, or Tulowitzki, who has $130 million coming over the next five years, it seems the Mets would have to get creative if they want to deal for either player.
It’s possible, with their surplus of pitching prospects, that they could get a third team involved in such a deal, but that possibility may be compromised if Matt Harvey does indeed need Tommy John surgery.
If Harvey is gone for 2014 the Mets will feel less comfortable trading some of that other young pitching. Still, people close to the situation say Mets’ GM Sandy Alderson has made it known privately that he hoped he could trade for Gonzalez at some point, giving the Mets the power-hitting outfielder they desperately need.
Tulowitzki, who’s hitting .313 with 22 home runs, would be just as attractive now that the Mets have soured on Ruben Tejada.
But the Rockies obviously would be looking for huge return, and it doesn’t seem the Mets have what Colorado would want.
I would imagine a deal for either Tulo or CarGo would begin with Travis d’Arnaud and Noah Syndergaard. Would you go that far? A buddy of mine said to look at it as R.A. Dickey for Tulo or Cargo. When you look it that way, all of a sudden it puts a different twist on it.
