Last year, the Mets whiffed on a trade that brought Ramon Ramirez and Andres Torres to New York in exchange for Angel Pagan.
The deal was supposed to deal one of the Mets many outfielders, for a need which was middle relief and also bring in a veteran outfielder to fill the gap. Ramirez never lived up to the expectation of being a quality reliever, but was the trade really a whiff when you look back on it?
Pagan was set to be a free agent and he was coming off of his worst season as a big leaguer. The deal is what it is right? We all saw Pagan celebrate a World Series championship, and of course that created short term memory loss for many. As though having Angel Pagan on the 2012 Mets would have made that much of a difference.
Fast forward to the winter, and Pagan cashes in on a 4 year deal with the Giants worth $45 million while the Mets cut ties with both Ramirez and Torres. The contract was reminiscent of the Aubrey Huff contract the Giants signed after their 2010 championship. Why the Giants didn’t offer Pagan a qualifying offer first, I have no idea.
After Pagan signed his deal, many Mets fans thought of what could have been. Maybe they should have brought Pagan back in after the terrible year Torres had?
In case you had not noticed, Angel Pagan just had surgery on his hamstring following a tear and is out for at least 12 weeks following an injury he sustained during a rehab game. Pagan played his last big league game on May 25th when he strained his hamstring.
What’s interesting to note here is that Pagan earned himself a 4 year deal worth millions of dollars, meanwhile Andres Torres was brought back to San Francisco on a 1 year deal worth $2million and Torres is not only on the field, but he’s performing equally as poor as Pagan did prior to his injury.
In Pagan’s 46 games with 204 plate appearances he is shockingly similar to Torres’ 67 games with 207 appearances at the plate.
| NAME | RUNS | HR | RBI | BB | K | AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS |
| Pagan | 30 | 3 | 24 | 15 | 25 | .262 | .314 | .374 | .688 |
| Torres | 23 | 2 | 18 | 14 | 46 | .268 | .314 | .379 | .693 |
I’m glad we get to see players like Juan Lagares patrolling the outfield rather than Torres, but the truth of the matter is – if Pagan had his same 2012 season in New York, there would have been a public outcry to offer him an extension similar to what the Giants offered.
At the end of the day, it looks like Pagan had a career year at the right time.
Since they appear to be awfully similar players both offensively and defensively, I can comfortably say I’d rather suffer through Andres Torres in 2012, than Angel Pagan from 2013-2016.
