Updated 12/28
I wanted to update Pete’s post with news from Orioles beat writer Eduardo A. Encina of the Baltimore Sun, who writes that the O’s would have to be “blown away” to deal Eduardo Rodriguez.
Original Post 12/27
The Ike Davis saga continues. I don’t know if any of the readers here at MMO have seen the entirety of AMC’s Breaking Bad series, but this whole ordeal is starting to become equally suspenseful.
This afternoon Mike Puma tweeted that the Mets attempted to pry Eduardo Rodriguez from the Orioles in exchange for Ike Davis and were unsuccessful. Rodriguez is listed as the number 3 prospect in the Orioles organization on MLB.com behind Kevin Gausman and Dylan Bundy. He is their best lefty pitching prospect, however.
It’s pretty clear that the Mets are looking for a young pitcher for Ike. They asked for Tyler Thornburg from the Brewers and there was speculation that they wanted Nick Kingham from the Pirates. At first glance, one might wonder why the Mets are asking for young arms instead of young bats. After all, if the MLB farm systems were ranked just according to pitching, the Mets would probably be in the top 5. The answer to that question, of course, is that a team can never have enough pitching. We saw that last season with Johan Santana and we’re going to see that this season with Matt Harvey. I’m sure there will be more instances in the future as well (knock on wood).
Another ulterior motivation for acquiring a highly regarded pitcher, however, is that the addition might make some of their existing pitching more expendable in a trade to upgrade shortstop. I wrote an entire article on possible trade options for the position so I won’t get into any names in this one but if the Mets are hoping to make a significant upgrade, they’ll most likely need to part with either established talents such as Jon Niese and Dillon Gee or near major league ready names such as Rafael Montero and Jacob DeGrom. Exchanging Ike for another young pitcher not only gives them more depth they could use in a trade, it gives them payroll relief to make room for the more expensive options.
Whatever trick Sandy has up his sleeve, if any, will be interesting to see. He has three teams interested in Ike, although I’m not sure any of them are overwhelmingly serious about him. However, this is Sandy Alderson we’re talking about. He is one of the most stubborn GM’s in all of baseball and if he can’t get anybody useful in return, it is possible Ike ends up in Port St. Lucie with the Mets when spring training rolls around, in which case his destination will be unknown.
