I don’t know about most of you, but a few of us on MMO let out a collective sigh of relief when we read the following from Andy Martino of the Daily News:
The Mets don’t love Mark Trumbo and they’ve never shown any interest in Peter Bourjos.
I see Trumbo as an Ike Davis with more consistent power, but a worse glove. I couldn’t imagine giving up a Jon Niese for someone like that… Especially when you consider that he’ll likely take a big hit hit offensively by playing half of his games at Citi Field.
What a disaster that could end up being…
No thanks…
Original Post
As the realization slowly sinks in that Shin-Soo Choo and Jacoby Ellsbury will be too costly for the still downtrodden Mets, the talk inevitably shifts to trading for a legit outfielder instead.
Of course trading for any player who can provide the type of offense the Mets are looking for means that what you don’t shell out in tens of millions, you’ll end up paying for with elite prospects.
Baseball is a give and take business and quality begets quality. There’s no team out there looking to take broken down parts like Ike Davis and Jordany Valdespin off of our hands in return for a big cog. Ain’t happening… The real world does not operate as it does during sportstalk call-in segments.
MLB Trade Rumors wrote today that Mark Trumbo could bring the Angels a nice pitching haul if they decide to move him. Los Angeles is bent on bolstering the rotation with MLB-ready arms. That doesn’t mean Rafael Montero, Darin Gorski or Noah Syndergaard, it means Zack Wheeler or Jon Niese.
MLBTR said the Halos fielded calls from the Mariners, Pirates, and Royals in July and the Marlins showed interest in Trumbo last December. If he is available, and most baseball analysts say it’s a certainty, he’ll garner plenty of interest.
At 27, Trumbo has averaged a 2.6 WAR over the last three seasons, and in 2013 he had career highs of 34 home runs and 100 RBI. However, his batting average dipped to a .234 and his on-base has rarely hovered above .300. Still, if you’re desperate for right-handed power, Trumbo’s your guy.
Michael Branda wrote something for us on Trumbo a couple of months back in which he assessed the current Mets situation at first base.
The Mets find themselves in a real tricky spot heading into 2014. Whether we like it or not, what we thought was a sure thing – is now far from it. The Mets have no answer at First Base anymore. It’s a rare moment when a franchise goes from thinking they have a cornerstone franchise type player to build around, to having nothing good to hope for.
Look, I really have no problem with Josh Satin – but he’s not an everyday big league first baseman. I’m not willing to wait until June 2014 to see if Ike Davis is the guy we all thought he could be. No matter what he does from this day forward, we’ll know absolutely nothing about Davis until next summer – and I don’t think the Mets can afford to do that. So, unless the idea of Wilmer Flores at first base is a reality, the Mets need a first baseman for next season and beyond.
In his article, he correctly tabs Trumbo as a one-dimensional player – something most Met fans have been accustomed to for a very long time.
Trumbo is now hitting arbitration for the first time, and he’s expected to get somewhere in the neighborhood of $4.5 million.
I recently asked another of our writers, XtreemIcon to share his thoughts, to which he replied:
We’ve all heard of five tool players, but Trumbo is a one tool player. He has huge, prodigious, Hammer of the Gods type power, but you cannot trade Thor for him or any starter that projects to crack the rotation in any regard, let alone a top-of-the-rotation type starter.
Trumbo is a very poor major league ballplayer. He’s at best a platoon DH, given his terrible fielding, limited speed on the bases and career OBP under .300. I say “at best” a platoon DH because he actually doesn’t have any significant platoon splits. He’s a bad hitter from both sides of the plate. He’d be worse than Jason Bay in many aspects. Bay, to his credit, was a disciplined enough hitter during his prime, and Bay only cost money.
So it would seem the consensus here at MMO would be that Trumbo is most certainly not the player the Mets should be targeting once their attempts to target Choo and Ellsbury prove futile.
What are your thoughts on the matter?
