New York Mets general manager Sandy Alderson spoke to the media before last night’s 5-2 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers. One of the many subjects Alderson touched upon was the ongoing trade rumors surrounding the Mets’ top-two starting pitchers, Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard.
During his press conference, he was asked about the two pitchers, to which he gave a fairly candid, but painfully obvious, answer.
“We know what we have in Jacob…and Syndergaard. I don’t know that any team will ever tell you that they’re never gonna do this or never gonna do that,” Alderson said. “If somebody came to us and said we’ll give you all of our top-20 prospects it’s probably something that you’ll have to at least consider.”
While fan, player or coaching opinion doesn’t dictate decision making, Alderson said external voices are heard in regards to trading or not trading the pitchers.
“I don’t think player opinion or fan opinion controls our decision making,” Alderson continued. “But I think we do factor in [opinion]. It doesn’t mean we always come out consistent with how those opinions have been expressed, but to say they are not factor would be to sort of ignore the obvious.”
Syndergaard has been sidelined since May 29 (retroactive to May 26) with a strained ligament in his right index finger. In 11 starts this season, the 25-year-old has a 3.06 earned-run average, a 5.85 strikeout-to-walk ratio, and a 2.54 fielding independent pitching rating.
Syndergaard is under team control until after the 2021 season and will be entering his second year of arbitration eligibility next season (he’s making $2.975 million this season).
DeGrom, however, is a more complex situation. The 30-year-old right-hander is having himself a career-year, currently leading all of MLB with his 1.51 earned-run average, 1.98 fielding independent pitching (FIP) rating, and is second behind Max Scherzer of the Nationals with his 3.8 wins above replacement (WAR).
Unlike Syndergaard, deGrom only has two remaining years of arbitration eligibility left before becoming an unrestricted free-agent after the 2020 season, upping his value even more so than his performance this season has already done. An upper-echelon hurler like deGrom, with two years of affordable control attached to him, could very well bring back the best five players an organization has to offer.
Normally, these are the type of low-cost, high-reward players the team would hold onto until they were closer to free-agency in order to maximize the returns. This, of course, being the long-time modus operandi of the franchise.
As Alderson alluded to, the team would have to be absolutely blown away with a trade proposal to even begin considering such a bold move, but at this point, it seems highly unlikely we’ll see either deGrom or Syndergaard traded any time soon.
