A Fan Shot By Austin Smith
With all the huge offseason moves thus far, most notably, Jacoby Ellsbury signing with the Yankees for 7 years and more than $150 million, should the Mets make a huge splash and sign the best free agent on the market in Robinson Cano?
With the offseason in full swing before the Winter Meetings have even begun, the whole league has realized the market is flourishing, and free agents are signing for astonishing numbers. With that said, and the Mets signing of Chris Young for $7 million, you’re going to have to overpay to get who you want, whether its in years or dollars, so why not just overpay for the best guy out there?
Since the Yankees have signed Brian McCann and Ellsbury, and them still having other holes to fill, I’d count them out on the Cano sweepstakes, which opens up some opportunities for other teams. Also, the Yankees were unwilling to go past $175 million for the slugger, so I don’t think anybody else will go past $200-$225 million. If the Mets could trade Ike Davis and Daniel Murphy, they’d free up about $10 million to bring our budget back up near $30-35MM, and we could try and get Cano for $200 million for eight years. I don’t see any other team going past seven years, so since the Mets can’t afford to overpay cash, why not give him the extra year to guarantee more cash, which is what he really wants.
He would be a huge upgrade to our lineup, giving us the cleanup hitter we need, and I don’t think any of the other holes are as huge of an issue if we have Cano in our lineup. With Cano taking $25 million, or possibly less for this year if you back-load the contract, you’d have another $10-15MM left, which you could then throw on minor additions to compete with some of our other players this Spring.
Having an outfield of Eric Young, Juan Lagares and Chris Young doesn’t look too good at first, but if that’s the situation we have to deal with in order to get Cano, then so be it, it’s worth it in my eyes. We could even fill up so many other holes via trades afterwards.
I think signing Cano would be a bold and smart move on Sandy’s part, which could open many other opportunities for the team and also make the Mets relevant again. Since we’ve been told to throw out 2014, and count on 2015 now, the suffrage to deal with this season as long as we sign Cano long term, is worth it.
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This Fan Shot was contributed by MMO reader, Austin Smith. Have something you want to say about the Mets? Share your opinions with over 22,000 Mets fans who read this site daily. Send your Fan Shot to [email protected]. Or ask us about becoming a regular contributor.
