Opinion: Mets Should Trade for Kris Bryant and Kyle Hendricks

Since the Mets missed out on All-Star center fielder George Springer to the Blue Jays, their free spending arch-nemesis this offseason, all the talk surrounding the team in recent days has been about another big free-agent, Trevor Bauer. While Bauer would fit in nicely behind Jacob deGrom as the number two starter, do they really need to meet his demands of being the highest paid pitcher ever by average annual value? (Gerrit Cole is current leader at $36 million AAV)

Not only does Bauer lack the track record for being worth that kind of contract, it would likely inhibit the Mets ability to keep Noah Syndergaard and/or Marcus Stroman past this season when you also factor in potential nine figure contracts for Francisco Lindor and Michael Conforto.

One name who could provide quality starter numbers while also not sinking the Mets chances at properly building out the rest of their roster? That would be Cubs pitcher Kyle Hendricks. Since the start of 2016, Hendricks has been one of the most reliable starters in all of baseball: 129 GS, 787.0 IP, 3.00 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, 3.60 FIP, 143 ERA+, 17.9 bWAR, 16.0 fWAR. He has never finished a season with an ERA or FIP above 3.95 in his entire seven year career, and wound up finishing ninth in NL Cy Young voting during the shortened 2020 season.

In his five full seasons as a big-leaguer, Hendricks has made 30 or more starts every season except 2017, where he missed seven weeks because of inflammation in his pitching hand. A big reason for that sustained health likely has to do with the fact that in a league full of pitchers that are pumping 95+ MPH, Hendricks is one of the few who focuses less on radar guns and more on location.

The 31-year-old has his fastball hovering around 86-88 MPH during the last three seasons, which would be in the bottom 5 percentile among all MLB pitchers. But in that same timeframe his 4.5 BB% ranks second among all pitchers with at least 400.0 IP, behind only six-time All Star and former Cy Young winner Zack Greinke (4.3%).

The elite control has also led to Hendricks giving up an extremely low amount of hard-hit balls. The California native has the third lowest Hard Hit Percentage (30.8%) among all pitchers with at least 400.0 IP since 2018, with former Mets starter Zack Wheeler (27.5%) first, and deGrom (28.8%) second on that list.

Hendricks has 3 years/$42 million left on his current deal, with a $16 million club option in 2024. To most people, that may not seem like a lot for a pitcher of Hendricks’ caliber. But for Cubs ownership, it probably is based on how they’ve operated this offseason.

The Ricketts family has shown an interest in significantly slashing their payroll with moves like signing only one major-league deal thus far (catcher Austin Romine on 1 year/$1.5 million contract), trading Yu Darvish and Victor Caratini to San Diego, non-tendering Kyle Schwarber, not making an effort to re-sign free agents like Jose Quintana, Tyler Chatwood, and/or Jon Lester, while also heavily floating former NL MVP Kris Bryant in trade talks most of the offseason.

TSN Sports’ Scott Mitchell mentioned last week that the Blue Jays had discussed both Bryant and Hendricks with the Cubs. Chicago likely was interested since they know they’d be able to boost their prospect return for one year of Bryant ($19.5 million) by adding a controllable arm like Hendricks to the deal, similar to what the Indians did with packaging Lindor and Carlos Carrasco together.

However, Blue Jays President Mark Shapiro said during a recent presser that the “bulk of our heavy lifting is done” after signing Springer and former Athletics infielder Marcus Semien, hinting they no longer have legitimate interest in making a trade for names like Bryant and/or Hendricks, leaving the Mets as the only known team with interest in taking on large salaries like that.

The Mets have shown an interest in Bryant throughout the offseason (MMO’s Dilip Sridhar wrote an excellent trade profile on him), but what if they added Hendricks to the deal too? How much more would it cost?

If we’re using the Lindor/Carrasco trade as a base for this proposal, it would probably require two major league players (JD Davis and Jeurys Familia?), along with two low-level prospects full of potential (JT Ginn and Alexander Ramirez?) to get the Cubs to budge, and maybe more to complete the deal. Bryant does not have the same trade value that Lindor did when the Mets acquired him, but Hendricks is not only three years younger than Carrasco, but he has an extra year on his deal and is arguably a better pitcher as well.

Adding that $33.5 million in payroll while shedding ~$12 million from Davis and Familia would leave the Mets with ~$10M before hitting the luxury tax line, giving them their best third baseman since David Wright for at least a year, another legit number three starter who is under team control for three seasons at a very fair dollar value, and some extra money left over to address other needs like center field and a bullpen arm. A perfect recipe for challenging top NL teams like the Braves, Dodgers and Padres this upcoming season.