On December 10, 1971, the Mets sent pitching prospect Nolan Ryan to the Los Angeles Angels for third baseman Jim Fregosi.
At the time, the deal seemed reasonable. Fregosi had been an All-Star for six of the past seven seasons and was widely regarded as one of the better third basemen in baseball.
Meanwhile, the Mets already had a rotation chock full of talent highlighted by Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, and phenom Jon Matlack along with a cadre of quality supporting arms. Ryan was expendable, and the Mets made a logical trade with the hope of finally firming up a position that had seen 45 different players come and go over the 10 previous seasons.
And yet this deal became the worst in Mets history.
The 30 year old Fregosi went on to bat .232 with 5 home runs and 32 RBI during the 1972 season. He never regained his All-Star form and the Mets released him two years later. On the contrary, Nolan Ryan went on to strike out 5,714 batters over the next 22 years en route to an illustrious Hall of fame career.
Flash forward to the 2014 offseason. Blame the Mets not landing Troy Tulowitzki or Ian Desmond on ownership’s financial woes or other GMs’ reluctance to deal with Sandy Alderson. However, often overlooked but just as equally important a factor was Alderson’s fear of making the next Ryan-Fregosi trade.
This offseason, Alderson saw nothing but flawed players. Tulowitzki has amassed more than 150 games just twice in his nine year career. Plus, he just rehabbed from a major hip injury that caused him to miss nearly the entire second half last year. These red flags deterred Alderson and other GM’s, making them disregard Tulo’s spectacular on-field performance, and instead notice the dark “injury prone” cloud that has hung over his head since his first major injury in 2008.
The other shortstop that piqued the interests of Mets fans was the Nationals’ Ian Desmond. But just like with Tulowitzki, Alderson was quick to find some flaws. He pointed to Desmond’s high whiff rate (183 times last year) and atrocious defense highlighted by his 20 or more errors three out of the past four years. Needless to say, Desmond was quickly dismissed as a possible shortstop for the Mets this season.
Financial constraints aside, Sandy Alderson did not want to run the risk of giving up a premier arm for a past All-Star nearing the wrong side of 30. It is a safe bet to make that he feared being ostracized by the entire Mets community, much like the way Bob Scheffing was 44 years before.
Hypothetically, Noah Syndergaard was reportedly the prospect who would get traded if the Mets decided to make a move. Like Nolan Ryan, Syndergaard was touted as the next Mets phenom, and scouts have even gone as far to describe him as “having better pure stuff than Wheeler” or being “more refined than Harvey was at the same age.” There is no way Alderson could trade Syndergaard without a response of total uproar. So he played it safe, hanging on to the big righty from Texas, hoping to bolster an already formidable rotation.
Perhaps Sandy made the right call.
