For those of you that haven’t heard, former Met (Wow still can’t get over that) Carlos Beltran was placed on the disabled list with a sprained right wrist retroactive to August 7th. All signs point to Beltran returning when eligible next week, leaving the Giants with 34 games with the 34-year old switch-hitter, a small return for dealing their top pitching prospect Zack Wheeler.
Since moving to San Francisco, Beltran has batted .244 with a double, a pair of triples, four runs and two RBIs in 11 games, nothing close to his .289 average, 16 home runs, 30 doubles and 66 RBIs this season that prompted the Giants to trade for him. More importantly, since acquiring the All-Star rightfielder, the Giants have gone 6-13, averaging an anemic 2.6 runs per game. Now the defending World Champs have not only fallen out of first place, have so far not gotten anything special out of Beltran, but they gave up their blue chip prospect in that of Zack Wheeler to do so.
On the other side of the trade, the Mets got the Giants 2009 1st round, sixth overall pick in that of Wheeler. Since joining the Amazin’s organization, the 21-year old hurler is 1-2 with an even 3.00 ERA, but the stat that stands out to me is the 4.67 SO/BB ratio. Getting Wheeler out of this deal from the start was a great return for the Mets, but now with the injury to Beltran, this deal is seemingly a steal.
With an electric fastball and a devastating, fall-off-the table curve, Wheeler is destined for great things. Now couple with Matt Harvey, the two are shaping up to be a promising, young 1-2 punch for the Mets in the not-to-distant future. Of course, we won’t know for sure for a few years, but so far, this trade is looking EXTREMELY one sided.
For once, it appears the Mets are on the winning side of a trade.
