Mark Simon of ESPN NY makes the case that Matt Harvey should be traded for Rex Sox’s center fielder Mookie Betts. While Simon understands it’s a move the Mets could end up regretting, he argues that dealing him now might be the best move.
— He has three years of team control left, at which point he’s almost surely gone.
— He’s likely going to be quite pricey in those last two years.
— His agent already has caused the Mets a lot of stress in the last 12 months.
Simon thinks that Boston could be a perfect match in a trade with the Mets. They desperately need an ace like Harvey and they have a lot of young talent in the outfield such as Betts, who the Mets could certainly use to replace Yoenis Cespedes.
“Betts was a 6.0 WAR player in 2015. He hit .291 with an .820 OPS, 18 home runs, 42 doubles and 21 stolen bases, while striking out only 82 times in 597 at-bats. He ranked seventh among center fielders with nine defensive runs saved. By comparison, Cespedes totaled 6.3 WAR between the Tigers and Mets in 2015, so their values were comparable.”
While Betts is a great young player the team could build around, the Mets have to be very careful about weakening their rotation. It’s the reason why they had so much success this season, and it is what gave them such a huge advantage in the playoffs.
Harvey went 14-8 this year with an excellent 2.78 ERA, and could even be better next season in his second year back from Tommy John.
I’d rather see the Mets keep the rotation intact and upgrade the offense through free agency. They could acquire a player like Ben Zobrist for example, who could improve the lineup without costing them any of their top young arms – or even a draft pick in this case.
Thoughts from Joe D.
Arghh… What is Mark Simon doing to me…I really have no desire to trade Matt Harvey, none… But in this purely hypothetical situation, you just have to consider it, you just have to. I mean the old adage says you deal from your strength and obviously the Mets have a wealth of starting pitching so there’s no problem there. Yet all I keep thinking about is how this comes back to bite us in the ass.
However, taking off my Mets cap and looking at this objectively, you have Harvey who is probably as good as gone after the 2018 season, and Betts isn’t a free agent until 2021. That’s huge. Huge because in that span Betts will probably give you about 40.0 in WAR while Harvey would give you 12.0 WAR maybe 14.0 WAR at best.
Here’s another way to look at it. If it were the Mets who had Mookie Betts and in his first full season he gives you 42 doubles, 8 triples, 18 home runs with 21 stolen bases while slashing .291/.341/.479 would you trade the 22-year old for Matt Harvey? My guess is no. My guess is you consider Betts untouchable. My guess is you’d view Betts as a face of the franchise type guy. So yes, I would definitely trade Harvey for Betts, no doubt about it. Damn you, Simon…
