Mets Have Dicey History Behind Cano Trade

Wilmer Flores Cried

John Sterling Called Homers by Cano

There are web sites with the 10 worst Mets trades, the 15 worst Mets trades.

http://www.bloggingmets.com/9931/the-list-10-worst-mets-trades/

Plenty of space for new ones in the vast reaches of the Web. 

We think of the talent this franchise has let get away – Nolan Ryan. Amos Otis. Roger McDowell and Lenny Dykstra.

In their sketchy past, the Mets have gotten expensive and over-the-hill talent like George Foster, Jason Bay and Bobby Bonilla, to say nothing of Juan Samuel for McDowell and Dykstra. 

We won’t know where this trade fits until the Mets, maybe, who knows, happen to have a lead in the ninth inning and Edwin Diaz remains the excellent save guy he was in Seattle.

I don’t expect much from Robinson Canó. He is 36 years old, comes with a five-year contract for $100-million.

“And I’ll give you one guess who Canó’s agent is, or was,”  a Mets fan in my neighborhood texted me. (Same guy who, in 1989, called home from college and all he could rasp was, “It stinks. It just stinks.” I didn’t have to ask, “Who is this?” or what it was about – the Samuel trade, of course.)

Cano’s previous agent, Brodie Van Wagenen is now the general manager of the Mets. What ever happened to the great Jeff Sessions move of recusing himself?

As for Canó, he was an engaging young guy with the Yankees – named for Jackie Robinson by his dad, alert eyes, nice personality. But he missed 80 games with the Mariners last year after testing positive, which throws his power numbers under huge suspicion.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/canoro01.shtml

“But Cano might have something left,” wrote Tyler Kepner in the Times on Monday, adding: “He batted .317 in 41 games after returning from his suspension, and hitting is just what he does.”
Tyler is not a pushover, and neither is he overly droll. This is his judgment, and I am noting it, with great respect.

Plus, it’s nice to know the Mets have $100-million to spend on a 36-year-old post-suspension hitter. Maybe the Madoff Years are over.

But there is something else about acquiring Canó. Last year the Mets brought up Jeff McNeil, a late-blooming second baseman who had learned traditional baseball skills in the minors and proceeded to hit .329 in 225 at-bats with the Mets – with seven steals and three homers.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=mcneil000jef
​
“And he’s a good defensive second baseman,” says a friend of mine who played two years at that position in the minors.

McNeil will be 27 next April. Oh, he is making around the major-league minimum salary. Did I mention that?

By making these moves, the Mets are showing they are mired in the generation of the launch arc – the identical swing in the same damn groove that sends most hitters back to the dugout regularly, with blank looks that say, Well, I did what they want. I took my hacks.

Right. Jacob DeGrom merely won a Cy Young Award by tricking the launch-arc pigeons, pitching up, up, up, inning after inning. 
                        *          *         *
The Mets roster will continue to change. Jay Bruce was a mensch, a gamer, in his two stints with the Mets. Thanks, man.
As for the young talent, think Nolan Ryan. 

Meanwhile, Wilmer Flores has been released. That is baseball, defensible. Wilmer does not have enough power to make up for defensive mediocrity, nor does he have what the broadcasters like to call “foot speed.” Who didn’t cringe when that indecisive third-base coach meditated in real time over whether to send Wilmer? Don’t Do It! we screamed. 

Wilmer is a sweet guy, you can see that from the top row. He cried the first time they tried to trade him, now part of Mets lore.
Let’s pause for a chorus of: Don’t Cry for Me, Wilmer Flores.

The moral to the release of Wilmer is: don’t get too attached to charismatic Mets icons wearing No. 4.

Forget about old Dodgers Charlie Neal and Duke Snider in the first two years. Later icons, Ron Swoboda and Rusty Staub and Lenny Dykstra, all beloved, all wearing No. 4, were sent away.

The Mets would have traded Mel Ott (No. 4) of the New York Giants.
The Mets would have traded Lou Gehrig (No. 4) of the New York Yankees.
Wilmer should look at it that way.

Now they are spending $100-million for Robinson Canó, age 36.  
As we say in New York, Oy!