Reports: Mets Re-Sign Yoenis Cespedes
After spending most of the off-season telling anyone who would listen that they probably weren’t going to re-sign Yoenis Cespedes, the Mets are reportedly on the verge of doing just that.
Cespedes deal with #Mets expected to be in three-year, $70M range with one-year opt-out.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) January 23, 2016
So full Cespedes deal with #Mets, per sources: Three years, $75M, full no-trade clause, opt-out after one year. Pending physical.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) January 23, 2016
It seems pretty clear that Cespedes is leaving money on the table to stay in New York, as the Nationals were reportedly willing to offer more than $100 million over five years. But Cespedes joins Jason Heyward and Ben Zobrist in spurning the Nationals to sign elsewhere — and with Brandon Phillips unwillingness to waive his no-trade clause, one has to wonder about why so many players keep choosing to not go to Washington this winter — and will instead stay with the Mets, presumably taking over as their regular center fielder.
For the price, it’s tough to not like this for the Mets; they get a quality player to upgrade their line-up without a significant long-term commitment. Most likely, Cespedes will use his opt-out next winter, so this might end up being more of an extended rental for the Mets; next year’s free agent class is terrible, and it’s tough to think that he won’t be able to do better than roughly 2/$50M he’ll have left on his deal. But even with the opt-out, the low total cost makes this too good of a price to pass up for New York.
The question will be how well he can handle center field, however. The Mets did make the World Series with Cespedes playing between Michael Conforto and Curtis Granderson, but that’s going to be one of the least effective defensive outfields in baseball in 2016. The hope for the Mets is that Cespedes hits well enough that you live with the defensive limitations, and with Juan Lagares around, they’ll have the option to put out a better defensive club on days when Conforto or Granderson sit.
Personally, I think the Mets probably would have been just fine with Lagares playing center field most days, but Cespedes is a better player, and this does make the Mets a bit better for 2016. Given the low cost and the high value of additional wins — and depth — to a team with a real shot of making it back to the World Series, this is a move that they probably had to make, even if Cespedes might be a bit of an adventure in center field.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
“The Mets did make the World Series with Cespedes playing between Michael Conforto and Curtis Granderson, but that’s going to be one of the least effective defensive outfields in baseball in 2016.”
Conforto actually turned in outstanding defensive stats in 2015. I take it the scouting is not as optimistic about his fielding?
And granderson may not have an arm, but he doesn’t make many mistakes out there.
Also, Cespedes had a somewhat-conspicuous error off the first pitch of the world series. Even if it’s not a fair representation, even if it’s a small sample, even if we know that Cespedes is a competent, if not above-average center fielder, it’s gotta hurt to be a Mets fan and be reminded of that for the next season or three.
Unless the Nats deal also had an opt out I don’t see how this deal could be considered worse. I think you have to look at what is a reasonable expectation for 2019-2020. Is $25 million for those years at all unreasonable. I’d say there is at least a 75% chance he gets at least $100 million total over the next 5 years, and could get more (or more beyond 5 years). $75 guaranteed is already stupid-rich money but most likely he’s not giving anything up.
The real surprise to me is he couldn’t get at least 6/$120 million from someone.
Don’t forget that Bud Black spurned the Nats too.
Yeah. Black wasn’t happy with the deal he was offered and preferred to sit out the season than work for them. Not unlike what Cespedes did.
Makes you wonder if it’s the team or the city.
It could be a “quality of life” environment issue; could be Papelbon, could be taxes (though those hardly get higher than NY), could be beltway taffic… 🙂
Doesn’t bode well for Strasburg or Harper staying long term.
Nats fan here – appreciate Rizzo bidding a fair price for what he felt was an undervalued asset. But we really didn’t need him, so I’m glad Rizzo stayed disciplined and didn’t sign him at all costs. Cespedes would have been scary hitting behind Harper, but it would have meant Werth or Revere to the bench and MATaylor to AAA. Cespedes is great in streaks, but not great in total.
Now, how much payroll flexibility will the Mets have in-season – the Nats (and Mets) learned last season that you need to leave some dry powder for in-season pickups or else you get stuck with guys like Papelbon.
Only people that trade for a papelbon have a papelbon.
I’d rather build a complete team before the season than do what the Mets did last year.
Also, I imagine the Mets will be bringing in a ton of revenue after signing Cespedes (if they weren’t already).
I don’t think the outfield will be bad defensively at all. Grandy is a plus defender in RF. Conforto is a plus defender in LF. Cespedes is obviously not a great defender in CF, but the overall outfield should be pretty much neutral defensively.
And man, it should be a monstrous unit offensively.
What exactly is your definition of a “plus” defender? Greater than zero?
Unfortunately even that would not be true.
Because according to the defensive metric here on fangraphs, Granderson has produced negative defensive value 4 of the past 5 years.
Uh, you realize that Granderson was playing center field for much of that time, right?
For his career in right field, Granderson has been worth 13 defensive runs saved and 1.9 UZR. That’s a roughly +3.5 defender in RF.
Nice try though.
Granderson also hasn’t been 34 for his whole career. Taking a guys career defensive stats and assuming that as his true talent level is not the way to go.
Noah you just wrote:
“Grandy is a plus defender in RF.”
followed by:
“For his career in right field, Granderson has been worth 13 defensive runs saved and 1.9 UZR. That’s a roughly +3.5 defender in RF.”
So your idea of “elite’ is barely even producing positive (according to you) value?
And furthermore you must not know how to sort leaderboards. If you go to Leaders, and sort for RF since 2014, you’ll see that Granderson has actually been worth -17.9 runs – you still think hes elite in RF?
http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=rf&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2015&month=0&season1=2014&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=20,d
fwiw the only elite RF’s in the game over the past 2 years, by the metrics, are Heyward, Cain, and Inciarte. Grandy is nowhere close to those 3.
cs3, there is so much incorrect information in your post I don’t know where to begin.
First off, I would consider “plus defender” and “elite” two completely separate categories. One being on the better side of zero and the other stratospheric compared to the rest.
Your analysis of Grandy’s stats is flawed. His overall OF defensive worth since 2014 is -17.9 runs. This does not separate by each OF position even if you are sorting by their primary position, in this case RF. Take a look at his player page and you can cherry pick a bunch of different OF stats to develop a positive or negative argument. But looking specifically at his time in RF, like Noah was suggesting, he has a UZR of 1.9 and a UZR/150 of 0.9, and has saved 13 runs. Elite? No, plus defender? I think the argument is there. You could also look at 2014 as an adjustment year, consider it was his first full season at RF and we all know how iffy these defensive statistics are anyway. To further prove this point, in his second year in RF, after a full season at the position, he rebounded to have positive defensive metrics in almost every categury:
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=4747&position=OF#fieldingadvanced
Conforto was a horrible df of in college. From there he has improved drastically.
How I wish the Cards had done this.
Even with the opt out after one year, giving a discount to the mets, this still seems incredibly low for Cespedes. Am I crazy?
No, I’m puzzled by the lack of market for him as well. I’m not sure why he and Upton didn’t get more or less the same AAV if not the same length.
Angel fans,Cespedes would have looked great playing next to the best player on the planet.