Rangers Land Scherzer in 2023 Deadline’s First Blockbuster Trade
Friday night, a frustrated Max Scherzer surveyed his surroundings — a Mets team in fourth place, 17 games behind the Braves, with just a 16.3% chance of making the playoffs — and did not like what he saw. Scherzer told reporters that he was “disappointed” in his team’s fortunes, while acknowledging his own role in how the season has gone. The decision to trade closer David Robertson signaled a shift to sell mode, and indicated to Scherzer that he was due a chat with his bosses.
The fruits of that conversation ripened less than 24 hours later, and the three-time Cy Young winter is now bound for Texas, with prospect Luisangel Acuña headed in the other direction. The Mets are also sending roughly $35.7 million along to offset the considerable remaining salary due Scherzer this season and next.
It’s not an Ohtani trade, but this is about as big a name as you’ll see move at the deadline otherwise.
If the Scherzer of today were the Scherzer of five years ago, the Mets would probably not be sellers, and the price to acquire him would have been much higher than it ended up being. Scherzer hasn’t thrown 200 innings in a season since 2018, and his results this season have been quite un-Scherzerlike. His K% and ERA are both worse than they’ve been since 2011. His FIP, 4.73, is the highest of his career, which it bears repeating dates all the way back to Arizona in 2008.
The big problem for Scherzer this year has been the home run ball; he’s allowed 1.92 HR/9, the third-highest mark among qualified starters. He’s getting dingered on more than twice as frequently as he did in 2022, and is allowing 0.72 more home runs per nine innings than the league average. You don’t need to be Bill James to figure out what kind of effect that’s had on his season.
Back in 2019, Scherzer was scratched from a World Series start when he woke up with neck pain and stiffness so severe he couldn’t lift his throwing arm. He’s now some four years further into the period of life when the human body responds progressively less well to physical activity, and his decline in durability and effectiveness reflect that.
Nevertheless, Scherzer has a very long way to decline before he’s no longer a very good major league pitcher. His ERA- is 98; his strikeout rate, walk rate, and whiff rate are all significantly better than the league average. At the very worst, he’s a mid-rotation starter who can be trusted to make a playoff start. At best, well, Scherzer is still less than 24 months removed from being a Cy Young finalist.
Even before Scherzer, the Rangers already had close to $100 million in 2023 salary sunk into starting pitching. With the exception of Dane Dunning, who was acquired in the Lance Lynn trade (no, the Lance Lynn trade before that), the Rangers had filled out their rotation exclusively through free agency. So despite the heavy financial investment at the position, when deGrom blew out his elbow, the Rangers had to ask some hard questions. Specifically: How badly do you want to start Martín Pérez or Andrew Heaney in a playoff game? Or even Dunning, for that matter?
Anything approaching peak Scherzer would be the top starter in Texas’ rotation. Even a geriatric Scherzer would be useful.
And in this market, that kind of upgrade does not come cheap.
Earlier in the week, the Mets positively purloined Marco Vargas from Miami in the Robertson trade, and getting Acuña for Scherzer is a similar coup. Acuña — and yes, sorry for making you wait 600 words to find out that he’s Ronald’s brother if you didn’t know that already — is a 21-year-old middle infielder who’s currently hitting .315/.377/.453 at Double-A Frisco. In case you were worried that Ronald got all the speed in the Acuña family, Luisangel is 42-for-47 in stolen base attempts.
The younger Acuña is listed at 5-foot-8, 181 pounds, which Eric Longenhagen assures me is not the artifact of nobody updating his bio since he signed his first pro contract at age 16. Acuña might be short, but he’s one of those middle infielders who under different circumstances could’ve been a punt returner, or some other profession that attracts short guys with lots of lower body strength.
The little Acuña has fast hands and the physical tools to stick at shortstop, but he needs to get over his current inclination to swing at everything. With a more patient approach, he could be a good big league shortstop, and soon. Eric’s most recent prospect list update has Acuña as the no. 56 prospect in baseball and the second-best in the Mets’ system by a whisker; Alex Ramírez is no. 55 overall, so you could consider them co-top prospects if you wanted to.
Acuña’s position, talent, and proximity to the majors obviously made him attractive to the Mets, and with Corey Seager and Marcus Semien entrenched on both sides of second base for the next several years, those same qualities made him expendable to the Rangers. Thus, we have a trade.
“Bad team trades good player nearing end of contract to good team for big prospect” is not unusual in and of itself, but the figures involved make for interesting reading from a financial perspective. The Mets and Rangers have been two of the most aggressive spenders since the lockout. (Seager, Semien, and Jon Gray all signed hours before the lockout, I know, but nobody likes a pedant.) The Mets, in fact, have broken every norm about major league payroll. The Rangers haven’t been quite as aggressive, coming in at no. 9 in payroll this season (10th by luxury tax payroll), but the Mets have made nation-states look like the Pittsburgh Pirates since Steve Cohen took over. Texas has still speedrun its rebuild by buying a contending team mostly off the shelf.
Even the involvement of Scherzer, specifically, ended up complicating things. Scherzer was a member of the MLBPA executive subcommittee during the most recent CBA talks. Backed by his agent, Scott Boras, Scherzer understands his economic standing within the game as well as any player.
Once news of the trade started to break on Saturday evening, it took a few hours for the deal to be finalized. Scherzer not only had to waive his no-trade clause, there was brief disagreement over Scherzer’s opt-out for 2024. The Rangers wanted some assurance that they weren’t trading a global top-60 prospect for a rental; Scherzer, ever aware of the importance of leverage, wanted to keep his options open, even if it was always vanishingly unlikely that he’d turn down more than $43 million in order to become a free agent again at age 39.
In the end, Scherzer did offer such assurances, and will not opt out of his contract. That leaves the financial details; the Mets are paying down almost two-thirds of the balance of Scherzer’s contract, leaving the Rangers on the hook for some $22.5 million over the next 14 months.
Look how much that changes the risk of this deal for Texas. Prorated over what remains of 2023, plus all of 2024, $22.5 million comes out to an AAV of about $16.9 million. Let’s say Scherzer is just a no. 3 starter anymore. At $43.3 million, you wouldn’t go anywhere near that pitcher. But $16.9 million a year is within a couple million of what Jameson Taillon and Taijuan Walker got this offseason. A pitcher like Scherzer at that salary is a bargain.
The Rangers continue to make a mockery of the scorched-earth rebuild process. They haven’t made the playoffs since 2016, sure, but they just decided to pivot to contending out of nowhere with the Seager/Semien signings, and within two years, abracadabra, they’re in first place again and gaining momentum. Building a winning baseball team is sometimes just a matter of the owner wanting it badly enough.
No owner wants it more, or has the financial might to turn will into reality, than Cohen. Faced with the Mets’ current predicament, most owners would either enter a state of denial and double down on a minute chance of contending, or view contracts like Scherzer’s as a liability. Cohen apparently views it as a sunk cost.
In a deal like this it’s customary for the selling team to retain some salary. I’m reminded of another deadline trade for a future Hall of Famer in the second-to-last year of his contract: the Justin Verlander trade of 2017. In that deal, the Ilitch children — hardly the most freespending of owners — sent $16 million to Houston in order to grease the skids. If they could do that, surely Cohen wouldn’t mind doing the same.
In the end, he did even better. And rather than using this trade to dump the highest salary in baseball and pocket the savings, Cohen spent $35.7 million, give or take, to buy a new co-top prospect for his farm system. And the $22.5 million they did save will probably be reinvested in the team this offseason. If the Mets want to replace Scherzer on the free agent market, $22.5 million will get them most of the way to an Aaron Nola or Julio Urías. (Or, as the baseball world quakes in contemplation of such a thing, a little less than halfway to Shohei Ohtani.)
Both the Rangers and Mets have improved their short- or medium-term outlooks with this trade. A contending team that cares about winning went out and traded prospects for short-term help. A team that’s having a bad year but wants to bounce back made a trade to improve the upper levels of the farm system, and shelled out a little extra money in order to get as much help as possible. On both ends, this trade is the result of an urgent need to win.
Michael is a writer at FanGraphs. Previously, he was a staff writer at The Ringer and D1Baseball, and his work has appeared at Grantland, Baseball Prospectus, The Atlantic, ESPN.com, and various ill-remembered Phillies blogs. Follow him on Twitter, if you must, @MichaelBaumann.
When some sites were describing the Angels Giolito trade as a blockbuster I didn’t really agree. This is a blockbuster. And despite the freespending reputation, the Rangers payroll is only 20 mil more than the Angels so they spent wisely in spite of DeGrom’s injury.
The payroll may not be even that high if they got any kind of (partial?) insurance on DeGrom.
Oh boy if I were an insurance agent and the Rangers called about deGrom I can guarantee the phone would be split in two with how aggressively I’d hang up.
Really just in name recognition, though? Giolito and Old Scherzer aren’t terribly far apart. Gio’s been a little better and healthier to-date in ‘23, but Scherzer’s projections RoS are a little rosier. They are both 2.5ish WAR starters, albeit with recent-ish histories of being much better than that. But also both with real reasons to think they may not return to that previous level of performance.
The prospects each returned are ranked quite closely together, too: #55 for Acuña and #61 for Quero. Based on the players involved in each, they’re remarkably similar.
Ehh, I know this isn’t an ERA site, but Scherzer has had an ERA that began with a 2 and had a second number less than 5 last two years. Matter of fact if we go back a decade he has 0 full seasons where the ERA doesn’t start with a 2. He had 2020 which wasn’t a full season, and then this year, where it almost assuredly won’t start with a 2, but again, that is why I said full seasons. Now is Scherzer regressing? Yes, probably. But I think people are underselling him. He is closer to what he has been the last decade than he is to what he has done this season. He is unlikely to be the mid 2 era guy he has been for the last decade, but if I was a betting man, and I am, I’d take the under on 3.5 era for rest of contract. I get that his K’s are down, his walks are up, but if I had to pick a guy in the MLB to rattle off a 30ip scoreless streak besides Gallen (because he does those things often somehow) he’d be my pick.
Nah, this isn’t a blockbuster. This is just a normal deadline trade. We’re just so desperate for news it seems like it.
With so many teams having a shot at the playoffs and so many teams placing a premium on prospects the excuses for not making a deal get higher every year. The only time we see blockbusters are when a team is obviously going nowhere but haven’t already stripped the team to the bone, like the Nationals were when they traded off Soto, Scherzer, and Turner. There aren’t any teams who look like that now. The White Sox would be if they hadn’t already done that exact same thing so recently, but if they’re not trading Cease or Robert I don’t see anyone moving that would get an earth shaking return.
Like, who are the sellers here? The Mets and Cardinals are, selectively, but they both definitely plan to compete in 2024. The Tigers are tired of rebuilding, so anyone with more than 2 years of team control isn’t going anywhere. The Pirates are also sick of rebuilding; in theory Mitch Keller is available, I guess, but it would have to be an enormous haul. The White Sox have told teams that Robert and Cease are off-limits.
The Cubs raised their playoff odds from 20% to 33% in two days, so they’re firmly in the “not selling” camp. The Padres still have a very good team and Seidler likes keeping his guys (often on very expensive contracts). They also have about a 33% of making the playoffs, even with the season they’ve had so far.
The Rockies, A’s, Nationals, and Royals are the four worst teams in the league, and the roster is totally barren of stars except for Bobby Witt, who isn’t going anywhere. The A’s best healthy player with any team control is Ryan Noda, who was a Rule 5 pick this past offseason. Jeimer Candelario is good, maybe a star, but is a rental. The Rockies’ best healthy player is a guy hitting at about league average at third base.
Unless a team decides to absolutely blow away the White Sox for Cease or Robert, or the Pirates for Keller, or a team is packaging 2-4 players at a time to juice the return, I don’t see a ton of blockbuster deals coming up.
McMahon would have pretty good value. He’s a league average hitter and superb fielding 3B signed for the rest of his prime at a reasonable salary, a 2-3 WAR player. Also pretty durable. He also should be traded because the Rox are at least 2-4 years away from doing anything remotely competitive, especially with their brutal run of injuries to SPs.
McMahon is not totally likely to remain productive by the time they’re ready to compete again (I’d give it a 50/50), but there’s no way Rockies are gonna trade him when his value is high because he’s too well liked by the org, aka Bud Black, Monfort and the rest of the decisionmakers.
Like with Kyle Freeland, Mac is gonna be an everyday player until he literally can’t play anymore, he’s an org darling by now. The Freeland thing is its own deal, obviously.
He’s fine. He’s not going to bring back a blockbuster package.
Candelario isn’t a star. Agree with the rest, though.
I stand by my blockbuster assessment. A few key differences from the Angels trade: Yes he’s not the same as before, but Verlander last year didn’t look great in the regular season either but kicked into gear in the playoffs. Experience does count. He’s there for next year too and isn’t just a short term rental. Yeah it’s name recognition too but could you imagine the buzz if he played with Ohtani? And if they could’ve held out for this trade instead wouldn’t that have proven to Ohtani that they’re in it to win it this year and next? But maybe the Angels don’t seem to attract guys willing to drop a no trade clause or could convince him to stay next year regardless. I don’t know.
I’m confused. Verlander won the CYA last year. How did he not look great in the regular season?
How odd. Yours is the second comment I’ve seen today saying that Verlander wasn’t very good during the regular season. Are you sure? Because I think he won the Cy Young award last year.
Yea I mean 1.75 era 0.83 whip is meh at best?
Feels like the Mets have taken advantage of there being so little sellers out there I really like both trades they’ve made.
I don’t like this one. Scherzer has 3-4 WAR left and the Mets sent over $35M. They’re getting only one prospect in return and quite frankly there’s a 99% chance Luisiangel is too small to hack it in the big leagues. Ronald is 6’0″.
If we imagine Acuna’s last name is something else not related to a potential future HOFer, the reaction to this trade would be very different. People’s subconscious brains think that the Mets landed another Ronald Acuna.
Too small? Baseball has good to great undersized players.
If Scherzer only has 3-4 WAR left in him then this trade becomes even more of a no-brainer
It’s perfectly credible to doubt a prospect’s chances, though I don’t recall being huge and beefy being a requirement to be a good middle IF. anyways, on behalf of us 5’8″ folks, Mookie Betts says hello
I think the error you are making here is assuming that because he will not be as good as his older brother that he’s not good. He’s projected to be roughly average across the board offensively and might be a plus second baseman, and he’s hitting decently in AA (the first level where you can take stats seriously) with decent peripherals.
A league-average hitting second basemen who is a league-average defender at second base is a 2.5-3 win player. If that’s the case, that’s a good return.
As a lifelong Mets fan, I’m used to them getting fleeced in trades, but this one is great for them.
I’m not sure that the Mets made out like bandits in this one relative to the market. Acuña the younger is a good prospect, but he’s quite close in ranking to who CHW got for Giolito (C Quero, #61 here on FG). If we say Gio and Old Scherzer are *roughly* equivalent, then two months of Gio returned basically the same of what a year and two months of Reasonably Priced Old Scherzer did, minus name recognition on both sides.
And then there’s the $35M.
Yeah — maybe a $-per-WAR/$-per-future-value calculation would tell me I was off base with this, but it really seems like if they’re paying down this much of the contract, they could get back more than one prospect, even a really good one.
this would be true if Scherzer had been good this year
The money is why they’re getting a prospect and not two lottery tickets.
The Rangers are getting Scherzer at a third his annual contract rate, $16M a year, or about what he projects to be worth.
“and then there’s Maude…” is all i can think now
“At the very worst, he’s a mid-rotation starter who can be trusted to make a playoff start.” —10,000,000 Mets fans would like a word.
For what it’s worth, if it comes up again in this this thread I’m ready to work the law degree out and explain the long-standing tension between the establishment and free exercise clauses in case the resident slow folks want to show their ignorance further.
We await with bated breath.
what
Think you might be on the wrong website
Sir, this is a FanGraphs
I’m just trying to figure out what comment or part of the article he is even referring to
While I’m excited about Acuna’s addition, I think the Mets should have gotten a tad bit more since they are splitting most of the bill and Scherzer still adds great value in the playoffs.
What a lot of people are missing about Scherzer is that he is still pitching at near-elite level during the first two times through the order (.284 wOBA, 2.70 ERA this year). It’s the 3rd and 4th time through the order that he’s getting killed (.425 wOBA, 8.51 ERA). In the past few years, Scherzer still pitched great up until the 4th time through the order.
It’s a sign of decline but he didn’t drop from elite to average as a whole. He just shaved about 1–2 innings of usage during the playoffs, which is when pitchers have shorter leashes anyway.
In comparison, Giolito is pitching .331/3.77 during the first two times through the order and .276/4.05 after that. He can go longer than Scherzer but that’s not as valuable in the playoffs.
Texas just got themselves a pitcher who can pitch at an all-star level for 5–6 innings during the playoffs. That shouldn’t come cheap.
It also shouldn’t cost $60M.
$22M + a 50 is about right.
A bit more than a top fifty prospect for a guy with a near 5 fip and a guy getting hit harder than ever? I don’t agree
I think you just explained why the return is what it was though. Scherzer, while not completely cooked, is not a world-destroying ace anymore.
At best, he’s a twice through the order guy, which obviously has value, but is still at least a tier below a top flight starting pitcher.
At worst, he’s a pitcher with an ERA over 4.00 and a FIP near 5.00. That too has some value, but again this is closer to a mid rotation starter than “Max Scherzer, obvious ace”
For a team like the Rangers, who lack great pitching behind Eovaldi, it’s a great addition to now gain a starter who can come in twice in a playoff series and pitch around a 2.80 ERA for 10–12 innings total during the series. There weren’t many available. They also were able to gain him for little for next year as well.
This is a good take. You can’t evaluate trades on a spreadsheet when they happen because of contextual demands. The value Scherzer offers to the Rangers to earn a bye and have a high ceiling starter in the playoffs far outweighs whatever add’l millions of $s they’d spend elsewhere. I suppose you could argue this makes it harder for them to sign Urias, etc. next season, but now they’re a legit WS contender. Maybe it blows up, but it’s not hard to understand the reasoning.
Again, so we are talking about a team lacking great pitching and then saying Eovaldi like somehow Eovaldi is great pitching but Scherzer isn’t. I realize Eovaldi has been great this year, but ever since he came to the MLB he has had 0 seasons where he outperformed Scherzer. Who is a better pitcher? Scherzer. No recency bias will change my mind on that, at all.
Again, he has been an ace since 2013. If we are being reasonable would we think that this season is more of an aberration or this is the new normal for him?
He has a very, very long track record of being very, very good. Nevertheless Father Time has an even longer track record of being unbeaten.
This is a good point, and there’s definitely something there. His K% from first time through to third time through is 29.8/28.5/21.9. However, there’s no guarantee that you can get great production as long as you get him out before he switches from Jekyll to Hyde. His xFIP goes 3.94/4.16/4.24. That indicates he’s mostly the same pitcher throughout the whole game. Maybe the wildly differing results are just a SSS fluke? Though your assertion that he pulled a similar trick in recent years would indicate otherwise.
I think this article, and probably the rest of baseball fandom, is seeing Max Scherzer get traded and reacting without seeing what he’s been up to this year. This article says that at worst he’s pitching like a mid rotation starter who you can trust in the playoffs. FIP and ERA and xERA disagree here but you have to take a relatively optimistic stance to view him like that. Maybe he’s not healthy and he will be better in 2024 but the little injuries are piling up. There’s no guarantee that he will be better or that he will be healthy.
In that context I think the Mets did a fantastic job here. Acuna looks like an everyday guy at second base and soon, excellent insurance if McNeil doesn’t rebound or an excellent trade chip if he does. The Mets have money. They can go get Yamamoto or Jordan Montgomery or E-Rod in the offseason. Those guys might even be better than Scherzer in 2023. It plays to their strengths, meaning it involves spending like a teenager with mom’s credit card.
For the Rangers, this is an upside bet. It’s clear they are chasing guys who might be able to front a playoff rotation if healthy. That’s why they spent so much money on DeGrom. And while Scherzer probably isn’t that guy anymore, maybe he is? This is the best Rangers team we have probably seen in at least a decade. There is an outside chance this is the best Rangers team we have ever seen. This is not a time to get precious with prospects.
Everything the Rangers have been doing is upside bets.
DeGrom didn’t pay off but the others have.
This one? TBD.
At least Scherzer gets what might be his last playoff run instead of playing out the string in NY and having to choose between gambling on FA or the Mets turning things around in ’24.
Heaney’s been pretty bad this year but Eovaldi worked out wonderfully so far though now he’s banged up.
McNeil could always move to the OF if he gets back on track and when Acuna’s ready to take over at second base.
It’s certainly would be a nice problem to have. I fully expect the Mets to go hard after nearly every top player without a qualifying offer for the next couple of offseasons, so it will depend who they get from that. This offseason, that’s mostly pitchers–Yamamoto is the prize, with Montgomery, Giolito, and E-Rod after them.
On the position player side, that will be…uh…hold on let me look…Justin Turner? Joc Pederson? And then in the offseason after that, you’ve got a bunch of guys who will get the QO if they even hit free agency (Altuve, Bregman, and Soto) and maybe Alex Verdugo and Max Muncy.
Agreed in general but this is definitely not the best Rangers team we’ve seen imo, not by a long shot. That 2011 team was so, so good, and should’ve won it all.
That was the only team I could think of that I thought was likely better than this (the “in a decade” remark was in reference to that), but I hadn’t looked at the team in a while and wasn’t sure. I just looked at their performance that year and wow that team was loaded. That must have been the one time in Rangers history they had a legitimate playoff-worthy rotation. CJ Wilson, Matt Harrison, and Alexi Ogando all had career years, and the lineup was strong too.
So this team is firmly in the running for #2, then.
This years offense…while having cooled down, I recall a month or so ago they had an entire starting lineup that on the mlb app had an ops over .900, literally every single starter.
FWIW from someone who’s watched every Scherzer start, I don’t think injury or general health is the cause of his problems. The primary problem is he’s hanging a ton of sliders this year. (You could easily see the difference in the slider’s quality and consistency in his few really good starts.) Secondarily, he’s lost velocity on his fastball. I don’t know whether sticky stuff enforcement or aging is the primary cause, but I have to guess that both are significant factors.
I believe he’s lost velo on all of his pitches.
Yes, okay. To be more precise, as often happens with aging pitchers, the problem is that his fastball-vs-offspeed differential is shrinking.
Must be nice to sign an old pitcher to an asinine contract; and then when you regret it buy your way out of it with $35 million. And get a decent prospect to boot.
I typically find teams that spend like crazy to be very annoying and often detrimental to the game, but this is so over the top it’s mostly funny.
And a likely object lesson.
In MLB there is no sure thing…
…except maybe the Dodgers. 😁
That’s not how a sunk cost works. Cohen didnt “spend” 35M to get out of the contract.
Idk what to think of this. On 1 hand, getting a good prospect then reinvesting the savings to replace Scherzer with a comparable pitcher makes sense. On the other hand, if Mets are all in on winning in 2024, having the would be replacement for Max be an addition on top of Max obviously makes them significantly better than the alternative in the short term.
Then they wouldn’t have baby Acuna…
For 2024, Scherzer is more valuable than Acuna. Even if they spend to replace, they aren’t better paying $27M to Max in 2024 than they’d be paying $43, and keeping him.
I think people need to realize that they’re not going to be any better in ’24 if they’re selling for prospects. No amount of free agents is going to make up for what they’re selling right now.
I think that this would be correct in every situation except the current one. The scale the Mets are spending on is a different level than we are used to. Yamamoto is widely considered to be a better pitcher than Senga, and they will be in on him for sure, plus some set of Montgomery, Giolito, and E-Rod. A Verlander-Yamomoto-Senga-E Rodriguez-Quintana rotation will be almost as good as what they planned to roll with this year. That, plus some better health can put them back in the mix.
As a Mets fan, I really, really, really hope they don’t sign bum ass E-Rod.
The 30-year old pitcher with a 2.95 ERA, 3.46 xERA, and 3.18 FIP? That’s “bum ass” E-Rod?
But what have they sold so far? A rental reliever and a 38 year old pitcher with an ERA over 4.00?
Robertson and Scherzer might be household names, but their production is not irreplaceable next year. It’s not like they traded Nimmo and Alonso here
It’s not just about what they’re selling but also what they need in general. Their bullpen has almost zero depth now and their lineup has holes and their rotation had a missing spot or two with Scherzer. Adding a starting pitcher and reliever to those needs is a lot to acquire via free agency alone.
But that was already true. Robertson wasn’t under control for 2024.
Losing Scherzer opens up a hole, but that hole is probably more of a #3/4 starter than an ace. He just simply isn’t an ace anymore
This is severely underrating Scherzer, who is likely better than any FA P they get despite the disappointing season.
I’m not underrating Scherzer, I’m simply not ignoring this year. He objectively hasn’t pitched particularly well, and at his age a bounce back would be nearly unprecedented
They do presumably get Edwin Diaz back next..who might be the best closer in the game. Plus relief pitching is a crap shoot anyways. They could sign 3-4 live arms for not a ton of money and see what sticks.
They could literally sign Robertson again if they wanted to outbid everyone. This doesn’t have to be goodbye forever if you’re willing to spend a ton of money.
Not to mention the zillion other players they could sign. They could sign Will Smith (the pitcher), who is good again. Or Jordan Hicks. They could sign all three and send out Smith in the sixth inning, Hicks in the seventh, Robertson in the eighth, and Diaz in the ninth. The sky’s the limit here.
Atlanta might suggest 2nd place is their limit. 😎
It’s what the 2016 Yanks did with Chapman; that one worked out well for both sides — Yanks got Gleyber and resigned Chapman (and it was only after that contract’s original duration elapsed that things went south between him and the Yanks); Cubs won a WS, which was something they hadn’t done in a little while.
With the lock in for next year with a lot of that year paid by the Mets the Rangers did well in the trade. Hopefully they will go with a six man rotation for the rest of the regular season to keep Eovaldi and Scherzer fresh.
You know who else likes pitching in a six-man rotation and will be a free agent next year? (wide eyes emoji)
ARam as #1 Mets prospect was always a big reach. He’s more #1 in what one expects a top prospect to look like but he hasn’t yet done much to justify the lofty rankings he keeps getting. Maybe eventually the results will catch up but he’s not there yet. I have ARam about their 9th or 10th best prospect right now.
Considering one nation state is willing to pay double the Mets entire payroll on one player, they have a way to go to yet…
The Rangers are moving on from the Mets to the Cards: they just picked up Montgomery and Stratton.
The Cards also moved Hicks to Toronto.
Things are just heating up.
I think everyone is missing the brilliance of how Cohen cut his losses here. The Mets are paying $36 million to the Rangers, $9 million this year and $27 million next year. They are saving $6 million in salary this year and $16 million next year. But those savings double because the Mets would have been paying luxury tax on those amounts. So, the Mets paid $36 million to the Rangers, but realized savings of $44 million. In other words, they unloaded Scherzer, got Acuna, and pocketed approximately $8 million.
Between the dead contracts (most notably, Robby Cano) and trade payments — all taxed at 50% because they’d still be over the fourth level without them — Cohen’s going to shell out over $100 mil in “sunk cost money” this year.
That’s impressive or depressing, not sure which, maybe both?