Now that the Mets have secured Yoenis Cespedes for four years, it is time to make additional moves to improve the team. The Mets do not need three left handed hitting corner outfielders. A good center fielder, who could lead off, but, more realistically, the Mets could trade Jay Bruce for a good bullpen arm.
What teams are in the market for a left handed power hitting right fielder? Here are the teams who could possibly match up with the Mets. The pipe dream would be to acquire a top reliever such as Roberto Osuna or Wade Davis, but pitchers of their caliber would cost more than Bruce.
Blue Jays
With Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista on the market, the Blue Jays need to look at options to fill the void of potentially losing both players. They already filled part of void with Kendrys Morales. Ezequiel Carrera is listed as the right fielder in the depth chart for the Jays. Bruce would add a nice left handed bat to a heavy right handed lineup. The challenge with the Jays is that they lost Brett Cecil and need bullpen help as well. Joe Biagini may be an option, but the Mets can do better than that. A trade with the Blue Jays for Bruce may require a third team.
Mariners
The Mariners have Ben Gamel slotted to play right field. Seattle solidified their lineup with the acquisition of Jean Segura, but they could use a right fielder. The challenge with the Mariners is that they have a heavy left handed hitting lineup. Nick Vincent is a 30 year old right hander who relies on a slider. Vincent has a career 2.94 ERA.
Rays
Steven Souza is slotted to play right field and Nick Franklin is the DH in the depth charts. The Rays need to improve their offense. Alex Colome would be the best target, but a more realistic trade would be for Danny Farquhar who had 46 strikeouts in 35 innings last year.
Royals
The Royals depth chart has Lorenzo Cain in right field and Jarrod Dyson in Center. Cain could move to center field and Bruce would move to right. Bruce would fill the void left by Kendrys Morales, who signed with the Blue Jays. Wade Davis is in his contract year, but the Royals with a chance to contend in 2017, would be hard pressed to trade Davis or Kelvin Herrera. Brian Flynn held batters to a .198 average last year.
Orioles
Joey Rickard is the right fielder on the Orioles depth chart. Eager to fill the void left with Mark Trumbo on the open market, the Orioles are a good match for the Mets. Mychal Givens struck out 96 batters in 74.2 innings with a 3.13 ERA in 66 games.
The Red Sox could be in the mix for Bruce to replace David Ortiz at DH. With Cespedes in the fold, Sandy Alderson now has the flexibility to add important parts to the team and now has more options available.
I don’t think the Rays want to take on Bruce’s $ 13 million contract for 2017. The Mariners have too many left handed hitters in their lineup. The Blue jays are looking for bullpen help and don’t have any really good pieces to trade. I would like to see the Mets go after and get either Givens or Flynn. If the CBA gets settled, there should be a lot of action in D.C. at the winter meetings.
My gut tells me that Bruce will land in Baltimore.
After watching Bruce evaporate in NYC, I’d think the folks in Boston would be wary of asking him to fill the shoes of David Ortiz.
That said, I think he’s a desirable commodity for a great many teams. Mets could go for prospects, be open to a lot of options. We shall see.
I’d approach this like the draft. Go for the best available player/s rather than focus strictly on filling a need.
I would like to see them get a good relief pitcher, but a prospect would be ok too.
Damn. Is the team really going to be selling low on Bruce? What if the Mets go into Spring Training with him in Right Field?
Jim, I think Sandy has proven himself to be very astute in these situations. He has a desirable asset that he’s willing to move. Or maybe that asset is Granderson. In any event, I trust that he’ll evaluate the offers and move accordingly.
I think he’s good at this sort of thing.
I think he’s referring to the fact that the author is foolishly proposing trading a starter caliber player for dime a dozen middle relievers.
Bruce for Robles/Goeddel equivalent reliever? Lol.
He is a starter, but so is Granderson. He costs $ 13 million this year and is gone at the end of the season. Bruce will get traded and Sandy will get value for him. The Mets need another good reliever. Go to metsmerized and see the article on Bruce. It shows the Mets matching up with the Orioles with Mychal Givens. Look at the success of the Indians with Miller and the Royals with Kelvin Herrera. Another good reliever on the Mets is almost a necessity especially with Familias DV issues.
Come on Mike, MMO is a great site and most of us read it, but saying that they should be referred to is not right. While MMO has several articles about all kinds of things everyday, they are mostly written by high schoolers or early college kids and offer a rah-rah approach rather than a well analyzed presentation.
Brian runs a superb site that offers great analytics and mostly commenters bring something valuable to the table, not just “this is what I think” but also why they think it.
I value opinions from callers to WFAN at 3 AM more than anything on MMO.
Exactly correct Gus.
Bruce has to go. Nimmo and Conforto belong in the majors – one platoons in CF with Lagares and the other backs up and bides time til next year when Granderson’s contract is up. Like Jimmy P suggested, let’s get the best player or players we can in return.
Matt, Alderson has already said that Conforto will be playing next year everyday. Hence, I expect both Bruce and Granny to go. Wouldn’t be surprised if Alderson acts quickly to not let it drag out too long and teams fall out of the bidding.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/michael-conforto-and-the-development-of-pull-power/
Bruce is a proven major leaguer, who has much better numbers than what we saw in NY. Trades are notoriously hard on many players. im not advocating for keeping Bruce, but rather to say he is much better then hes been given credit for.
The idea of comparing Bruce to Nimmo or Conforto is pure folly. He is way better than both. Nimmo is most likely a hair-do, not an every day major leaguer. I have he same warm fuzzy feeling about Conforto everyone has, but he needs to earn an every day position all over again. On June 24th last year I went to a game in ATL, that agonizing game we eventually won 8-6 after Matz blew up, and was sitting arounf 3B with an excellent view of the ball crossing the plate from the side. Not only did his swings look bad in the CF cameras, but from the side Conforto was missing balls by several feet. The next day he was demoted. He is no lock to be full time player IMO. Its also clear that Lagares is a platoon guy.
Grandy and Bruce are proven every day big leaguers. Lagares, Nimmo, and Conforto have a long way to go to prove that.
Grandy and Bruce cost $ 28 million between them and will be gone at the end of this year with nothing in return. Wisdom says get rid of them now for value. I’d rather spend the $ 28 million on other players.
The cost is a different story, and so I get there is a cost/benefit consideration to fill out a roster. I was commenting on the notion that Matt made that “Nimmo and Conforto belong in the majors.” I understand Conforto has support of the FO, and so will get a chance to lace up every day…but that is not a lock for the whole season. Nimmo will probably ceiling out as a bench guy. Since his age 22 season, the lowest number of games played by Bruce in any year is 137. He is a 3x all star and 2x silver slugger; he has played in 1270 big league games. Neither Nimmo nor Conforto can hold a candle next to Bruce.
Im fine with trading him, but not good at dismissing Bruce as some sort of hack.
Chris, since I have said since September that both Granny and Bruce should go and we should turn it over to the kids, I feel compelled to answer. Allowing for Nimmo/Lagares to at least be Granny over the course of the year, here is why Conforto may be better than Bruce overall. Bruce hit 33 bombs, and 33 bombs are 33 bombs, and that sounds nice. However, let’s look at why the Reds had trouble moving him last winter and why we hear rumors that Granny may be more sought after than Bruce. Remember, this includes this “great” season Bruce just completed.
From 2014-2016: .231/.295/.440/.735 with a 98 OPS+.
Bruce averaged 537ABs, 72R, 26HR, 84RBI, 49BB, 140K.
His average WAR, per Baseball Refence or Fangraphs was 0.1 per year. I’m not kidding, it was 0.1. Obviously most of that is derived from declining defensive metrics, which we all heard about in late July, but obviously the offense isn’t all that.
So, I would think that a younger ball player that will give a higher average, a better glove, and say around 20-23HRs should be better than what Bruce has been giving. I mean, what is there to lose?
Good points. As I said. I’ll take value in relievers or prospects for Bruce and even Grandy. Based on Bruce’s trends except for part of last year, the trends are terrible.
in 8 seasons where he has logged >140 games including least year, only 2x has he been under 90 RBIs. Say what you want, but Ill take a 30/90 corner outfielder all day every day.
If the Mets were to trade Bruce to Boston the guy I would like to see them target is Blake Swihart. With Leon and Vazquez the Sox are pretty well set at catcher. Swihart has the potential to be a better player than d’Arnaud or Plawecki.
I suspect the Sox would not go for it but it’s worth the ask.
That would be a good trade and it would give Boston the DH that they need.
Bruce and Granderson are former all stars and proven major league players. At this point, Conforto is not. Conforto has the potential to duplicate his 2015 season of 270/335/506/841 with extrapolated 27 home runs. Bruce and Granderson have one more year on their contracts.The weak free agent market for left handed power outfielders has made this the perfect opportunity to move both players. The return should be a quality relief pitcher better than Robles and a low minors high ceiling prospect for each of them. The money saved should be reinvested in Dexter Fowler which would reduce the risk if Conforto is just a mirage.
Metsense, do you see the return for either Bruce or Granderson to be a package similar to Herrera and Wotell?
At this point, I’d rather sign Salas and get prospects. If not Salas, there are enough good bullpen pieces to not need any in a trade, but rather get good prospects, like a 3B prospect at AAA.
There seems to be a strong market for each of them so to expect a better return in prospects would be reasonable. Prospects is the better way to go, especially if you could parlay the saved money in a Fowler signing
^ +1
I agree with you 100% on signing Fowler. He would be an excellent presence at the top of the lineup. Lets see what Sandy has in store at the winter meetings next week.
While everyone loves Fowler, one guy that appeals to me is Ian Desmond. I think he is more a sure thing than Fowler and he has more power. Also, while everyone will point to his declining numbers since 2013 and say that Arlington is a launching pad, the same can be said of Fowler and so is Chicago.
Also, egotistically speaking, I’d love to have Desmond playing against the Nats 19 times. See Murphy in 2016.
you like him for 4/60?
I guess on the high side, but 4/52-60 would be the window. He loves hitting at Citifield, question is does he like the ballpark or does he like hitting against the Mets?
too rich for my blood for Desi.