The Mets acquired All-Star pitcher Chris Bassitt from the A’s Saturday night, sending J.T. Ginn and Adam Oller to the A’s to complete the deal. Bassitt finished eighth in the CY Award ballotting in 2020 and made the All-Star team last year, a season which he ended up going 12-4 with a 3.15 ERA and a 3.3 fWAR. It took awhile for the recently-turned 33 year old to get established in the majors. But in his last three seasons, Bassitt is a combined 27-11 with a 3.26 ERA in 364.1 IP.

Bassitt made a career-high 27 starts last year and would have made more if not for suffering a fractured jaw thanks to a line drive back to the box. He returned in late September and made two starts, combining for 6.1 IP and 1 ER.

He has a deep repertoire with an average fastball velocity of 93.0 last year. He also throws a slider, cutter, curve and change. The Mets have him for one season, as 2022 will be his final year of arbitration. Bassitt made $4.9 million last season.

To get Bassitt, the Mets gave up on Ginn, one of their top 10 prospects, and Oller, who figured to make his MLB debut sometime this season. This seems like a win-win trade. The A’s were clearly in rebuilding mode and the Mets needed someone to slot in as an SP3. Ginn has the potential to be Bassitt down the road and Oller should help them this season. Bassitt likely would have been more expensive than the A’s would have liked this year and he’d likely leave after the season, too.

As for the Mets, this takes most of the sting away from missing out on Carlos Rodon, although they had to part with their closest-to-the majors pitching prospect to make that happen. Ginn was a Brodie Van Wagenen draft pick, which possibly made him more available than if he was acquired by Sandy Alderson or Zack Scott.

17 comments on “Mets get Chris Bassitt from the A’s

  • NYM6986

    This is a nice under the radar a bit trade where the Mets pick up a solid three who has apparently finally hit his stride. They did not part with an MLB talent nor any of the promising bats working towards Queens. Now a bullpen piece next and oh what the hell, give me one more big bat.

  • Metsense

    Bassitt checks the box as a solid SP3 for 2022. Now Carrasco and Walker will follow in the rotation. Megill and Peterson will be the depth starters in AAA and will opportunity plenty of opportunities on the major league level because pitchers get hurt. Willams will the the major league swing man and Yamamoto will also be in AAA. The rotation is complete and the depth is sufficient.
    Ginn was a good prospect but he is two years away. This is a “now” trade and with the previous free agent signings and expenditures the focus and philosophy should be “now”.

  • TexasGusCC

    Maybe I’m a prospect hugger, but I didn’t like this trade. When Alderson took over, he claimed there’s two currencies in baseball: money and prospects. Seems like the Mets are always parting with prospects. If Basset was more than a one year player, I’d feel better. But, Ginn was outstanding in college before his surgery and is working his way back. Did he not show an increase in velo yet this spring up from his 93 last year to his college 99? We don’t know.

    I guess the “Steve Cohen Tax bracket” has spooked the Mets into feeling they need to be on their best behavior and not sign free agents that will inflate the payroll. I like the improvement and I know you need to give in order to get, but…

    The Mets want to be the Dodgers. Ok, do the Dodgers trade for one year of guys that aren’t elite and give up their better prospects? I mean, Mookie Betts is a 10 WAR player, so I understand. The Mets, however, trade for 3 WAR players using their better prospects instead of signing an upside free agent (Johnny Cueto) or another one year stopgap. That bothers me.

    • Metsense

      Gus, I feel your pain for including Ginn in the trade but this is a Eppler Mets not the Alderson Mets. They are built to compete now. Eppler didn’t want to bring in another question mark for the rotation. He brought in a consistent pitcher that had a track record. They Mets still have Alvarez, Baty, Vientos, Mauricio and Allan as prospects. They needed a SP#3 now, not in 3 years, so Ginn was a price that they paid.
      Also, I don’t think “the Steve Cohen Tax Bracket ” will impede him and maybe incite him. He wants to win at all costs.

      • TexasGusCC

        Thank you Metsense. I understand.

        It’s partly the lack of pitching that bothers me. Trading Mauricio, for example, wouldn’t have bothered me as much. I can’t say that Grienke, Cueto, or another available pitcher is a better bet for the upcoming season. But, planning year-to-year saps reserves.

        Seems pitching is the currency of choice in trades, or from the Mets. I’d like to see a bounty of real good ones this draft.

  • Wobbit

    It may take a few years for the front office to hit its stride. So one year players give them a chance to correct course as they go. Any way you look ai it, Basset improves the team now. I like that.

  • Woodrow

    Kimbrel? Shouldn’t cost much in talent as his contract is very high. A boom or bust signing.

  • T.J.

    I share a tad of Gus’s concern about liquidating a pitching prospect a player with one year of control, but I still see this as a good move. Clearly, with the Scherzer move, they are a now team. By all accounts, Bassitt is a legit #3 and slot perfectly into the rotation, and fill a major need for an under-market salary. They are now upwards of $275 million in 2022 payroll, with more needs, and even Uncle Stevie has his limits and is wise to consider salary commitments over a multi-season stretch. So, what to make of the loss of Ginn…from my distant perspective, it comes down to what they think of Peterson and Megill. It seems Ginn’s projection ceiling is somewhere in the #3 to #5 starter range. It is reasonable to see Peterson and Megill as ceiling #4/#5, already have some limited flashes of success in the bigs, and controllable for a long time. At this stage, with the added organizational resources, I’ll trust that they could like with parting with Ginn…this isn’t the Jeff/Brodie show any more.

  • Remember1969

    When this trade was announced yesterday, my knee jerk reaction was “not again”. That now makes three GMs in a row that have dealt a top pitching prospect in a ‘win now’ move. So far, the results are incomplete. The Win Now has not happened with Diaz, Cano, or Stroman, but none of the prospects traded away has done much to make anyone think we just traded Nolan Ryan again.

    I was a fan of Ginn, and I am a fan of sustained organizational success by utilizing all means possible, including a good mix of draft, develop and promote the young players.

    After a day, I am actually feeling better about this trade. I think Bassett is a good plug for the hole they had in the rotation for 2022.

  • BoomBoom

    Scherzer and Bassitt replacing Stroman and Hill. I can live with that.

    Megill and Peterson occupying the space where Ginn would have. Yamamoto is still young. And Luchessi comes back next season.

    Ottavino replaces Familia. Sign Chafin and we ve got a solid staff top to bottom.

    • BoomBoom

      One caveat…almost everyone cN be a free agent next year so this is definitely a win now team.

  • TexasGusCC

    From Keith Law, for reference only. I’m not implying anything.

    “I thought the time of the Mets trading away recent draft picks before they even got their feet wet in pro ball might be over, but they’ve done it again, dealing right-hander J.T. Ginn, their second-round pick in 2020, after just a single season in the minors – his first year back from Tommy John surgery – to acquire right-hander Chris Bassitt from Oakland. Ginn was a different pitcher after he came back from the year off, moving away from a power approach with a plus-plus slider, becoming an extreme groundball guy with a strong changeup and better control than he’d shown prior to the injury. I wouldn’t be surprised to see another step forward from him in 2022, now that he’ll be another year removed from surgery. But even as he was last year, he projects as a mid-rotation starter who’ll be able to work deeper into games because he gets so many groundballs and can do so early in counts. There’s still some question about him holding up long-term, but I’d take six years of him for one year of Bassitt all day long.

    The A’s also got Adam Oller, a 27-year-old journeyman whom the Mets got in the Rule 5 draft’s minor league phase in 2019. He’s improved his velocity later in his career, working with a 55 fastball with a ton of action and throwing enough strikes that he could be the A’s fifth starter right now. I don’t think there’s much of a ceiling here given his age, but the difference between Bassitt and whatever Oller and Ginn might produce in the majors in 2022 is probably less than three wins, maybe closer to two.

    As for Bassitt, he’s become a much better pitcher over the last three years, but also got a big boost from pitching in Oakland’s forgiving home park – since the start of 2019, he’s given up 11 homers at home and 31 on the road. He succeeds despite a lack of plus velocity or movement on his fastball or any sort of plus secondary pitch by mixing six different pitches, right down to a very slow curveball, getting weak contact on his ordinary four-seamer mostly through deception and tunneling. He drops down on the four-seamer for an unusually low release point, similar to that of all of his pitches except for the curveball, which he probably doesn’t need anyway. There’s no real upside here – the hope is he repeats his 3.3 fWAR/3.9 rWAR season, but I think there’s some likely regression as he leaves a friendlier ballpark, and because he lives in the middle of the strike zone so much. I’d forecast something around 2.5 WAR, and for just one year, Ginn alone seems like a lot to give up, even with his durability question.”

  • JimmyP

    I had hopes for Ginn.

    But when you want to win now, you are always at a disadvantage in trades with teams that aren’t interested in winning.

    “Now” costs more than “Later.”

    And flags fly forever.

    They are going for it.

    I am still very curious about future trades and the status of McNeil.

    Not at all crazy about Ottavino. He’s just a guy.

    • TexasGusCC

      When the slider is working, Ottavino’s untouchable.

      Yes, flags fly forever… I’m letting it go… a little… LOL.

      Do you really think the buyer is at a disadvantage? I would presume the seller that h a s to sell is at the disadvantage. The A’s could hold Bassett, but his value can only go down. I would have signed Cueto, Pineda, or Grienke… why give all that for one year.

      Honestly, since the RA Dickey trade, I can’t recall a trade that I was proud of the Mets for making.

  • JimmyP

    It’s interesting that the Mets get Bassit for one season — give up two prospects, one of whom could very well turn out to be a solid ML pitcher for years to come — and that’s all good.

    But when the Mets traded prospects for Diaz & Cano — 8 years of ML control — it was commonly seen here as catastrophic, world-ending stuff.

    • Brian Joura

      Well, this is an interesting take.

      The “control” of Cano came with a $100 million obligation for the final years of his career, which were almost guaranteed not to be worth it. The Mets got unbelievably lucky that one of the five years was only 60 games and another year was wiped out for his PED suspension.

      Of course, the real crime in that deal was not shopping Kelenic & Dunn to the other 28 teams and seeing what they could have gotten in return from another team.

  • ChrisF

    This is the cost of business. Cohen put the Mets on a 5 yr time frame to win the WS. Time is ticking fast.

    But the main things I see are this is a guaranteed year for Jake, and Scherzer. Waiting years for Ginn to maybe make the bigs in a meaningful way after putting those guys together would be malfeasance. Nothing would compare to trading Michael Fulmer, whi went on to win a RoY as a Tiger, dropped off the face of the earth, and now is a reliever.

    Bassitt is a legit big league mid rotation starter it appears, and going from one pitchers park to another. If he pitches to his card, I think you go into the playoffs with a criminally strong rotation all other things considered.

    As for Law, his interest in the game ends with prospects. Its a privileged position. He doesnt care who wins a World Series. Its not like they traded Baty or Vientos.

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