Mets: Three subtle trades to improve the team for the 2020 season

Yankees, Tigers, and Mets, Oh My!

Another trade the Mets would be wise to consider is one where they acquire someone to be their every day, reliable and effective hitting center fielder. I know, many of you really like Brandon Nimmo and that infectious smile of his, but honestly, I see him more as a high-end fourth outfielder than I do an everyday starter.

Having only one full year under his belt where he has stayed healthy since the Mets called him up in his four years in the majors isn’t enough to convince me that Nimmo can be an every day productive center fielder. As a fourth outfielder, however, I can see Nimmo as an upgrade over Juan Lagares‘ bat without that much of a drop off on defense.

Other fans would consider giving Jeff McNeil a chance of playing 120 to 130 games in right field and moving Michael Conforto over to center on a full time basis. While that may have a chance of working, having watched McNeil play right field a lot last year, he just didn’t look very comfortable in that position to me.

There were many instances where I saw him misjudge line drive fly balls off of opponents’ bats or take wrong angles to cut off balls hit to him in the outfield. I think he would be better off being the everyday starting third baseman and occasionally relieving Robinson Cano at second base defensively. The infield just seems to be more naturally suited for the Squirrel’s abilities.

And then there’s the man with the best exotic sport car collection on the entire team, Yoenis Cespedes. I honestly think we can forget about relying on Cespedes having any chance of coming back and giving us 120 to 140 games in the outfield for 2020. The team and us fans should realistically expect no more than 25 to 40 games at the most from the Cuban slugger.

If this is the case, the need for acquiring a durable, solid hitting and solid defensive center fielder should be a top priority for the Mets in 2020.

Since the Mets and Yankees are probably not going to be trading directly with one another any time soon, it might be in both teams’ best interests to bring in a third team to indirectly pull off a trade where the Mets send  Andres Gimenez to a team like the Detroit Tigers and the Tigers send one of their young starters like Matthew Boyd to the Yankees. The Mets can get some combination of Clint Frazier and a young Double-A pitching prospect like Alex Faedo from Detroit to complete the deal.

The reason I propose putting Gimenez into the trade mix is the Mets have another, even better-looking prospect in Ronny Mauricio, who we can expect to come up and contribute as early as 2021 to this ball club. Between Mauricio, a budding star in Amed Rosario anchoring shortstop for many years to come and Jeff McNeil able to adequately play second or third, we can afford to use Giminez as a trade chip to fill other needs.

Clint Frazier, himself, has shown the ability to play all three outfield positions somewhat decently and has even commented on how comfortable he feels playing center field on an every day basis if he had the opportunity. At the plate, his discipline and contact abilities show, that given enough time and reps to play the big league level, Frazier has the potential to be as productive as Michael Conforto offensively.

And having a cost controlled outfield of Conforto, J.D. Davis and Frazier should be more than adequate enough to free up a big portion of team salary to be used towards relief pitching and adding a replacement starter for Zack Wheeler.

A Royal Trade

The third and final trade I think the Mets should look to consider if they want to improve their chances at play off contention in 2020, is packaging a trade that would send Dominic Smith and one of either Double-A pitching prospect Dedniel Nunez or 3B prospect Will Toffey along with Edwin Diaz to the Royals for SP Jakob Junis and RP/SP Ian Kennedy.

Junis is a bit of an innings eater type of pitcher that, on the right team, can get 10 to 14 wins and serve as a high-end number four or low-end number three type of pitcher in a rotation. He features a slider that he can throw for strikes or induce weak ground ball contact with.

With Zack Wheeler demanding the kind of money he will most likely get in the free agent market, Junis can be a nice substitute fill-in that won’t cost the Mets much money and will be under team control until 2023.

Kennedy would be the type of long reliever or seventh or eighth inning set up man that would be an upgrade over Gsellman in my opinion. Being able to package Kennedy with Seth Lugo late in ball games will be a nice combination for the Mets to rely on in 2020. Kennedy also has experience and versatility, being able to either close or start 10 to 12 games a season. He was able to notch 30 saves for the Kansas City Royals in 2019.

Even though Kennedy is scheduled to make $16.5 million next season, he will be an unrestricted free agent the following year, so the Mets wouldn’t be locked up with the 35-year-old veteran for too long.

We can all agree that none of these moves are as “splashy” as the team trading for a Starling Marte or a Mookie Betts type of player. I do believe, however, that making a combination of small moves like these as well as signing two to three decent free agents to further bolster the team’s weaknesses from 2019 will go a long way to making this team achieve over 90 wins in 2020.

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Hopefully, with some better guidance by newly appointed manager Carlos Beltran and some timely trade deadline moves in the regular season, we will be rooting for our ball club to be winning crucial games in playoff series come next October.