Mets History Rewritten: Passing on Francisco Rodriguez for a chance to draft Mike Trout

When it comes to Mike Trout, every fan across baseball wants him on their team including those who follow the New York Mets. It may not be as good of an idea as one may think especially when your owners are the Wilpons.

The year was 2008. The New York Mets had just completed yet another end of season collapse for the second straight year missing the playoffs by three games. Omar Minaya needed to make a move during the following offseason, so he went out and signed the best available closer on the market Francisco Rodriguez, aka K-Rod.

K-Rod had saved 62 games in 2008 and pitched to a 2.24 ERA. As part of the Mets signing K-Rod, they had to relinquish their first-round pick in the 2009 MLB First-Year Player Draft. Their selection that year was 24th overall which would go to the Los Angeles Angels.

The Angles in that draft would take Randal Grichuk with the 24th selection but it was the next Angels selection that would be one that changes baseball history forever.

The Angels also had the 25th pick in that draft due to the New York Yankees signing Mark Teixeira in the winter of 2008. With the 25th selection, the Angels drafted Mike Trout and one can only think what the Mets last eight years would have looked like had they not signed K-Rod and ended up drafting Mike Trout instead.

Had the Mets not signed K-Rod, who was a big waste of money and ended up getting traded in 2011, they would have presumably still had the 24th selection in the 2009 draft. This would give them the opportunity to draft a local Jersey kid out of High School named Trout. No one knows if the Mets would have drafted Trout but let’s have some fun and imagine they did.

Trout has been the best player in baseball since he played his first full season with the Angels in 2012. Trout won A.L. Rookie of the Year that year and almost won A.L. MVP as well but Miguel Cabrera recorded a triple crown that year and ended up winning MVP.