Questionable Mets trades will become much worse with loss of 2020 season

PORT ST. LUCIE, FL - MARCH 11: Edwin Diaz #39 of the New York Mets in action against the St. Louis Cardinals during a spring training baseball game at Clover Park at on March 11, 2020 in Port St. Lucie, Florida. (Photo by Rich Schultz/Getty Images)
PORT ST. LUCIE, FL - MARCH 11: Edwin Diaz #39 of the New York Mets in action against the St. Louis Cardinals during a spring training baseball game at Clover Park at on March 11, 2020 in Port St. Lucie, Florida. (Photo by Rich Schultz/Getty Images)

Two questionable New York Mets trades by Brodie Van Wagenen will become unquestionably bad deals if there is no 2020 MLB season.

When Brodie Van Wagenen traded for Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz, there was some immediate outrage from New York Mets fans. The trade turned out to be much worse than anticipated with Cano struggling for most of the year and Diaz practically becoming a batting practice pitcher.

It also didn’t help that Jarred Kelenic is a rising star in the Seattle Mariners farm system. For all of those reasons and more, the deal has the potential to go down as one of the worst in Mets history.

Another questionable trade made by Van Wagenen occurred much later in his Mets’ tenure. In late July, BVW swung big and pulled off a deal with the Toronto Blue Jays for Marcus Stroman. The Mets added a solid pitcher to the rotation in hopes of turning their year around and getting a late playoff push. They ultimately failed but not before a valiant attempt.

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Unfortunately, both of these trades will go from questionable to unquestionably bad if there is no 2020 season. That’s because the Mets gave up a whole lot of future for some present which has now become past.

Cano is going to stay with the Mets until he retires from baseball. I don’t think anyone is too upset about watching him miss a year. The downside with a lost 2020 season is that he’ll return a year older which is never good for a guy already in his mid-30s.

With Diaz, the situation is vastly different. We were all hoping for a turnaround in 2020. Although he may still rebound in the future, he’s now one year closer to free agency. If he does become the pitcher he was while in Seattle, New York will have missed a full year of his excellence.

Finally, there’s the most obvious case of all. Stroman is a free agent after the 2020 season. As Zach Diamond of Rising Apple already examined, The Stro Show could be gone before it ever really began.

I didn’t dislike the Stroman deal when it happened. Things are different now. For the Mets to only get two months of him in the deal, it’s going to be tough to rule this one as a victory for the blue and orange.

The Mets are far from the only team losing this year. Any team that traded away younger players for older ones are losing out. Let’s also not forget the one guy who bought a Rick Porcello jersey. He may never get to show it off at Citi Field.

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It’s a shame we won’t get to see how these trades will fully play out. While the Cano/Diaz trade has time to become less nauseating, a lost 2020 makes it more difficult to believe we can put this one in the books as a win for New York.

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