New York Mets: 15 best trades the franchise has ever made

#6 Yoenis Cespedes

Up next on the list we have a man who ran into some off-field issues and unfortunately seems to be remembered for that and not the great production he had when on the field in outfielder Yoenis Cespedes. On July 31st, 2015, the Mets acquired Cespedes from the Detroit Tigers in exchange for minor league pitchers Luis Cessa and Michael Fulmer.

Cessa never played a game for the Tigers and was traded that offseason with pitcher Chad Green to the New York Yankees for future Met Justin Wilson. Fulmer got off to a nice start with the Tigers winning the Rookie of the Year award that next season while finishing tenth in Cy Young voting. Fulmer has not been the same since that season although he was named to the All-Star team the next season.

Fulmer ended up having his 2018 season cut short to a torn meniscus and the 2019 season to Tommy John surgery. In his four seasons, he has combined for a 4.09 ERA and a 1.238 WHIP over 483.2 innings pitched.

As for the Mets return with Cespedes, he put the team on his back once arriving in New York and carried them to their first postseason birth in nine years. Down the stretch in 2015 Cespedes hit .287/.337/.604/.942 with 17 home runs, 44 RBI, 66 hits, and 39 runs scored in only 57 games played with an incredible 2.1 WAR. Cespedes ended up finishing the year thirteenth in MVP voting in the national league which is extremely impressive since only his stats from the Mets counted, which is roughly a third of a season.

Cespedes ended up playing parts of five seasons with the Mets and was great when on the field. He slashed .279/.344/.539/.833 with 76 home runs, 205 RBI, and 180 runs scored in 316 games played with an All-Star game appearance, a silver slugger award, an eighth-place finish in MVP voting and a thirteenth place finish in MVP voting.

Cespedes’ best season following his 2015 stretch was his first full season with the team in 2016. He hit .280/.354/.530/.884 with 31 home runs, 86 RBI, and 72 runs in 132 games played with a 3.0 WAR while being selected to the All-Star game, winning a silver slugger, and finishing eighth in MVP voting.

Once the postseason came around Cespedes did slow down a little but was a big reason the Mets made it to the World Series. In the NLDS he hit 2 home runs, had 4 RBI, and scored 4 runs in the five-game series. In the NLCS he hit .286 with 3 RBI, a stolen base, and 2 runs scored in the four games.

Cespedes is currently second in slugging and fourth in OPS in franchise history. Although Cespedes’ time was not always pretty in New York and the highs of it did not last as long as most would have hoped, it is hard to ignore the impact he had when arriving. Cespedes took a Mets team with one of the worst offensives in the league, put them on his back, and carried the team to their first postseason in nine years and first World Series in fifteen years.