NY Mets-Twins trade idea involving Mark Vientos is missing a key compenent

Twins Daily is exactly what you think it is, unless you assume it’s a website about people who shared a womb. The Minnesota Twins-geared site put together some thoughts as to why they should trade for New York Mets infielder Mark Vientos.

So far, so good.

Herein lies the problem. The two proposed headliners of the deal are a bit fishy and don’t take one key element into consideration. The first offering is Vientos for Bailey Ober plus Boston Baro or Heriberto Rincon. The second switches out Ober for Simeon Woods-Richardson and a mid-tier prospect. The debate isn’t about whether the trades make sense but more so how little this does to actually answer the biggest problem for the Mets: how are they going to improve this rotation?

Bailey Ober and Simeon Woods-Richardson don’t offer the Mets a rotation solution

Ober, despite being 30, does have a remaining minor league option left. This is interesting, but starting pitching depth isn’t what the Mets necessarily need to trade for. It wouldn’t be the worst thing to trade for him in an instance where he gets plugged in as minor league depth to begin the year. 

Woods-Richardson is out of options at only 25-years-old. Coming off of two straight seasons which had him profiling as a back-of-the-rotation option, the trouble with adding him is he’s not much better than some of the other starters on the current Mets rotation. 

You probably remember Woods-Richardson as one of the prospects the Mets traded for Marcus Stroman in 2019. He made his way to the Twins from the Toronto Blue Jays in exchange for Jose Berrios. Still incredibly young and actually someone who can fit into a Mets plan, he just doesn’t seem to match this winter’s ideal situation.

The Mets already need to subtract a starting pitcher from the rotation with Kodai Senga and David Peterson feeling the most likely to get traded away. Senga has Cy Young worthy stuff when he’s on. He’s unanswerable when he’s off. Peterson seems to have some limitations at around 120 innings. He crashed almost as soon as he crossed over that career-high innings total last year.

Vientos plus a prospect for Ober or Woods-Richardson is a very reasonable expectation if we’re starting from scratch. The trouble is the Mets would require another and more impactful move to bolster the rotation. That’s not completely impossible. A separate and bigger trade for Freddy Peralta or Tarik Skubal (stop holding your breath) answers that.

Because the Mets have so many young pitchers in their arsenal at the moment, trading for controllable arms like Woods-Richardson or Ober feels almost unnecessary. Woods-Richardson hasn’t reached arbitration so he’d do minimal damage to the payroll. Would the Mets actually be able to get more from a player like Brandon Sproat tossing every five days? With Ober, at an approximate $6.8 million paycheck next year, it’s not sensible for him to end up anywhere but on the MLB roster.

If the Mets are adding only one starting pitcher this offseason, it needs to guarantee they’ve made their rotation better. If they’re adding two, the secondary player needs to be better than someone he’s replacing. Can we confidently say either of these Twins starters are that solution?