The worst Mets trade for a Hall of Fame player

The New York Mets have made a couple of trades for future Hall of Fame players. Many times, the player already had his spot in Cooperstown reserved. In some cases, he had to land with the Mets and better it.

Some have been good. Others have been horrifically bad.

One that stands out in the bad category is the trade for Roberto Alomar.

NY Mets trade for Roberto Alomar was bad but not really a loss

The trade that brought the Mets second baseman Roberto Alomar wasn’t horrendous because of what they gave up. What makes this a legendarily bad trade for a Hall of Fame player is what he was able to offer them. Fans had gotten used to Edgardo Alfonzo. There was a certain expectation at second base. Alomar surely had a high one to meet.

A year after finishing fourth in the AL MVP race while driving in 100 runs and batting .336, the Mets went out and added Alomar to the roster. Even if the aging infielder wouldn’t be quite as good for them as he was with Cleveland, he was sure to be an impact player.

Alomar batted only .266/.331/.376 for them in year one. He had similar numbers in the middle of his second season during the 2003 campaign. He wouldn’t get a chance to finish the year with the Mets as they dumped him off on the Chicago White Sox.

As I said, this trade wasn’t so much about what the Mets gave up. A slew of minor leaguers and Matt Lawton went to Cleveland. This is an all-time bad Mets trade because of the performance they got out of him and what the expectations were. Nothing suggested Alomar was about to decline this drastically.

This was a period in Mets history when the club was continually losing big trades and making poor free agent additions. Alomar might be the worst trade for a Hall of Fame player they’ve ever made if only because he was supposed to be so much better.