5 former Mets players the team gave up on and traded too early in their career

It’s one thing to trade a prospect. It’s another to deal away a veteran who just isn’t working out. It’s a whole new ballgame when a team deals away a guy who immediately becomes an impact on his ball club. The New York Mets have been savvy enough to avoid this in their history, right? We wish.

Looking exclusively at younger players who had much more to offer, the Mets ended up sending these five packing too soon. In fact, all of them showed marked improvement immediately upon joining their new ball club.

Which of these trades was the most devastatingly bad example of trading a player too early in his career?

1) NY Mets traded Nolan Ryan too early in his career

The Nolan Ryan trade is a great contender for the worst deal the Mets have ever made. Only the Tom Seaver trade trumps it because of what he meant to the ball club and how senseless it was. We can look at Ryan’s performance and understand the logic behind trading him. He was averaging over 6 walks per 9 innings during his time in New York. Compared to his 8.7 strikeouts per 9, they almost canceled each other out.

Ryan was a wild thing long before Ricky Vaughn was a thought in a screenplay. The potential was always there. Unfortunately, the Mets saw the need to send the future all-time strikeout king to the California Angels on December 10, 1971, in a four for one deal which landed them Jim Fregosi.

Take away the symbolism of what Seaver meant to the Mets and this trade easily tops it. Fregosi was the ultimate Mets bust. Ryan, only one year after leaving the Mets, went 19-16 with a 2.28 ERA.

The Ryan Express never looked back after leaving the Mets. Although he was known for his strikeouts, the man deserves a ton of credit for run prevention. Even with the Mets, it wasn’t until his final season in 1993 when he had an ERA over 4.00. He was already 46. Imagine if he had stuck around in New York and got the coaching he needed. There’d be a 1973 World Series Championship pennant waving at Citi Field and maybe more.

2) NY Mets traded Mike Scott too early in his career

A future teammate of Nolan Ryan’s was involved in one of the next most egregious trades in franchise history where a pitcher looked like he could become something yet never managed to get quite where the team needed to justify keeping him around. This guy is Mike Scott who after the 1982 season was traded to the Houston Astros for Danny Heep.

Scott was 7-13 with a 5.14 ERA for the 1982 Mets. They had seen enough.

Scott was better in 1983, going 10-6 with a 3.72 ERA. A year later, the Mets looked like they made the right call. Scott was 5-11 with a 4.68 ERA. That was the end of his career.

Not quite. Scott reached a whole new level beginning in 1985. He went 18-8 with a 3.29 ERA then topped it the following year by going 18-10 with a 2.22 ERA to lead the league. Backed up by over 300 strikeouts as well, it was an easy choice to award him the Cy Young Award.

This is probably one of the greatest trades in terms of storytelling because of the 1986 NLCS. Scott and the Astros would face the Mets for the right to make it to the World Series. The ex-Met dominated in both of his starts. Each was a complete game with only one run for the Mets in those 18 innings. They still managed to pull away as the victors.

4) NY Mets traded Melvin Mora too early in his career

Melvin Mora never did win an MVP. Trading him away may have somehow still been a bigger blunder. It started in the middle of the 2000 season when the Mets were looking for someone to replace the injured Rey Ordonez at shortstop. Mora started 40 games at the position, but poor defense had the team pivot to the Baltimore Orioles for some help. Mora and three others were sent to the O’s for their impending free agent shortstop, Mike Bordick.

Bordick didn’t end up being the solution the Mets needed. His offensive performance went downhill. He was nothing special on defense either. Mora definitely didn’t belong as a major league shortstop. His inclusion in this deal isn’t any better with that known fact.

Mora had already flamed out as a legitimate prospect by the time he joined the Mets for the 1998 season. His career began way back in 1992 with the Houston Astros. He had a few good years on the farm yet nothing to ever convince Houston he should be fast-tracked to the majors.

His career still managed to extend until 2011. It included nine and a half years with the Orioles where he’d blast 158 home runs while slashing .280/.355/.438. There were definitely ways the Mets could have used Mora in the coming years. They didn’t see enough to hold onto him.

5) NY Mets traded Heath Bell too early in his career

Sometimes the talent is obvious. In other cases it isn’t. Heath Bell was just another guy on the Mets from 2004-2006. Going 1-5 with a 4.92 ERA in 81 relief appearances, the trade with the San Diego Padres prior to the 2007 season didn’t seem like it would have much meaning. This assumption couldn’t have been more wrong.

Bell was 6-4 with a 2.02 ERA in 2007 for the Padres where he somehow managed to make 81 appearances in a single season. It didn’t take long at all for the Mets to realize they may have given up a gem.

The trade itself also sent Royce Ring to the Padres while bringing back Jon Adkins and Ben Johnson. Bell was easily the most accomplished major leaguer of the four. In 2009, the Padres moved him to the closer spot where he saved a league-best 42 games for them. He’d have another year of 47 and a third with 43 before they traded him to the Miami Marlins and his career was officially headed in a nosedive as many will.

There were a lot of good years left in Bell at the time of this trade. Chalk this one up as one of those deals where both teams thought they were getting a more minor piece and one ended up with a three-time All-Star.