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3) Pointless NY Mets trade: Darin Ruf for J.D. Davis
It wasn’t just Darin Ruf for J.D. Davis that made this one of the worst Mets trades in recent memory. Even if you have been with the team since 1962, this is a perplexing one.
In need of a right-handed DH, the Mets sent three minor leaguers and Davis to the San Francisco Giants for Ruf. Couldn’t they have just kept Davis instead? Ruf wasn’t having a particularly good year with the Giants anyway. His defensive limitations were greater than Davis. The team would have benefitted far more if they paid for a more flexible defender rather than try to upgrade with an aging player who had us scratching our heads about the moment the deal happened.
Because this happened so recently, we all know where we were and the questions we asked ourselves to try to understand this one. Ruf’s history of hitting left-handed pitchers well was about it. As we witnessed, it wasn’t meant to be in New York. He was horrendous at everything other than perhaps masking Daniel Vogelbach’s own shortcomings.
The Mets made a half-hearted attempt at improving the team at the 2022 trade deadline with this pointless trade standing out as the worst and most aggravating. None of us need hindsight to understand this was a bad idea on paper.