3 Mets trades we immediately questioned and turned out to be as bad as expected

When you know, you know. There are certain New York Mets trades the fans just have a sense about being bad ones. Something like the deal with the Seattle Mariners for Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz didn’t look so hot after one year. It was a highly-debated deal that has actually benefited the Amazins far more.

Then there is a stack of trades of a completely different kind. These are the ones that before the player even puts on a Mets uniform we question it. Where was logic when this deal was made?

Taking three examples from over the years, these are three bad Mets trades that fans already knew would turn out poorly.

1) NY Mets fans knew the Victor Zambrano trade was a dud

The day was July 30, 2004, when the Mets acquired Victor Zambrano and Bartolome Fortunato from the Tampa Bay Devil Rays for Jose Diaz and Scott Kazmir. The latter was a top pitching prospect in the system. He would go on to have a successful career with several teams, including Tampa Bay who first benefited from this deal.

Zambrano, on the other hand, wasn’t the right addition for the 2004 Mets hoping to sneak into the postseason. He had never been more than average during his days in Tampa Bay. Not much changed with the Mets.

Zambrano would make 35 starts and 4 relief appearances with them over the course of three seasons. He made just 3 in 2004 and 5 more in 2006. Injuries took their toll on him as they did Fortunato. Oddly, they both had a 3.86 ERA in 2004 for the club. However, Fortunato missed all of 2005 due to an injury and would only appear in 3 more big league innings when he returned the following season.

What made this a worthy trade for this list is how poorly Zambrano was pitching at the time of the deal. He was 9-7 with a 4.43 ERA for the Rays. His 6.8 walks per 9 should have been enough to stay clear.