The View from the Bleachers

At the time of speaking the Mets look like they will be sticking with what they’ve got and not making a trade before today’s 4pm deadline. They want players, but don’t want to give up any of their young prospects such as Fernando Martinez or John Neise. I think this is a mistake, and this is my reasoning:

Omar Minaya, a few seasons back, decided that he was going to build a team to win now. When you do that, you have to finish the job before you start to build for the future. That job is obviously unfinished. The Mets need have two obvious deficiencies. One is in corner outfielding. Right field isn’t too bad, I’d be happy to stick with Ryan Church and Endy Chavez. However, at the moment left field is Fernando Tatis, Marlon Anderson and Nick Evans. Tatis is performing miracles at the moment, but you wouldn’t want to rely on him down the stretch, and Anderson and Evans are not the cover you’d expect of a serious play-off contender. The second is in the bullpen.

So, who would I trade? I would definitely use Martinez in a trade. Yes, he’s a terrific prospect, but great outfielders are a dime-a-dozen, and even if he turned out to be an above-average player, it isn’t the greatest loss ever. It isn’t like trading away Scott Kazmir a few years back - that was a huge mistake as you should never trade away your hot young pitching prospects (especially not for Victor Zambrano!). Then I would probably throw in either Scott Schoenenweis or Carlos Gomez.

Of course, this doesn’t look like it will happen, so it’s all conjecture. The Mets are hot at the moment (despite the series loss to the Marlins), but it’s still a patched up team, and, despite the current form of Carlos Delgado, Jose Reyes and David Wright, they are still depending on what are to all intent and purposes bench players like Tatis, Chavez, Argenis Reyes, Damion Easley and Ramon Castro performing to the best of their ability. I wouldn’t like to have to keep depending on them for another two months.