Report: New York Mets Willing To Include Money in Trades To Boost Returns

With the trade market fully in swing right now, the New York Mets are looking to sell off a few extra pieces who may not be part of their plans for next year. The Mets do have a very attractive chip in closer Addison Reed, as well as veteran bats who can help teams in a pennant race like Jay Bruce, Lucas Duda, Asdrubal Cabrera, and Curtis Granderson. One potential stumbling block for the Mets in their quest to trade away some of these players is their expensive salaries, which may cause some smaller market teams to be hesitant to acquire them. The Mets are aware of this issue and are now willing to include money for some of their veteran’s salaries in trades to boost a potential return in prospects, baseball insider Ken Rosenthal reports.

Rosenthal singles out Bruce and Cabrera in particular as players who the Mets might need to kick in some money towards in order to facilitate trades. Bruce is due over five million dollars for the remainder of the season, a large amount of money for teams who already have their budgets locked in for the year, while Cabrera is due a two million dollar buyout at the end of the season. The idea here is that the Mets have already budgeted for this money, and since they aren’t going to be picking up expensive veterans in return they might as well pay it to increase the level of prospect they can get back. This is absolutely the right mindset, especially in light of how little a return the Detroit Tigers received for outfielder J.D. Martinez yesterday.

The Mets have gotten a ton of interest in Reed, and Cabrera’s name has been linked to the Boston Red Sox lately as a potential solution at third base. There hasn’t been a ton of movement on Bruce or Granderson yet, while Duda could make sense for a team like the Seattle Mariners, who could use a first baseman in their push to snap a 16 year playoff drought. Mets’ General Manager Sandy Alderson deserves credit for convincing ownership to kick in money in a trade, something that the organization hasn’t done much in the past. Alderson has just under two weeks prior to the deadline to get some deals done, and given his track record of trading the Mets should be in good hands.