Ken Rosenthal is my go-to guy for inside information about the sport of baseball. He should be yours too. But Rosenthal recently set aside his insider hat and put on his GM hat to give Sandy Alderson some advice on how to do his job. Maybe Sandy appreciates it, maybe he’s thinking that Rosenthal should go back to the York Daily Record to cover the Dallastown Wildcats and drug deals at the local Chuck E. Cheese. But Rosenthal responded to the three team deal that the Mets callously ruined with an interesting idea:
Well, what if the Mets offered second baseman Daniel Murphy, a player whom the Nats tried to acquire last July? And what if they sweetened their proposal with one prospect and took a second, lesser player back, considering that Desmond is more valuable than Murphy?
It would by and large would depend on the prospect, but I’m inclined to do this. Now, let’s get the arguments against this out of the way … all valid: First off, Desmond and Murphy are pretty much the same player. Murphy’s average and OBP is a bit higher, Desmond has more pop. Add it all up and you have a difference in .004 in career OPS between the two. (Murphy is at .752, Desmond at .748). Desmond is six months older. Neither player is all that astounding defensively. So why would the Mets give up a prospect and Murphy for pretty much the same player?
Here’s why I’d do it:
First off, Dilson Herrera is close at second base. The plan now from most accounts is that he’s going to start in Vegas this season. But you can pretty much deduce that Murphy is a goner after this year if not sooner. So why not trade him for Desmond, who you can sign long term (unless Gavin Cecchini is seen as the answer … which looking at his stats so far I’d guess not). If you can sign Desmond to a reasonable contract, then this deal works for the long term. And even if not, then you’re trading a prospect not named Syndergaard for the opportunity to swap players in the final season of their contracts. You’re basically making the decision between Murphy/Flores, and Herrera/Desmond.
Second: There’s no clear winner out of those two double play combinations. And it really depends on your taste. Do you like the extra few singles, or the extra few home runs? It’s tight, but for this particular team at this particular time, give me the extra pop.
And Third, at the risk of sounding like a guy who doesn’t make informed decisions on the future of the team we love: WHY THE F*** NOT? Now, I don’t advocate the WTFN reasoning for everything. But ask yourself this: who was the last significant major leaguer that the Mets brought back in a trade? (Not Zack Wheeler, he was a minor leaguer at time of the trade.) Was it Johan Santana? In 2008? It might have been. (Unless you count Jeff Francoeur, in which case I have some mind altering drugs specificially tailored to your mind that I would like you to take, please.) I know Sandy Alderson is prudent, and in the case of say, trades involving Syndergaard, prudent is the right call. But major leaguer for major leaguer, it’s time to cross our fingers and take a chance here.
Sometimes, we tend to fall back towards the “Stick with the Devil you know” line of thinking, if all things are equal. And Daniel Murphy is pretty popular around these parts. But Daniel Murphy, to me, is the perfect example of what Pedro Martinez is talking about when he says that we “settle for what we have”. Some people love Daniel Murphy to the point of obsession. But even more than that, the team settles for what they have even more than the fans. The turnover that the Mets employ can only be described as “glacial” in most cases. It’s not that Daniel Murphy is a bad player … quite good, in fact. But not untouchable. In the right deal, anybody should be on the table. My opinion (and let me throw this in … that everything on this blog is pretty much my opinion), Murphy for Desmond might be the right deal.
Or at least it’s the deal that isn’t going to kill us if it turns out to be the wrong deal. So why the f*** not?
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