Mets swing a big trade
N.Y. gets SS, Carrasco; Rosario, Gimenez plus prospects to Cleveland
All- Star shortstop Francisco Lindor is headed to the Mets in a six-player deal with the Cleveland Indians./
Francisco Lindor was hard to miss in Cleveland’s spring training clubhouse one morning early last March. He is a magnetic presence anyway, with a buoyant personality and a winning smile, and he was also the only player in the room with a shock of curly hair dyed bluish silver.
This was a more exciting day than most in Goodyear, Arizona, because one of Lindor’s teammates, right-handed pitcher Carlos Carrasco, was making his first start since the spring of 2019, when he learned that he had chronic myeloid leukemia. Carrasco fought the disease for three months, a span that included the All- Star Game in Cleveland, where he was part of a stirring on-field tribute, and he returned as a reliever late that season.
“He cares so much about the game, about spending time with us,” Lindor said. “That’s all he kept on saying: ‘I want to be back, I want to play the game, I want to be with you guys, I miss you guys.’ It shows bravery, trying to get back with us as soon as he can. It made us feel like: ‘ Why are we complaining about being cold or hot or slumping ? Don’t take anything for granted.’ ”
Lindor and Carrasco helped Cleveland reach the playoffs in 2020, for its fourth time in five seasons, and Thursday they embarked on a new adventure with the New York Mets. In the first blockbuster trade of Steve Cohen’s ownership, the Mets acquired the pair for infielders
Amed Rosario and Andres Gimenez, pitching prospect Josh Wolf and outfield prospect Isaiah Greene.
“It’s one of the hardest things
in baseball to get: a shortstop, a superstar in his prime, a charismatic personality, a guy who makes his teammates better,” Mets general manager Jared Porter said. “And adding a guy like Carrasco in the same deal just lengthens out the rotation and really gives a different look from the other guys in the top half. We’re excited. It’s definitely satisfying. We gave up significant resources to get them.”
Maybe, maybe not. In parts of four seasons with the Mets, Rosario was little better than league average. Gimenez was a consensus top-100 prospect before his promotion to the majors last year, while Wolf and Greene were ninth and 10th in the Mets’ prospects rankings at Mlb.com.
“We gave up two prospects that we really like, but they weren’t part of our top six or seven, if you just look at some of the lists objectively,” said Sandy Alderson, the Mets’ team president. “We have never said we’re not going to trade prospects out of our system, but what we’ve done is, we’ve said to ourselves and expressed to others that we’re not moving the top handful of our players. I think this deal respects that.”
It is a surprisingly painless deal, at least for now, and continues Cohen’s blissful honeymoon with the Mets. The team signed catcher James Mccann (four years, $40 million) and righthanded reliever Trevor May (two years, $15.5 million) in December, and has now added a solid starter in Carrasco and, perhaps, the game’s premier shortstop.
Lindor, who turned 27 in November, is a slick fielder with a .285 career batting average and a power-speed combination rarely seen around Flushing. The Mets did not request a negotiating window to talk with Lindor, a free agent after 2021, before the trade. Alderson said the Mets would pursue a long-term contract soon but had not yet spoken with Lindor’s agent.