METS CLOBBER GIANTS
Big nights for Ces, Conforto, Flores and, yeah, Cabrera:
SAN FRANCISCO — For a team that has been in the building-up mode for the last five seasons, Friday was something of a shock to the younger players in the Mets clubhouse. As word started to filter around the visiting clubhouse at AT&T Park that Asdrubal Cabrera was asking for a trade, younger players were starting to realize this season was going to be a whole different experience.
“This is the first time I am going through anything like this,” one player said after watching Cabrera’s frank and blunt conversation with reporters. “This is going to be weird.”
It has already been a rough season.
Thursday night, the Mets dropped to 10 games below .500 when they were swept by the Dodgers. They went into Friday night’s game with the Giants 12 games behind the Nationals in the division and 14.5 games out of the second wild card spot.
But Friday seemed to officially shift the Mets from a team looking to contend for a playoff spot to one of those teams looking to rebuild for the future. Though Mets GM Sandy Alderson wasn’t ready to publicly give up on 2017, he all but admitted it’s time to look at trading veteran players stock up for the future.
“I think we have to be realistic about where we are, that’s not to say we’re throwing in the towel by any means,” Alderson said. “We haven’t played very well the last 10 days, we need to play a lot better. Things can turn around in 10 days, but guess what, they need to.
“So in the meantime we have to be realistic about where we are in the division race and where are
in the wild card,” the GM continued. “It’s not going to require more than one or two team to fall back for us to be a possible contender again, but I don’t want to whitewash this, we haven’t played very well. We need to play better. If we don’t, we have to be prepared to recognize that.”
That all but confirmed earlier reports that the Mets were now willing to at least listen to offers on their veterans and begin restocking a thin farm system.
Jay Bruce is most likely to generate calls from other teams. The right fielder has hit 19 home runs in 68 games this season and driven in 48 runs. He is hitting .269 with a .541 slugging percentage. The Mets tried to move him this winter after accepting his $13 million option, but found few reasonable offers.
Curtis Granderson, who is in the final year of a four year deal with the Mets, has come on strong of late. In the last month. The 36-year old outfielder has hit .342 with five homers and 10 RBI over the last month.
Two National League scouts said they wouldn’t expect the Mets to get a very big haul for the veteran assets they will make available. They felt that the Mets could hope to get some mid-level pitching right now, but as expected, would probably being waiting to the end of the trade season to try and drive up the value.
Alderson admitted it was a long ways off.
“It’s easy to say we’ll we’ve got a plan, we’ve got a strategy, in this kind of circumstance, it’s not unilateral. There has to be somebody else out there,” Alderson said. “Really it’s about your posture and willingness to entertain possibilities as they arise. I think it’s fair to say, we’re open to having conversations, it doesn’t mean we’re going to do something that isn’t in our short-term or long-term interest but I want to emphasize there is nothing imminent.
“We’re not on the cusp of something right now.”