CANO DOUBT ABOUT IT
Most of all, this deal will be judged on Robbie’s performance
Let’s get this straight right from the start: Fans don’t care about offsetting salaries, or how much their team pays into the luxury tax, or staying under some owner’s arbitrarily-set payroll cap.
Fans want to see their teams win ballgames and hopefully, championships, and they aren’t all that particular about how those goals are accomplished.
So let’s dispense with all the happy talk about what a great and innovative move the Mets and their new GM, Brodie Van Wage- nen, made in acquiring Robinson Cano and closer Edwin Diaz in exchange for two horrific contracts and a trio of prospects.
There is only one way the value of this deal will be judged, and it is not by how much money Van Wagenen was able to save his bosses, or even how many games Diaz is able to save for the Mets.
This trade is all about the on-field performance of one man: Cano.
To listen to some people talk about Van Wagenen’s first move as a buyer rather than a seller of players, you’d think Cano was just a throw-in on what was sure to be known as the Edwin Diaz deal.
But the truth is, on a day-today basis Cano will impact the Mets’ fortunes a lot more than Diaz will.
How much he impacts them will go a long way to determining, in the zero-sum world we all seem to inhabit these days, whether Brodie and the Mets come up winners or losers.
“Robinson Cano is one of the best second basemen in the history of the game,’’ said Van Wagenen, sounding more like Cano’s agent, which he was when Cano signed his 10-year, $240 million contract with the Seattle Mariners in 2014, than his boss, which he is now.
“To bring in an eight-time All-Star with the ability to hit both right-handers and lefthanders changes the dynamic for us,’’ Van Wagenen said Tuesday. “It makes all of our hitters better.’’
Who the rest of those hitters might be remains to be seen, although Van Wagenen spoke glowingly of Jeff McNeil, Michael Conforto, Amed Rosario and Brandon Nimmo, who was nearby playing Santa Claus at the Mets annual holiday party. But the GM also took pains to point out, “We didn’t make this move to have it be our last move.’’
That is encouraging, because as good as Cano is, he alone cannot transform the Mets from the 77-85 mediocrity they were in 2018 back into the team that went to the World Series three years earlier.
That will take some doing, such as holding onto Noah Syndergaard (Van Wagenen indicated he would), extending Jacob deGrom (a move Van Wagenen strongly advocated when he was deGrom’s agent last year), backing up Diaz with some decent middle and set-up relief, and oh yeah, pursuing a true impact player in his prime such as Manny Machado or Bryce Harper.
I asked Van Wagenen about those last two after the question was somehow neglected during the group media session. He answered in boilerplate corporate-speak.
“I’m interested in winning,’’ he said. “And I’m interested in pursuing anything that improves our roster.’’
Take that any way you will. For the moment, the Mets hopes seem to rest on Cano, who commemorated his 36th birthday and will be 41 by the time this contract expires at the end of the 2023 season. The fact that Van Wagenen was able to defray approximately half of the $120 million still owed Cano comes as a comfort to some, but not necessarily to me. That reminded me to ask Brodie if, had he been the Seattle GM five years ago, he would have signed off on the Cano deal he so deftly negotiated.
“I have never operated in any deal or transaction as if I wanted to take advantage of the other side,’’ he said. “And I would argue that the Mariners have received a tremendous amount of value in the first five years of this contract. From a performance standpoint, there’s every bit of justification that he actually exceeded the value of his contract.’’
Of course, New York baseball fans tend to keep score differently than agents do, and all the impressive numbers in the world won’t mean a thing if the Mets don’t become contenders again during Cano’s remaining five years. And heaven forbid if Jarred Kelenic achieves his considerable potential for Seattle.
Cano did have 4.5 very good years with Seattle, in which he averaged 22 home runs and 82 RBI per season while batting .296 with an .826 OPS. For all of those years, even 2018, when he missed half the season due to a drug suspension, he ranked among the top 10 second basemen in baseball in Wins Above Replacement.
But those five years showed a definite decline from his first nine years with the Yankees, when he averaged 21 HRs and 90 RBI while batting .309 with an .860 OPS. This could be due to the fact that Safeco Field is not as left-handed-hitterfriendly as Yankee Stadium. Or, it could be the routine decline of an aging ballplayer who has averaged close to 160 games per season.
Whatever it was, the Mets are getting Cano in the second half of a deal that includes the three seasons the Yankees wanted no part of.
“Recognizing his age, there very well could be a decline in performance,’’ Van Wagenen acknowledged. “But when you start as high as Robbie Cano did, it’s as good as anything we have in our organization.’’
In fact, the Mets got decent, almost Cano-like production out of their second basemen last year. Bolstered by the lateseason surge of the rookie McNeil, Mets 2Bs hit 23 home runs and knocked in 85 runs while batting .285 with a .785 OPS. Cano is likely to improve on those numbers, but perhaps only slightly.
“I believe Robbie can help us,’’ Van Wagenen said.
Despite being away for five
years, Cano brought the same smile and easy-going manner to Flushing that he had displayed for nearly a decade in the Bronx. He spoke so glowingly of his new organization – “The franchise, the history, all the legends, the great players that came through this organization’’ – that for a moment it sounded as if he had been traded back to the Yankees.
But the Mets made sure to whitewash the Yankees portion of Cano’s career out of the brief video tribute they played prior to the press conference, limiting it only to heroics performed in a Mariners uniform.
Cano paid tribute to his time in Seattle – “I had a great time there’’ – but acknowledged that he had missed playing and living in New York.
“I missed the fans,’’ he said. “The energy here, when you play here, especially in the Subway Series, it’s amazing. I love that. It motivates you as a player.’’
And he admitted that with Seattle in rebuilding mode, it wasn’t all that difficult a decision for him to waive the no-trade clause in his contract. He had been impressed, he said, with the way the fans turned out to honor David Wright at the end of last season, and a pre-trade conversation with Van Wagenen convinced him the Mets would surround him with the players necessary to make the team a winner again.
“I wanted to go somewhere where I could play and be able to win the World Series,’’ he said.
That will be the true measure of the Robbie Cano deal. If he can help the Mets do that, then, and only then, will he, they and Van Wagenen come up winners.