New York Mets Trade Deadline: The Last One Under The Wilpons Is Just Like The First One

The Mets’ first trade deadline of the Wilpon era wasn’t officially the Mets’ first trade deadline of the Wilpon era.

The contentious process of buying out Nelson Doubleday’s stake in the team was still a few weeks away from being completed on July 31, 2002, but there was no doubt who was calling the shots as Mets general manager Steve Phillips become the only GM of a .500 or better team to make multiple trades before the 4 PM deadline.

The Mets entered the day 4 1/2 games out of the wild card spot — further removed from a playoff berth than any team that made going for it trades in the final week of the month — but still traded pitcher Bobby M. Jones and a pair of minor leaguers to the Padres in exchange for reliever Steve Reed and starter Jason Middlebrook and sent pitcher Mark Corey, outfielder Jay Payton and minor leaguer Rob Stratton to the Rockies in exchange for outfielder Mark Little and starter John Thomson.

The moves seemed to bolster two problem spots — the back of the rotation and the bullpen — while opening up playing time in a crowded outfield for the likes of Jeromy Burnitz, Roger Cedeno and Timo Perez.

“Without an acquisition, I thought the talent was here to be a postseason club,” Phillips said afterward. “My hope is that we’ve reinforced things, strengthened an area that probably needed to be strengthened.”

But things didn’t work out as Phillips hoped for the Mets, who had the second-worst record in the NL the rest of the season on their way to the franchise’s first last-place finish in nine years. Reed, Middlebrook, Little and Thomson combined to produce -0.3 WAR for the Mets and only Middlebrook, who made posted a 10.29 ERA over his final five big league appearances in 2003, played for the team beyond 2002. 

The Mets’ last trade deadline of the Wilpon era isn’t officially the Mets’ last trade deadline of the Wilpon era. But even by 2020 standards, it will qualify as a blockbuster of a stunner if the franchise isn’t handed over to Steve Cohen — for a couple billion bucks, which is a pretty good return on the $135 million the Wilpons spent to buy out Doubleday — over the next few weeks.

So Monday afternoon was another part of the last stand for the Wilpons, and when it comes to trade deadlines, at least they’re going out like they came in.

General manager Brodie Van Wagenen made three trades Monday, when he sent minor league pitcher Kevin Smith to the Orioles for reliever Miguel Castro and dealt twice with the Rangers, from whom he acquired catcher Robinson Chirinos and cash considerations in exchange for a player to be named later and obtained infielder Todd Frazier for a player to be named later.

The last-second deals — all announced after the 4 PM trade deadline — made the Mets one of 11 teams to make win-now moves over the last week. Ten of them entered Monday within at least a game of .500 —every team except the Mets, who fell to 15-20 in the 60-game season with a 5-3 loss to the Marlins.

“We wanted to give our team some additional help,” Van Wagenen said. “We’re not playing great baseball right now and we need to boost ourselves. So hopefully these players can give us that opportunity.”

Of course, the baseball landscape is a little different 18 years later. The season is 102 games shorter, the trade deadline is a month later and 16 teams are making the playoffs instead of eight. Even after running their losing streak to four games, the Mets are just 2 1/2 games out of a playoff spot. Then again, they’re only 3 1/2 games ahead of the Pirates, who have the worst record in baseball. 

And in 2020, like in 2002, the Mets have offered little evidence they can go on the type of sustained run needed to make the playoffs. As the trade deadline arrived in 2002, the Mets had produced just two winning streaks of longer than two games over the previous six weeks. Five weeks into the weirdest of seasons, the Mets have had two winning streaks longer than two games, none longer than three games.

Nor do these trades appear to have shored up the Mets’ biggest needs. Reed became a trusted member of Bobby Valentine’s bullpen 18 years ago, but while Thomson was a minor upgrade on Jeff D’Amico, he wasn’t nearly the difference-maker the Mets needed behind Al Leiter and Steve Trachsel.

Castro is going to get a chance to work himself into a late-inning role in a bullpen ravaged by ineffectiveness and injury and Chirinos could be an upgrade on Wilson Ramos, who has struggled at the plate and in the field. But unless they develop 95 mph fastballs on the way from Texas, neither Chirinos nor Frazier — the latter of whom appears to be extraneous on a team that already has too many infielders and DH-types and not enough spots to play them — answers the Mets’ biggest problem: A lack of a proven reliable starter behind ace Jacob deGrom.

The trio of Monday deals were classic at-the-margin Mets trades, a mixing of flotsam and jetsam engineered to convince themselves, if not a skeptical fan base, they were contenders.

In a vacuum, such trades are harmless. Teams should be encouraged to go for it, even with marginal moves — especially when they are loaded with veterans and fewer than two years removed from a World Series berth, as the Mets were in 2002, or loaded with veterans under an outgoing ownership group in a season in which more than half the league will advance to the postseason.

But eventually, such short-sightedness exposes a franchise as one run without any semblance of a long-term plan. Every Mets general manager since Phillips has uttered some variation of what Van Wagenen said Monday about the deals representing “…wanting to balance putting the best foot forward while also not losing sight of what the big picture is in 2021 and beyond.”

Castro, Chirinos and Frazier aren’t likely to hurt the Mets too much this year, and Van Wagenen and Pete Alonso both expressed hope that Frazier, who spent the previous two seasons with the Mets, can help energize the clubhouse. But trading for them probably won’t help the Mets this year and almost surely won’t benefit the club in the future — especially if Smith, who was named the organization’s minor league pitcher of the year in 2019, fares as well down the road as Jason Bay did after he was dealt by the Mets to the Padres. Bay won the Rookie of the Year in 2004, albeit for the Pirates.

It became obvious years ago that under the Wilpons, the big picture for the Mets consists of only what they can see right in front of them. But the latest example of history repeating itself on Monday was also a reminder a new chapter is about to be written by and for the Mets.