The Mets union with Yoenis Cespedes seems certain to be brief. Cespedes, the slugging outfielder acquired for two prospects on Friday, is a free agent after this season. The Mets have three other outfielders signed for 2016 and an aversion to the kind of lavish deal Cespedes will command.
Of course, none of that matters now. Cespedes is the Mets shiny rental car from Detroit, no less with very specific instructions plugged into his GPS. The destination is the playoffs, where the Mets have not been since 2006. If Cespedes leads them there, the purpose of the deal will be fulfilled.
That might not make the trade a long-term success. The Boston Red Sox made the playoffs in 1990, helped by 22 strong innings down the stretch from a rented reliever, Larry Andersen. But the Red Sox won no games in the postseason, Andersen left as a free agent, and the prospect they traded, Jeff Bagwell, starred for the Houston Astros for the next 15 seasons.
Many in-season deals are not such obvious rentals, because the player stays with his new team for a while. The Mets acquired first baseman Donn Clendenon at the old June trade deadline, in 1969, and Clendenon went on to be most valuable player of their first World Series championship. He spent two more years with the Mets.
Photo Carlos Beltran delivered a strong playoff performance for the Astros in 2004 but cost them two longtime major leaguers. Credit David J. Phillip/Associated PressFor pure rentals, like Cespedes will probably be, think of players who left as free agents after one partial season: Mark Langston with the 1989 Montreal Expos; Randy Johnson with the 1998 Houston Astros; and Cliff Lee with the 2010 Texas Rangers come to mind.
Or you could simply take inventory of some folks around the current Yankees. Three players and a broadcaster embody different levels of rental success:
Ultimate success David Cone, a Yankees broadcaster, was traded from the Mets to Toronto in August 1992. Cone stayed just long enough to make 11 starts, including the World Series clincher, helping the Blue Jays win their first championship. Losing Jeff Kent, a future superstar, in the trade was a small price to pay for a title.
Limited success Carlos Beltran, the Yankees right fielder, landed in Houston when his first team, the Royals, traded him in June 2004. Beltran smoked 23 homers for the Astros in the regular season, then hit .435 with eight homers in the postseason. He cost two longtime major leaguers, Octavio Dotel and John Buck, but nearly delivered the first pennant in Astros history, falling one game short which was exactly as far as he would carry the Mets, who signed him before the next season.
Accidental success Mark Teixeira, the Yankees first baseman, went from Atlanta to the Angels in 2008 for the low price of Casey Kotchman and a minor leaguer. Teixeira hit .358 to help win a division title for the Angels, who had no idea how big a victory it would be when Teixeira signed with the Yankees. The Angels were awarded the Yankees first-round pick the next June and used it to draft an outfielder from Millville, N.J., named Mike Trout.
A side note to that story is that the Milwaukee Brewers nearly had the Yankees pick. The Brewers had traded for Clevelands C. C. Sabathia, who helped them to their first playoff berth in 26 years and then signed with the Yankees in free agency.
The problem for the Brewers was that the Yankees also signed Teixeira, who was rated higher than Sabathia under arcane compensation rules that have since been abolished. So the Yankees forfeited their first-round choice to the Angels, instead, and gave their second-round choice to the Brewers.
Milwaukee used that pick to draft Max Walla, a high school outfielder from Albuquerque. He peaked at Class A in 2013, made a brief conversion to pitcher in 2014, and is now out of baseball. Trout, of course, is the best player in the game.
Bostons Bungle
Two games last Wednesday underscored the folly of the Boston Red Sox handling of Jon Lester last season. Boston made a below-market bid to re-sign Lester last spring (four years, $70 million), then traded him to Oakland on July 31 for Yoenis Cespedes. The Red Sox flipped Cespedes to Detroit in the winter for starter Rick Porcello, and signed him in April to a wildly above-market contract (four years, $82.5 million) through 2019.
Essentially, then, the Red Sox replaced Lester with Porcello. At 26, Porcello is five years younger than Lester. But he has not been a better fit.
Continue reading the main storyPorcello is a ground-ball pitcher, and the Red Sox expected him to thrive with strong defense behind him. Instead, Porcello has been among the worst starters in the majors. Last Wednesday, he gave up 10 hits and five earned runs in two innings, pushing his earned run average to 5.81.
The same day, Lester allowed two runs in eight innings while striking out 14 for the Chicago Cubs. Lester had a 1.66 E.R.A. in six July starts, lowering his season mark to 3.26. He is in the first year of a six-year, $155 million contract more than twice the value of the initial deal he rejected from Boston.
A Muted Homecoming
One preseason narrative that never panned out was the homecoming of Mat Latos and Michael Morse, who joined the Miami Marlins in the off-season. Latos and Morse attended the Marlins inaugural game, on April 5, 1993. Latos, from Coconut Creek, Fla., was 5, and Morse, from Davie, was 11.
Upper tank, over first base, looking down, Morse said earlier this season. I remember Charlie Hough was pitching. They gave out an inaugural magazine. I still have it. This is stuff my mom always kept. They really didnt have bobbleheads then, so they had b***s with players faces on them, and my mom put it all in a bin. When I signed here, I was thinking, I think Ive got that bin. I went to the garage and opened it up, and it was like Marlins galore newspaper articles, a jacket, a bag, all this cool stuff.
Alas, the memorabilia from this season may not stir the same warm memories. Morse, who drove in the winning run in Game 7 of the World Series for the Giants last fall, has been injured and batted just .213 for Miami. He was traded to the Dodgers with Latos, who was 4-7 with a 4.48 E.R.A., for three prospects.
The Dodgers then shipped Morse to Pittsburgh for outfielder Jose Tabata.
Exclusive Clubs
When his career is over, Shane Victorino will mostly be known for his contributions to two World Series champions on the East Coast the 2008 Phillies and the 2013 Red Sox. He made strong bonds with those communities and wept at his news conference in Boston last week on his way out of town.
But Victorino, who was traded to the Angels, has also pulled off a rare feat involving teams much closer to his Hawaii home. He became only the 14thplayer to spend time with all three teams in Southern California (the Angels, the Dodgers and the Padres), part of an eclectic list that also includes Rickey Henderson, Jim Leyritz, Bobby Valentine and Fernando Valenzuela.
An even more exclusive list is the shared alumni of the current and former New York teams: the Yankees, the Mets, the Dodgers and the San Francisco Giants. That list includes only three players Ricky Ledee, Darryl Strawberry and Jose Vizcaino.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/sports/baseball/mets-relationship-with-yoenis-cespedes-its-a-rental.html
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