It’s easy to forget about him after back-to-back injury-ruined seasons, but Yoenis Cespedes is still a member of the Mets. When the club re-signed Cespedes to a four-year, $110MM contract entering 2017, he was coming off his latest star-caliber showing at the plate, but it proved to be the first of three straight painfully short seasons for the outfielder. Cespedes played 81 games that year, 38 in 2018 and none this season. Heel and ankle problems kept Cespedes off the field this year, and the Mets aren’t sure when or if he’ll return in 2020, Matt Ehalt of Yahoo Sports relays.
General manager Brodie Van Wagenen, who happens to be Cespedes’ former agent, said Monday it’s “too early to tell” about his chances of playing in 2020. There’s not “enough information to predict when he’s going to be back,” Van Wagenen added. As Ehalt points out, Cespedes’ up-in-the-air status only serves to complicate matters for Van Wagenen, who’s in a crucial second offseason atop the Mets’ baseball department, as well as the organization as a whole.
With a $29.5MM salary, the 34-year-old Cespedes is the Mets’ highest-paid player. Because Cespedes’ contract is insured, the club’s in position to recoup 60 to 70 percent once he misses 60 days, Ehalt notes. But if the Mets don’t know how much time Cespedes will sit out in 2020, it could make it that much more difficult for a team that already may be spending above its comfort zone to invest money into weaker areas of the roster. Furthermore, there’s a case that even a healthy Cespedes would be superfluous to New York’s roster. The club’s in fine shape at both corner outfield spots, where it boasts Michael Conforto and Brandon Nimmo as regulars. Jeff McNeil, J.D. Davis and Dominic Smith (who looks like a trade candidate) also played those spots frequently in 2019 and more than held their own offensively.
If there’s one place the Mets could upgrade in the outfield, it’s in center, though Cespedes wouldn’t be able to help there. And if Cespedes’ injuries and age make him a subpar outfield option in general nowadays, there’d be no clear place to put him on a team that has NL Rookie of the Year front-runner Pete Alonso manning first and isn’t part of a league that features a designated hitter.
While the Mets were undoubtedly excited to re-up Cespedes three years ago after he opted out of his previous deal with the club, his presence has been disastrous for a large portion of the contract. Cespedes’ money could help prevent the Mets from improving their roster to the fullest extent possible this offseason as they try to break a three-year playoff drought in 2020.
If Cespedes agreed to waive his no trade clause the Mets could package him with some prospects and trade him, freeing up salary to spend elsewhere. The Mets are in win now mode so trading some prospects who are 2-3 years away makes sense.
Why would ANY team trade anything for him (or take on any salary) unless he is competely healthy?
For prospects the guy said.
In order to get a team to take on that much salary who may not even play one game for you, you would have to package him with more top type prospects and not young ones who are several years away. Makes no sense.
This stuff annoys me. Either you didn’t read what Dave wrote, or for some reason, you didn’t understand it. I don’t think the NYMs have enough prospects to make a Cespedes trade possible, but the concept is feasible.
Exactly. And if they did have the prospects, it would be a shame to get rid of them. He’s only on for one more year I believe. At this point, your keep him, pay him the 30% that you’d normally would and keep those high end prospects. But that’s not the case. The Mets have to deal with it unless they can provide proper information to have his contract voided NOW. Otherwise, he gets paid one more year of sitting at home making ridiculous money AGAIN.
Hello D A V E:
They don’t have any prospects to package. This is not a bagel store that packages up yesterday’s unsold inventory.
They are empty.
The only way any team absorbs dead weight salary is if there’s some really good prospects attached.
Which the Mets won’t do. No team wants to take on a contract and potentially waste a roster spot on someone as fragile as Cespedes.
As a White Sox fan, I would love to see the White Sox use some of their payroll flexibility in this fashion. Unless they’re in on Strasburg or Bumgarner, that flexibility can’t really be used for much else.
If the Mets recouped the bad money from Céspedes and Jed Lowrie, would it be worth Dom Smith, Brett Baty, and a pitcher? The White Sox can then find a taker for Smith and get more prospects.
Thank you, you took the words right outta my mouth!!!!
Why would anyone take a 29 million contract?
For $50 million in prospects. Probably 3-4 of a club’s top 5-7 prospects.
Wow. That’s more than what trouts worth lol.
Not by a long shot.
Well if they can get the insurance to kick in it’s far less
Only the Tigers would jump all over that for Miguel Cabrera and BAL for Chris Davis. Perhaps there’s teams that might want to trade off a player with a contract similar to Rougned Odor’s . It has a similar overall value of Cespedis’ but spread out.
I never thought CIN would be able to dump Homer Bailey’s contract.
Why would anyone take a 29 million contract?
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Let me give you the pertinent part of Dave’s post: ‘package him with some prospects and trade him’.
Maybe this just needs further explanation. Say the Padres want to dump the awful Myers contract. Just like Cespedes ‘why would anyone take a $67.5M contract?’. However, suppose the Padres threw in Gore, Patino, and Morejon. If I were the RS, I’d take that package in a heartbeat.
So it can be the same with Cespedes, but on a different level. But if the NYMs gave us Mauricio, Baty & Alvarez, I’d gladly take on the $29M in salary.
That gets nullified cuz both guys are DH-1B, and there’s Alonso manning 1b for yrs to comeit doesn’t need explaining because why would ANY team package prospects that are in well regard within the organization and send them away just to clear off 1 year left of a bad contract? Jerry DiPoto isn’t running this team
There is absolutely no reason to do this because insurance pays a great deal of his contract if he’s injured. Further, the Mets don’t even have the apparently $50 million in prospects you’re proposing. They’d have to almost totally empty their farm system.
Yours is a crazy proposal and what will actually happen is that Cespedes just stays injured and the Mets eat whatever amount left they’re actually paying and move on.
When now mode? Maybe inside the organization but everyone else with any baseball acumen can clearly see this is a rebuilding team.
An inconsistent team, maybe. Not rebuilding. The building blocks are there. McNeil, Alonso, and deGrom are there for the next five years give or take. There are extensions and questions looming in Conforto, Thor, and Matz. If Rosario continues to show he’s legit, Gimenez and Mauricio are expendable. Dom and Nimmo will probably be trade bait, but I think they’d like to keep JD. They hope they can get renaissances from Familia and Díaz. Ramos and Lowrie (and Stroman?) are in their contract years. Yo has one year left to eat. They’d be more likely to trade Canó with enticements than Yo. Wilson and Lugo are the best in the pen, but Lugo wants to start. If they don’t resign or replace Wheeler, that may happen, but they still need bullpen help.
Cespedes, Dominic Smith, JD Davis and Matz for Mookie and Price… Who says no?
People with common sense.
Lol. You’re trolling here. Right? I hope you are
the red sox
It’s easy for me to say as a fan, but I’d rather the Wilpons just suck it up and spend more money this off-season knowing they’re getting cash back from insurance and that he’s coming off the books next off-season, then send any prospects at all out of here in an effort for salary relief.
Send Céspedes and Dominic smith and so low level guy to the mariners
And which 2 of the Mets top tier prospects? No team is gonna take him with some serious prospect capital.
Does his contract still count towards the luxury tax?
Yes
Do the Mets ever sniff the lux tax?
as it stands right now, they’re pretty close to it
They are projected at 178million right now. The luxury tax threshold is around 208 million.
Quite honestly the Mets would do well to go over that this year considering the window is small and they don’t have near the liability in 2021.
yeah, from afar
I need Yoenis “La Potencia” Cespedes batting Clean-Up for the New York Metropolitans Opening Day and anyone saying otherwise should be heavily reprimanded
Nostradumbass has spoken. It shall be.
Reprimand me then. I don’t think you NEED anything related to baseball. If that’s a need, donate heavily to charitable causes.
If he is ready to, I agree. But is Cespedes ever ready to go for a full year? Look, I agree with you, 100%. But there is a risk of keeping him on. Especially with his injuries. You’d have to let him play no more than 3 times per week in order for him not to reinjure himself. Knowing that he may not be back at 100%, is it worth it to the team to spend all of the money and rely on him for 162 games? It’s quite the gamble, I’ll tell you that much. But having him in the line up batting next to Alonzo does seem like a dangerous move to any opposing pitcher. From your lips to God’s ears my brother. LFGM!!!
Solid with Nimmo? Assuming he can come close to the great 4 months he had in 2018, that would be true. Seems like a big “if” at this point.
He played only 38 games in 2018. Not 4 months.
Oh, you meant Nimmo (not Cespedes). Comment withdrawn.
I have a feeling that what to do with a healthy Cespedes will work its self out on its own.
The fact that the Mets are worried about going over $160m is an absolute joke. Trying to run a major market team without pushing the tax penalty limit just makes this organization’s owner look like more of a joke than they already are.
no buyout clause?
So why is it seems like we never hear about what they are doing with the money they got back from the insurance with Ces and Wright? I know their contracts have killed the Mets the last few years. But that also got money back from those 2. Wilpons being Wilpons. Too bad the NL doesn’t have a DH. I mean if he doesn’t slip and trip on a blade of grass and break his body this off season he would maybe be a good DH.
At some point relatively recently (I think last off-season), Jeff Wilpon said they consider the full amount of the contract as having been spent on payroll, even though a lot was coming back from insurance—implying that the insurance payments create no additional spending capacity for them. Not totally sure what he was talking about, but I’m guessing they focus purely on the luxury tax analysis and not on the cash actually in their pockets. Which sucks for us fans.
I remember that press conference. Came off as Wilpon claiming he essentially didn’t count the insurance money as income but did count the full contract outlay as payroll.
Which can’t be true. Every business cares about actual cash flow.
I believe insurance money received is not credited toward your cap/lux tax figure, so he’s right in that regard.
Word is the wilpons are investigating it to build a strip mall in Jerusalem
So right now, the Mets have no clue if Cespedes will play at all? Sounds like a forecast of 0 to 162 games. Very helpful.
It’s Cespedes. The good money bet is closer to zero games played.
Did they cut both his feet off or something when he had surgery?
Yeah, and they sewed em back on the wrong legs.
shame this happened. that contract looked like a steal at first.
I think you mean Cespedes is stealing because his contract was awful from the beginning. He’s at least 2-3 years older than he claims and hasn’t been consistent in a while.
you forget how good he was before he got injured. his 2016-2017 numbers were pretty impressive. imagine what he would have done if the ball was juiced then.
Reality is that there are multiple signs that Cespedes was juiced out of his mind those two years.
Of course, I’m one of the people that feel that the ball isn’t the thing that’s juiced right now in MLB.
The White Sox would be a potential landing spot if Cespedes starts showing signs of getting healthy and the Mets are willing to eat up around half of his salary. Cespedes can play DH and being Cuban would mesh well with Moncada, Abreu and Robert once he comes up from AAA. Heck, there is a chance Grandal might join them.
Cespedes is a sunk cost. The Mets constantly hamstring themselves with bad contracts.
For all the overpaid Harper comments, keep in mind Cespedes makes more per year.
Ideally, a big market team would spend the $3mm/yr to sign Shogo Akiyama as a 5th OF, for depth/defense. If the Mets did that, they would piece together CF from Nimmo, Conforto and Akiyama, and LF with Smith/Davis (ideally, one of them gets traded this winter for a reliable arm) and McNeil (plus whatever they get from Cespedes).
The Mets are stuck with Cespedes the same way the Marlins are stuck with Wei-Yin Chen. As crazy as it sounds, if the Mets were really determined to cut some of that salary, rather than trading prospects away, they could trade for someone else’s ‘cheaper’ bad contract and hope for a decent year from the acquired player.
As crazy as it sounds, the Mets and Marlins are a match for a trade of bad contracts that could help both teams. A trade of Cespedes for Chen would make sense for both teams. If Cespedes can get on the field, the Marlins would be willing to trade Chen’s $20-22m for this year for Cespedes’ $29m for this year. The Mets would open up $7-9m with this deal and not have to trade a prospect. They would then have to hope that Chen having a change of scenery along with health can get them something. With Cespedes, the Marlins add about $7-9m, but they are looking for veteran bat protection and help that will exceed that price. They get a vet bat that also serves as a name to the Cuban-American part of their fan base. If he can get on the field, he adds protection for Brian Anderson, Jorge Alfaro, and some of the other young bats they’re developing.
I know that this is far far far from likely, but it’s a trade that makes sense for both teams looking to move on from bad contracts without having to move prospects or eat salary.
The clubs in “fine shape” in outfield corners? Umm wouldn’t call it fine that’s for sure.
Who? Oh yeah, I remember him. He used to play baseball.
Just suck it up this year and have a party next year when he’s gone and off the books. The Mets aren’t in the position to trade prospects to dump his salary. Brodie already traded a few and got well… nothing in return.
Mets seems like they are always in win now mode, but never actually win. Even with a trade for all stars, 2019 was a wash.
Stick a fork in him he is done. He can now go retire with his brother in being overrated and hurt all the time DAVID Wrong.
Your moniker is appropriate. True Mets’ fans honor DW for what he gave us and don’t poop on him for his lost years. It’d be wonderful if we could get a Samson-like final gasp from Yo if he can return at all, but I’m not counting on it.
Reading all the posts – why would the Mets deal prospects and Cespedes in order to get rid of one more year that will probably recoup 60-70% of the contract anyway – as written in the article? They’re going to get the insurance money if he doesn’t play, and if he does, then they get what they signed him for. Either way, it’s not that big of a deal. That’s why they take insurance out on the players.
And the Mets can go out and sign a top FA if they know Cespedes most likely won’t come back in 2020. And if he does, they can take on the additional salary for one year – he’s gone after 2020 anyway.
I forgot Cespedes will still on someone’s books. Ouch. Insured I hope
His name is yoenis!