Mets Get Mayberry, Jr; Other Teams Stock Up

On a day that saw two small market National League teams get considerably better, the Mets settled for John Mayberry, Jr. The answer to how long the Mets will operate this way appears to be “always.”

The Padres reportedly made a deal to obtain Matt Kemp from Dodgers for three players, the main one being Yasmani Grandal. Grandal is a pretty good catcher — he hit 15 home runs last season — but he also hit .225 and has already served a PED suspension. The Padres will get $32 million to offset the rest of Kemp’s $107 million contract. Are you telling me the Mets could not have not have traded Travis d’Arnaud or Kevin Plawecki along with a couple of prospects for Kemp? It was probably never a consideration for the small market Mets.

The Marlins — the Marlins — followed Wednesday’s haul of Dee Gordon and Dan Haren (who might retire) by acquiring Mat Latos from the Reds. This gives Miami an ace until Jose Fernandez comes back from Tommy John surgery. The Marlins are now better than the Mets, if they weren’t already.

These were not the only teams to improve while Sandy Alderson plotted his route back to his San Diego home. The Red Sox swapped Yoenis Cespedes for Rick Porcello. Is Porcello that much better than Jonathon Niese or Dillon Gee? Maybe a little, which means the Mets could have added Rafael Montero or another prospect to get a deal done. Oh wait, sorry, the Mets would rather have Michael Cuddyer in the outfield than a young slugger.

The Red Sox also acquired three-fifths of their rotation in one today. It took Alderson three years to build an outfield; one piece at a time.

Speaking of Gee, he is still a Met. While teams got similar pitchers, Alderson appears to be waiting until the price for pitching goes up. Instead, he might find that any team wanting a pitcher of Gee’s caliber has already acquired one. Once again, Alderson is misreading the market.

Need any more evidence that Sandy Alderson is the worst general manager in baseball?