MLB Trade Rumors: The New York Mets Should Deal Prospects for Roy Halladay

by faketeams on Jul 21, 2009 11:58 AM EDT in Baseball

Yesterday, the trade rumor that the New York Mets turned down an offer of OF Fernando Martinez, SS Ruben Tejada, lefty starter Jonathan Niese and major league rookie reliever Bobby Parnell for Toronto Blue Jays' ace Roy Halladay was tweet mongered by SI.com's Jon Heyman:

#mets rejected request of package of f-mart, niese, parnell and ruben tejada for halladay. #jays

And quickly tweet squashed by ESPN.com's Keith Law:

keithlawMets-Jays trade report (Jays offered Doc for Martinez, Tejada, Niese, Parnell) is bogus. Shot down by multiple sources.

When I saw it, I thought it looked good for the Mets given the struggles of Martinez as a pro, and, more importantly, the utter success of a similar deal the Mets made 18 months ago - Johan Santana from the Minnesota Twins for Carlos Gomez, Phil Humber, Kevin Mulvey and Deolis Guerra. None of the four players the Mets dealt for Santana have emerged as legitimate difference makers on the major league level or retained any future value as elite prospects to be used in other trades.

While my snap judgment may be wrong, I wanted to go back and review how the package of Mets' prospects dealt for Santana compared to those rumored to have been asked for by the Blue Jays. To do so, I checked the 2008 prospects guides of Baseball America and John Sickels with ranks and grades against those of of the 2009 guides.

Initially, I was going to include just Mr. Sickels because his grading system is not depedent on the relative value of an organization's prospect depth as ranking the Top 30 prospects within an organization is. However, the Baseball America team also ranks the 30 major league organizations against each other. In 2008 and 2009, the New York Mets were ranked 17th overall by BA.

With that concern allayed, here are the grades and ranks for the Carlos Gomez-led package that landed Johan Santana and the Fernando Martinez-led package that could land Roy Halladay. Based on this comparison, the Mets' decision should be easier to make.

2008 Prospect	Baseball America Rank	John Sickels Grade	2009 Prospect	Baseball America Rank	John Sickels Grade
OF Carlos Gomez	3	B	OF Fernando Martinez	1	B+
RSP Phil Humber	7	B-	LSP Jonathan Niese	3	B
RSP Kevin Mulvey	4	B	RRP Bobby Parnell	5	C+
RSP Deolis Guerra	2	B+	SS Ruben Tejada	16	C+

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When I first saw this offer, I didn’t understand why the Mets wouldn’t be all over it. That prospect haul doesn’t seem particularly great for Toronto, especially compared to what the Phillies or Dodgers could (and still might) put together. No way the Jays would offer Halliday themselves for less value than they could get by waiting.

by Xavier. on Jul 21, 2009 4:00 PM EDT reply actions