New York Mets: Would you like fries with your Cespedes?

About a year ago, the New York Mets defied odds – baseball betting or otherwise – with the acquisition of Cuban outfielder Yoenis Cespedes. They don’t call the guy ‘La Potencia’ for nothing, and he sure gave the Mets a boost. The New York team went from a 53-50 record before the trade deadline to 37-22 following it – winning the NL East division and appearing in the World Series for the first time in 15 years. And though they lost to the Kansas City Chiefs, there is no denying the impact that Cespedes has had and continues to have; he currently leads the Mets’ offense with a .299 average, 21 home runs, and 56 RBIs.

All that being said, when it comes to trades in baseball, betting on the Mets to make another high profile acquisition would not be a safe proposition. This time around, general manager Sandy Alderson is more likely to “add a side of fries,” as the AP so gastronomically put it. “This is the entertainment business, and we talk about steak and sizzle, and I enjoy sizzle as much as anybody,” Alderson said. “I think realistically the bullpen is the area where we can probably get someone who can make a difference at a relatively low cost in terms of prospects.”

The Mets’ rotation took a heavy blow when Matt Harvey’s season ended in shoulder surgery to deal with Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. Additionally, Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz are both pitching with elbow bone spurs. All things considered, Metz baseball betting fans should not expect another Yoenis Cespedes in particular or any kind of eye-catching acquisition in general by the time this year’s trade deadline has come and gone. “Even sizzle becomes less sizzling over time, just because it becomes part of the everyday expectation,” said Alderson. “So I think it’s unfair to think that (Cespedes) could continue to have that sort of novelty impact as well as performance over a year or year-plus. But he’s certainly a significant part of our team at this point and has done everything we could have expected.”

Moreover, “For whatever reason this year, clubs keep asking for the top tier of our system,” the GM added, “and we’re simply not going to move players that we think are going to have a significant role for us in the somewhat near future for the possibility of getting the kind of unique return that we got last year.” Alderson also seemed to indicate that the rumors about the Mets trading catcher Travis d’Arnaud in exchange for his Brewers counterpart Jonathan Lucroy are precisely just that. “I’m thinking of the same rumors that you’re thinking of, that rumor was dead on arrival,” he told the press. In addition to their bullpen woes, the Mets have had to do without first baseman Lucas Duda since May 20th as result of a lower back stress fracture, and they lost third baseman David Wright for the rest of the season due to a herniated disk in his neck which required surgery.