The Robinson Cano with Edwin Diaz trade to open the off-season set the tone for what BWV was going to do. While some of his moves (JD Davis) still are head scratchers, BWV had no problem overturning over 20% of the Mets roster and while Edwin Diaz is the real prize in the Cano/Diaz trade, Cano brings a bat not seen in the Mets infield for quite some time.
2018: 348 PA, 310 AB, 10 HR, .303/.374/.471, 3.2 WAR, 125 DRC+
Career: .304/.355/.493, 121 DRC+
For comparison, the top DRC+’s last year on the Mets were Nimmo (123), McNeil (119) and Conforto (112).
(Citations: Baseball Prospectus (BP) projections are from the Baseball Prospectus annual which can you can get here. It’s highly recommended. ESPN projections can be found here. ZiPS can be found here. Steamer can be found here. Baseball Reference projections (BR) can found on the players BR page which linked elsewhere on this article. )
The major concern about acquiring Cano is how he will age. While that conversation is still a couple of years off, check out these projections. Anything close to this, even ZiPS which is the lowest one, would be huge for the Mets infield.
The average OPS would put him behind Nimmo, McNeil, Cespedes and Conforto on the team. But out of that list, who knows when Cespedes is coming back and if McNeil can approach his rookie numbers again.
It’s not often I feel good after writing a projections article for the Mets, which has been a consequence of the types of teams the Mets have put together the last couple of years, but after writing Wilson Ramos‘ yesterday and Cano’s today, our lineup is going to look quite different.
