The Mets missed out on both Blake Snell and Yu Darvish. The Padres were able to acquire both of those pitchers in less than 24 hours without having to give up any of their top farm assets. This seems to be the trend in baseball after the 2020 pandemic season. Teams are looking to dump salary for what I like to refer to as “lottery ticket prospects” because you get a bunch of young prospects with upside and hope that at least one of them turns out to be a winning ticket.

It is no secret that the Indians are one of those teams who are looking to dump some salary. They have announced that they are hoping to trade Francisco Lindor, who is a free agent after the 2021 season. They also have a pretty good core of young pitchers and have been successful in developing arms from their farm. Porter should come up with a trade package similar to what the Padres have been doing to acquire Carlos Carrasco from the Indians.

From 2014 to 2018, Carlos Carrasco has had a very good pitching career. Early in the 2019 season, the Venezuelan native was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia, a treatable form of blood cancer. This caused him to miss some time, but he eventually did come back and serve in a bullpen role to finish the season. In 2020 he returned to the rotation and went back to being his dominant self.

Carlos Carrasco will be entering his age 34 season in 2021. He is signed through 2022 ($12 mil each year) with a club option in 2023 ($14 mil). His contract comes with the following incentives: $1 million kicker if he is traded after the 2019 season; Cy Young bonuses (2021-2022), $2 million if he wins, $1 million for a 2nd and 3rd place vote, $750,000 for 4th or 5th place, $500,000 for 6th to 10th place.

The Mets can afford to trade some of their middle tier prospects to get Carrasco. I would not use any of the top 10 Mets farm pieces but could see a combination of “lottery ticket” prospects and a young MLB talent to trade for Carrasco.

The Indians could tap into Kilome and perhaps turn him into an average starter or maybe a good bullpen addition. There’s still some good upside to him as my buddy Corne has discussed on our Podcast. Junior Santos and Freddy Valdez are both also have a lot of helium but need a few more years of conditioning and training in the minors to refine their tools. At 6’8″ and only 19, Santos has an explosive fastball. He just needs to work on his secondary pitches and learn to mix them in, but there’s a large ceiling here. Freddy Valdez is another example of a big physical presence who is projected to be a power hitting potential with a strong arm in the outfield.

This trade would not cost the Mets much in terms of farm value and they can find a decent affordable pitcher with a veteran presence to compliment the Mets starting rotation. I know people would react to this and say “no thanks, he has cancer” but I think trading for him is definitely a low-risk option with high rewards since he is not going to cost the Mets too much. He proved in 2020 that he still can be dominant and he would be fairly cheap for the Mets for the next 2-3 years.

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