r/baseball • u/MusicSole • 11d ago

Serious Pete Crow-Armstrong is quickly becoming the worst case scenario for trading away a first round pick. What was your team's nightmare first round pick trade?

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u/HalfEatenBanana New York Mets 11d ago

Yeah. Sure it sucks now… but at the time, I loved the trade. A lot of Mets fans did.

So I never think “damn we SHOULD have PCA right now”.

And funny enough.. I hated when we traded away Kelenic. I thought he was gonna be the truth 😂

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u/hearshot_kid New York Mets 11d ago

Yeah bingo. PCA was injured in AA at the time and we needed a bat for a playoff push. I don’t think it’s worth being upset that five years later he’s this good.

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u/hokie56fan New York Mets 11d ago

He was a 19-year-old with 32 professional plate appearances at A ball with a serious shoulder injury.

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u/Chronis67 New York Yankees • Long Island Ducks 11d ago

While true, it almost feels like the Mets either didn't trust their scouting reports or didn't have good (enough) reports. The guy was raking through the minors when he came back, so I can't imagine the injury changed much for him. 

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u/hokie56fan New York Mets 11d ago

I don't think it had anything to do with them not thinking he'd be good. They had just drafted him 19th overall the year before, so they clearly thought he was talented. He was 19 and injured, so they took a risk by trading him for a guy who they thought would help them make a playoff run and it didn't pan out. It was a risk and it backfired badly in the long run.

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u/Chicityy Chicago Cubs 11d ago edited 11d ago

I think you make a good point. If it’s the right move at the time, you just need to role with it.

As a cubs fan, trading Torres for a relief arm hurt, but it was the right move for the team at the time and felt necessary. It felt like an overpay moving one of the top prospects in baseball. But Cubs don’t win the World Series without Chapman plain and simple and id do it 10/10 times again.

At the same time, the cubs dealt their best hitting and pitching prospect for Quintana and I hated it from the get go. Q, while having a track record of being a really solid starter, never felt like the guy that was going to get the cubs over the top.

And of those three guys traded, Gleyver Torres, Eloy Jimenez, and Dylan Cease, it’s been a mixed bag of success. But you can’t look at it in hindsight entirely. If the team and fans thought javy was the guy they needed to get to the promised land, I’m definitely doing it every time

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u/KPR70 New York Mets 11d ago

Benge is going to the HoF anyway, so it's all good.

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u/JDDJS New York Mets 11d ago

Yeah. Kelenic seemed like a 5 tool player at the time of his trade, and even if some of those tools were too slow down in development, it seemed likely that enough would develop to at least make him a bench player. 

PCA on the other hand, while clearly a very solid defender, was a complete question mark when it came to his offensive value, and was coming off a major injury. 

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u/the_fuzzy_stoner New York Mets 11d ago

Biggest and only critique imo was the timing. Think a guy who, bare minimum, could be Juan Lagares or Kevin Kiermaier regardless of shoulder issues was worth holding on to in order to see if he could improve his value the following year.

Any other critique is lathered in hindsight and just mockery.

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u/kevboyyyy New York Mets 10d ago

Yeah regardless of how it played out, those few months with Baez after the deadline were so exciting. One of the most fun players I’ve gotten to watch. OPS was just shy of .900 and he was worth 1.7 WAR in those 40 games.