A year ago, or thereabouts, things happened at Citi Field that even a baseball lifer like Terry Collins had never seen in his baseball life. On back-to-back days, for instance, tears fell from the eyes of his shortstop, and then poured from the heavens. The Mets were dead, and then they were exhumed and killed again.
Fun week.
“I never went through a week like that,” Collins said, shaking his head because even knowing how everything turned out last year makes the manager shake his head, such was the level of lunacy attached to the final few days before the trading deadline.
“But I also never saw a deadline trade make an impact like the one we got.”
That’s the seduction, of course, the taunting mistress of the trading deadline. You are forever looking for a Yoenis Cespedes — or a Fred McGriff, or a CC Sabathia, or a Manny Ramirez — to alter the chemistry and the outlook of a team. More often than not that doesn’t happen, of course. But it could.
It’s like what you tell yourself with a 3-wood in your hands on the par-5, maybe 230 yards away lying 2: “I won’t. But I COULD.”
When the Yankees made the first big splash of trade-deadline week, swapping Aroldis Chapman for four players, it officially signaled the start of a busy work week for the two most prominent men on the Mets’ corporate flow chart — one of whom was driven to the brink of his wits this time last year, one of whom would experience his greatest moment just two days after one of his worst.
Even before the Yankees traded Chapman, there was already a familiar whiff of the week wafting about the home clubhouse at Citi. Last year it was Wilmer Flores who wound up the unwitting man of the hour. This week it was Travis d’Arnaud’s turn. Neither Collins nor Alderson referred to the Mets’ catcher by name, of course, but it was clear who both were talking about.
This was what Alderson had to say, presumably about the reported contact the Mets and Brewers may have had about swapping d’Arnaud (and, presumably, others) for Milwaukee’s terrific (and soon-to-be-a-free-agent) catcher Jonathan Lucroy: “If the rumor I heard is the one you heard, that was a non-starter.”
This was what Collins said, asked if last year’s surreal-ity surrounding Flores had forced him to rethink the way he approached a “Player X” who may or not be moved, but whose name Collins had heard either directly or second-hand (or third-hand, or fourth-hand, or fifth …).
“If that happened,” Collins said, “I would go and spend a little time with them.”
Not to console, though.
“No matter how good a player you are you can get dealt,” Collins said. “No one said you’d be a lifelong member of the Mets or the Yankees or the Red Sox. We just had two guys go into the Hall of Fame [in Mike Piazza and Ken Griffey Jr.] who both played for multiple teams.”
All of this may well be a moot point, anyway. Alderson acknowledged that the Chapman deal has probably emboldened the list of would-be sellers who are looking to collect their own 4-for-1 windfall. And most teams who reach out to the Mets aren’t looking to talk about their low-level minor leaguers; most want to know about Dilson Herrera or Michael Conforto or Amed Rosario.
Which is probably code for: Don’t expect fireworks.
“I enjoy sizzle as much as anybody,” Alderson said. “Last year things worked out really well at the deadline. Things don’t always work out that way.”
In other words: Best to not hold your breath for even a Roman candle.
Or, as Collins put it: “The roster we have is going to have to produce better than it has.”
In other words: Have fun with these firecrackers.
Of course, a year ago, at the start of Surreal Week, nobody predicted tears, nobody foresaw faulty medicals, and nobody saw Cespedes coming.
Maybe it’s best for Collins to call Player X into his office anyway for a chat. Just in case.