Let's talk about Sandy Alcantara

[Benjamin Grimm]

I think it's inevitable that there will be a lot of speculation about the Mets and Alcantara. He's under team control through the 2027 season, and the Marlins apparently want to use him to bolster their farm system. So the price will be steep. I know the Mets have been loathe to trade prospects recently, but is this the guy for whom they'll make an exception? My guess is that he won't be a Met, but I'm far from certain about that. I don't know who the Marlins would demand, and who the Mets would be willing to trade and who they wouldn't.

What do we think about this?

[Gwreck]

Salary cost is the balance of the $17M for 2025, $17M in 2026 and $21M in 2027, for his age-29, 30, and 31 seasons. That’s well below market rate for a pitcher of his caliber.

This is indeed the sort of player for whom you make an exception re: otherwise not trading prospects.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I agree with that, but I wonder if the Marlins' ask will be too big. Alcantara looks like the kind of guy for whom you'd trade three or four young players. It took four players to get Johan Santana. Four to get Lindor (and Carrasco) Three to get Piazza. The Mets got four for Seaver. This seems like it would be a similar kind of deal. So which three or four players would it take? I really don't know.

[Frayed Knot]

Right now I think teams are going to watch and see how he rebounds from his UCL surgery.

He didn't have a great season (by his standards) in 2023 [113 ERA+ following seasons of 152, 132, 180/CY] and then missed all of 2024

Nothing dominant from his first two starts this year and his velocity is down a few clicks ... but it's early and that's a very SSS

Miami, of course, will want to see how he rebounds too since anything resembling a return to form ups the value of the return haul.

With two seasons on his deal after this one there's no rush on either side to do something this early.

But, yeah, this will be a BIG topic come deadline time and possibly sooner.

[roger_that]

My number one principle is don't trade prospects for pitchers. Very tempting, I know, but a bad enough idea to reject across the board (unless you can get a really ace pitcher for prospects you no longer believe in or who are redundant in your system, and even then I'm only lukewarm on the idea.) The Mets under Stearns seem to have embraced this principle, which is the reason I like the way they think. Pitchers are too dependent on one part of their body to build your club around them--better to strengthen your offense through trades and long-term contracts, and build a staff by signing FA pitchers to short-term deals, plus promoting young pitchers from within your system and/or swapping them out for FA pitchers whose team want to unload the remainder of their contracts. I don't mind swapping young pitchers on the same principle that pitchers always get hurt anyway.

[MFS62]

Lindor and Soto have been quoted recently as saying they would like getting him and it would be a great move.

I'm not sure if this is bordering on tampering (probably not since he isn't a free agent), but if they keep it up some people at the commissioner's office will start monitoring this closely. But that's not going to stop the reporters from asking.

Later

[Benjamin Grimm]

I'm not sure if the tampering rule applies to comments from players.

[roger_that]

Glad Lindor and Soto are not running the team.

I would go for a package of young arms, any 3 pitching prospects in the system, plus one position player--Acuna maybe (though I think he has a tremendous upside) or Mauricio or someone of that sort--but not a package of several position players.

[Centerfield]

I’d trade any prospect in the Mets system for Alcantara. I bet Stearns would too. But I’m guessing someone can give a package that will beat the Mets.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Screw Alcantra. The Mets are, hopefully, hoarding their prospects for Paul Skenes. If that guy's still a Pirate in 2028, it'll be a miracle.

[Channel9]

A healthy Alcantara under team control below market value for 3 years of what should be his prime, gets 3 of whatever combination of Scott/Sproat/Tong/Acuna/Mauricio/Williams that they want.

If they want a starter from the big club to replace Sandy, I’d give them two from the above list and Megill.

But what do I know?

[roger_that]

I'd wait until much later in the season, for two reasons: we aren't sure about our starting rotation yet (so far it looks purty good, don't it?) and we're not sure how far back Alcantara has come from TJ surgery yet. He ain't gonna cost much more in August than he costs in April.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Yeah. Like the Marlins are gonna trade Alcantra to a division rival.

[Gwreck]

Alcantara was put on the paternity list, so Mets won’t face him this week.

[Frayed Knot]

As just posted in the TWiB notes thread:

Cubs ace, Justin Steele, out for the season with some kind of elbow surgery to follow.

That kind of puts the baby bears at the front of the line in the Sandy Alcantara sweepstakes as the Cubs system is said to be "loaded" (Buster Olney).

The NL Central certainly seems to be there for the taking so the Cubs would seem to be a good bet to be aggressive in getting what they need either at or even before the trading deadline.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Bumping this in case it comes up again this offseason.

[Edgy MD]

Sheesh, I might prefer bringing back Julio Teheran.

[smg58]

It's difficult to read what the price is. I'd love to know what the price would have been in July, given that he beat the Mets twice down the stretch and we only needed to revere one of those.

[metirish]

Probably ends up with the MFY

[Cowtipper]

Alcantara is too Luis Severino-ish. Too up-and-down health wise and consistency wise. Even when he recovered from his early season struggles in 2025, he still wasn't GREAT, posting cumulative ERAs near 4. Let someone else have him.