Mets send Mark Canha to Brewers as sell-off continues
Mark Canha follows through on his eighth inning run scoring sacrifice fly as the Mets face the Washington Nationals at Citi Field on Thursday, July 27, 2023. Credit: Jim McIsaac
The Mets’ teardown continued on Monday as they traded outfielder Mark Canha and cash to the Milwaukee Brewers for pitching prospect Justin Jarvis.
With Tuesday’s 6 p.m. trade deadline approaching, the Mets are continuing to engage with clubs about many of their veterans, including future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander.
The Mets already have traded David Robertson to the Marlins for two prospects and Max Scherzer to Texas for one prospect.
MLB.com ranked Jarvis, 23, Milwaukee’s 30th-best prospect. He was 6-4 with a 3.33 ERA in 14 starts for Double-A Biloxi this season but has not pitched as well in three starts for Triple-A Nashville (0-2, 10.80 ERA).
A fifth-round draft pick by the Brewers in 2018, Jarvis has appeared in 90 games (76 starts) and has gone 23-25 with a 4.27 ERA.
Canha, 34, signed a two-year, $26.5 million deal with the Mets before the 2022 season. His contract has a team option for next season worth $11.5 million or a $2 million buyout.
The Mets are paying most of what is left of Canha’s $11.5 million salary (all but the prorated minimum) for the rest of this season and the Brewers will make the decision on the option, a source confirmed.
In 2022, Canha hit .266 with 13 home runs and a .770 OPS in 140 games. He was hit by a pitch a Mets-record 28 times, a milestone that is celebrated with a huge poster of Canha outside the home clubhouse at Citi Field. It shows him getting plunked.
In 2023, Canha is hitting .245 with six home runs and a .725 OPS in 89 games as some of his playing time was given to Tommy Pham (who also might be traded).
Other candidates to possibly soon become former Mets include Brooks Raley, Adam Ottavino, Jose Quintana, Daniel Vogelbach and basically any player who the Mets think could fetch a high enough prospect package to be worth dealing away.
While discussing the Scherzer trade on Sunday, general manager Billy Eppler made it clear that the mandate from owner Steve Cohen is to use his financial might in trades to restock the farm system. That’s after two years of record spending on free agents led to a 101-win 2022 that ended in bitter disappointment — the Mets were edged by Atlanta for the NL East title before losing to San Diego in the Wild Card Series — and a 50-55 record in 2023.
“We’re going to listen,” Eppler said. “But our price points are high. We have valuations on our existing personnel and the bar is high to meet it. But we are willing, in certain circumstances, to use Steve’s investment and kind of repurpose that investment to serve the larger goal, which is to build a championship organization.”
The largest question the Mets will have to answer before the deadline is if they can move Verlander. The 40-year-old ace, who previously said he wanted to stay with the Mets in 2024, said on Sunday that the trade of Scherzer “changes my opinion a little bit, yeah” in terms of waiving his no-trade clause. He now sounds ready to do so.
The Astros and Dodgers are believed to be the most likely destinations for Verlander. He won a World Series with Houston last season and Los Angeles is brimming with top pitching prospects.
Verlander is signed through next season for $43.3 million and has a player option for $35 million for 2025. As they did with the Scherzer trade, the Mets will have to negotiate an appropriate amount of cash to send along with Verlander in order to facilitate a trade and get back a prospect or two whom they really want. The more the Mets are willing to pay the team that acquires Verlander, the better the prospect haul they will get back.
“Generally,” Eppler said, “the closer the players are to the big leagues, the higher the premium. There’s certain information out there in the public space that talks about valuing prospects and how you value them, and we have some internal models that are in our analytics group and our player personnel group. Kind of collaborate on it to build those valuations, and what we just try to do is have a little bit of a multiplier on the money that we’re sending . . . and try to find that price with the organization we’re having dialogue [with]. And if it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. We’ll just keep the player.”
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
