Late last night, the New York Mets made the inevitable move everyone was expecting. After two disastrous years in Queens, the team dealt James McCann in a trade with the Baltimore Orioles.
The Mets also sent cash considerations in the deal with the Orioles. Per Jon Heyman of The New York Post and MLB Network, the Mets will pay down 75% of McCann’s $12 million salary to the Orioles.
In return, the Mets got a player to be named at a later time.
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Moving James McCann was a move the Mets simply had to make:
In his two years with the Mets, McCann batted .232 and .195. He was only available for 61 games in 2022. He played in 185 total games with the Mets, hitting just 13 home runs and only driving in 64 runs.
With the Mets’ aggressiveness all offseason, handing out big contract after big contract, they needed to start offloading some contracts off their payroll. McCann was a well-documented one all along. While they have to pay a third of McCann’s salary, at least they were able to shred some money off the books.
Not only the contract and play of McCann made him a logical player to move, but the catcher position currently has some strong depth. The Mets recently went out and acquired Omar Narvaez. They have Tomas Nido, who outperformed McCann last year, especially down the stretch. Lastly, the Mets have the top prospect in baseball, Francisco Alvarez, who needs to have more opportunities in 2023. With three catchers in place, the Mets had to move McCann.
It was widely anticipated that McCann would be a player the Mets would look to deal. The questions were would a team want to trade for him, and how much of his salary would the Mets still have to take on? Even though they have to pay most of it, this was a transaction the Mets had to execute.