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Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz are officially members of the New York Mets. With all players involved in the deal completing and passing their physicals, the Mets and Mariners have finalized a trade that brings Cano and Diaz to New York in exchange for Jay Bruce, Anthony Swarzak, Gerson Bautista, and former first-round picks Jarred Kelenic and Justin Dunn. The Mariners are also sending the Mets $20 million to help offset some of the cost of Cano’s salary.
Rumblings of a trade began circulating on November 27, when it was said that the Mets were planning to be “aggresive” in their pursuit of Cano, although a deal was considered a long shot at the time. From there, things escalated quickly and a trade was completed on Saturday, with physicals representing the final formality. The Mets are planning to hold an 11:00am press conference at Citi Field on Tuesday, December 4 to introduce Cano and Diaz. Cano will wear number 24 for the Mets.
Cano will be 36 on Opening Day and is coming off an 80-game PED suspension, but he is still an impact bat that will add some much-needed offense to a team that was offensively-starved last season. In 80 games, Cano hit .303/.374/.471 with 10 home runs, a .168 ISO, and a 136 wRC+, which amounted to a 2.9 fWAR. His wRC+ and fWAR would both place second among Mets batters who had a minimum of 300 plate appearances in 2018. Over the course of his 14-year career, he has a .304/.355/.493 slash line to go along with 311 home runs, a .177 ISO, and a 122 wRC+. He will cost the Mets $20 million annually over the next five years when factoring in the money Seattle included in the deal.
Though not the headliner in the deal by many accounts, Diaz is an equally important piece and will give the Mets the shut-down closer that they desperately needed. Diaz, whose fastball regularly clocks in at 100 miles-per-hour, led the American League with 57 saves last year and struck out 124 batters in 73.1 innings. That was good enough for a 44.3% strikeout rate. On top of that, he only issued 17 walks, which resulted in a very impressive 6.1% walk rate—a career best.