🫨 Corey Kluber was almost part of Brodie Van Wagenen's wild offseason

Hello fellow Mets fans! Welcome to today’s edition of “Almost A Met.”

I went to my first game of the season last week. The Mets lost (classic) and got swept by the A’s. But it was still a good time. I tried some new food (more on this in a future newsletter…) and enjoyed being at the stadium with my friend, and Almost A Met subscriber, Connor.

We both were like: “It’s good to be back.”

Anyway, enough about me. You’re here for a Mets “what-if” scenario. Today I’ll dive into how the Mets were looking to acquire SP Corey Kluber.

They were connected more than I initially thought…

Let’s get into it.

Andrew Wyrich

The Mets and Brodie Van Wagenen were ‘thinking big’ — and that included Corey Kluber

Where do I even begin with former Mets GM Brodie Van Wagenen?

He certainly was… unorthodox. From the moment he was hired — when the Wilpon’s decided to go with a player agent to run their baseball operations rather than an experienced GM or up-and-coming baseball mind — he clearly wanted to change the perception and personnel of the Mets.

He was hired in October 2018, and immediately got to work to try and fix a Mets club that finished 77-85 and featured the likes of OF Jose Bautista playing 83 games for them.

Van Wagenen put his stamp on the team with a blockbuster trade on December 3, 2018: Acquiring 2B Robinson Cano and Closer Edwin Diaz for several veterans and top prospects OF Jarred Kelenic and SP Justin Dunn. (While this trade worked out for the Mets, process wise it’s a disaster. You don’t trade your top prospect for a closer, no matter how good he is).

But he was seeking even more moves. One player he was reportedly eyeing: Cleveland’s SP Corey Kluber.

Kluber had quickly established himself as one of the best pitchers in the game. From 2013-2018, he had a 2.96 ERA, won 94 games, and won two Cy Young Awards.

He also finished high in that award’s voting three times when he didn’t win over that span, where he had 1,364 strikeouts over 1,238 innings.

He was just coming off a fantastic 2018, where the 32-year-old had a 2.89 ERA and pitched 215 innings. However, he was slated to make quite a bit of money. As NBC Sports reported at the time, he would make $17.2 million in 2019, with a $17.2 club option in 2020, and an $18 million option in 2021.

As the offseason kicked off, it was reported that Cleveland was willing to listen to offers on Kluber, so it made some sense that the Mets would at least entertain the idea of slotting him into a rotation that could include some combination of Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Zack Wheeler, and Steven Matz.

A possible ripple effect of a Kluber-Mets trade: What happens to Syndergaard?

The Mets and Van Wagenen wasted no time in kicking the tires on Kluber.

On Dec. 1, 2018, Mark Feinsand of MLB.com tweeted that the Mets had “spoken” with Cleveland about trading for Kluber after failing to come to an agreement on a trade for C Yan Gomes. (Who I now learned is officially an “Almost A Met”).

“Sources say the Mets have spoken with the Indians about Corey Kluber. The two teams had talked about Yan Gomes before he was dealt to the Nationals, but the Mets’ interest now appears to also extend to Kluber, who had Mets manager Mickey Callaway as a pitching coach in Cleveland,” Feinsand wrote.

As I mentioned earlier, Van Wagenen was shooting for the moon in the GM chair.

In fact, Feinsand noted that the Mets were “thinking big” during the offseason, including talking about the ace. He added that the Mets GM was even thinking about trading Syndergaard as he was “exploring every possible avenue to improve his team.”

CBS Sports speculated at the time that without the necessary prospect capital to entice Cleveland—they had just traded two of their highly regarded prospects to Seattle—that the Mets could flip Syndergaard for prospects they’d then use to acquire Kluber.

The Daily News also surmised that a deal for someone like Kluber would make the idea of trading Syndergaard easier to swallow. Other sites suggested players like OF Juan Lagares, 1B Dominic Smith, and SP prospect David Peterson as part of a deal.

Ultimately, while Kluber’s connections to Callaway made sense on the surface, there were other obstacles the two teams would have had to overcome. It appears that things didn’t progress beyond talks.

Cleveland ultimately kept Kluber for the 2019 season. But that wasn’t the only time the Mets would be linked to him.

What happened next? More Mets-Kluber rumors.

Kluber’s 2019 season was a disaster. The ace struggled in his first seven starts of the season, pitching to a 5.80 ERA, and suffered a non-displaced fracture in his right forearm after he was struck by a line drive against the Marlins in early May.

To make matters worse, he suffered an oblique injury during a rehab start later in the year. He wouldn’t pitch again in 2019.

The Mets, meanwhile, had a very strange year in 2019. They were 10 games below .500 around the All Star break, but surged in the second half to finish with an 86-76 record and missed the playoffs. For what it’s worth, Syndergaard also had an odd season, finishing with a 4.28 ERA over 32 games.

Following the 2019 season’s end, the New York Post would report that Van Wagenen would want to “swing for the fences” again during the offseason, and that the Mets could re-explore a trade for Kluber. In fact, Mike Puma suggested that the team could take a hypothetical trade “a step further” and include Cleveland’s SS Francisco Lindor in a potential deal. He speculated that a return package to Cleveland could include 1B Dominic Smith or 3B J.D. Davis (and presumably much more).

However, it wasn’t meant to be. Cleveland shipped Kluber to the Texas Rangers in December 2019, getting OF Delino DeShields Jr. and RP Emmanuel Clase in return. The deal would look horrific for Texas — as Kluber pitched in just one game for them before injuring himself and his 2020 season ending. Also Clase turned into one of the best pitchers in baseball… ahem until recently.

Even after all of that, there were still connections between the Mets and Kluber.

The former ace hosted a workout in January 2021 and around 20 teams, including the Amazin’s, were expected to be in attendance. The Yankees were expected to be a natural fit for him as a buy-low candidate.

Joel Sherman of the New York Post wrote a column around that time noting that new-Mets owner Steve Cohen could simply offer Kluber more money than everyone else to take a chance on him.

That obviously didn’t happen. That’s why Kluber is an “Almost A Met.”

Kluber ended up pitching for the Yankees, then bounced around for a few seasons with the Rays and Red Sox before throwing his last major league pitch in 2023.

While there was a ton of speculation about the Mets and Kluber over several off-seasons, it’s likely a good thing the teams never matched up for a trade (or signing). Given how his career went after 2018, he’d be remembered as another questionable Van Wagenen deal.

❓ Would you have traded for Corey Kluber?

Next newsletter we’ll share the results of the poll! So stay tuned.

Last newsletter’s answers: It was unanimous! 100% of Almost A Met readers said they wouldn’t have signed Jhonny Peralta to a 4-year $53 million deal.

🧢 Did you miss this newsletter?

⚾ Mets news you need to know

🔵 Struggling Mets must prove uninspiring start is an aberration (Chelsea Janes / SNY)

🟠 It’s getting late early for the Mets ( / Substack)

🔵 A deep dive into the Mets’ offensive struggles (Robert Colonna / MetsMerizedOnline)

🟠 What the FIP is going on with David Peterson? ( / Mets 360)

🔵(Not Mets related, but still a great read): We should appreciate the Mike Trout renaissance while we can ( / )