The Yankees and Mets have agreed to at least three trades in the past four seasons, only to have all three fall apart just before being finalized.
Those memories resurfaced on Friday, when Jay Bruce, now with the Yanks on a minor league deal, was asked about being involved in one of those deals.
For the sake of curiosity, we then reconfirmed through sources what we were pretty sure we remembered about these deals. You can take the below info to the bank, people:
-- In 2017, the Mets and Yankees agreed on a trade that would have sent Bruce across town for prospects. It got far enough where Bruce believed he was headed to the Bronx.
What happened next depends on who you ask, but the Mets ultimately backed out of the deal. They then moved Bruce to Cleveland.
-- Around the same time, the teams also had a deal trading Neil Walker to the Yankees for minor leaguers, but a concern about the second baseman’s medicals scuttled the trade. Whatever the issue, Walker ended up in Milwaukee and performed capably.
-- At the trade deadline in 2019, the Mets and Yanks were extremely close to a trade that would have made Zack Wheeler a Yankee. According to one source, there was a tentative agreement in place. Headed to the Mets would have been “a really good young player,” in the words of one person involved.
The Mets decided instead to hold onto Wheeler, acquire Marcus Stroman, and remain in the pennant race.
-- Unlike the others, this one didn’t get to the agreement stage, but the teams did seriously discuss a three-way deal with the Marlins in December 2018. That one had the potential to send Noah Syndergaard to the Yankees, J.T. Realmuto to Queens, and either Gary Sanchez or Miguel Andujar to South Florida.
Anyway. None of this is exactly Ted Williams for Joe DiMaggio on a cocktail napkin, but it’s fun to think about what might have been.