In making it clear just how much he wanted his Royals to trade for R.A. Dickey, Grantland’s Rany Jazayerli put forth a great case for just how valuable Dickey is, especially in light of his willingness to sign a pretty reasonable two- or three-year extension on top of his $5 million contract for 2013.
Just as Jazayerli says, who cares that Dickey is 38? He’s a knuckleballer who just won a Cy Young Award at 37. Until age 36, he had never topped 175 innings in a season as a pro. He certainly hasn’t racked up the pitch counts of the typical 38-year-old hurler. Anyway, he was anything but typical in the first place, given that he’s missing his UCL (a.k.a. the Tommy John ligament) in his elbow.
If Dickey were the typical 38-year-old, then yeah, the Mets probably should trade him, working under the theory that he probably wouldn’t be part of the next good Mets team anyway. But he’s not. There’s good reason to think he has three, four or maybe even five or six years left of quality pitching in him. In my opinion, he’s a better bet to stay healthy than the typical free agent pitcher five or six years younger than he is.
If the Mets could get Wil Myers and a quality pitching prospect from the Royals for Dickey, that would probably be worth doing. Maybe it’s worth doing for Myers alone; I don’t think he’s any sort of lock to develop into an All-Star, but he definitely has the potential. However, the Mets would be much smarter to give him the extension than to trade him for anything less than a top-10 prospect. He’ll still be a top-of-the-rotation starter if the Mets can come up with enough talent around him to make a run in 2014 or ’15.
