Jack's Take: Revisiting Cubs-Mets Trade With Javier Báez, Pete Crow-Armstrong

When Mets hosted the Cubs over the weekend, it brought back memories of notable trades from the 2021 deadline.

Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer dealt away major pieces of their 2016 World Series core, sending Kris Bryant to the Giants, Anthony Rizzo to the Yankees and Javier Báez to the Mets. It seemed like a risk at the time, given their MVP, Gold Glove and All-Star accolades.

Trading them turned out to be the right move, though, from the perspective that all three fell off significantly after joining new teams. Pricy, long-term extensions likely would have aged poorly in Chicago. But the combined return for Bryant and Rizzo – prospects Caleb Killian, Alexander Canario, Alexander Vizcaino and Kevin Alcantara – has effectively made no impact on the major league roster so far. Alcantara, the Cubs' No. 5 prospect, may be the only one who will.

Fortunately for the Cubs, Hoyer made what now looks like one of the best trades in recent MLB history for Báez and pitcher Trevor Williams. In exchange for the two-time All-Star shortstop and 2018 MVP runner-up, the Cubs received center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong, who, at the time, was a 19-year-old in Single-A and ranked No. 5 among Mets prospects.

Fast forward to this past weekend, and Crow-Armstrong was facing off against the team that drafted him No. 19 overall in the 2020 MLB Draft out of Harvard-Westlake High School in Los Angeles, Calif. He's developed into one of baseball's best young players, ranked fifth in MLB and first among center fielders with 2.5 wins above replacement, per FanGraphs.

The names ahead of him? Aaron Judge, Corbin Carroll, Fernando Tatis Jr. and Bobby Witt Jr. Through 42 games, Crow-Armstrong has 10 home runs, 28 RBI, 13 stolen bases and a .259/.302/.525/.827 slash lines while playing Gold Glove-caliber center field defense. It's also fitting that Crow-Armstrong plays a electrifying style of baseball similar to Báez, who earned the nickname "El Mago," or the magician, in Chicago.

Losing Crow-Armstrong is not the only reason the trade looks so lopsided nearly four years later. Báez performed well in New York – he hit nine home runs with a .299 batting average and an .886 OPS – but he only played 47 games before signing a six-year, $140 million contract with the Tigers before the 2022 season. The Mets only got 122 innings out of Williams, too, though his 3.17 ERA was a positive.

It has to sting for the Mets to watch their former first-round pick turn into a budding star, who may only be scratching the surface of his ultimate potential, while they only received a season and a half of Williams and 47 games of Báez. But there may be a silver lining.

After all, the Mets took two of three games from the Cubs and lead the NL East with 27 wins, tied for most in MLB with the Dodgers and Tigers. Their owner, Steve Cohen, is clearly committed to winning big as he just gave a $765 million contract to Juan Soto in the offseason. At least the Mets didn't give Báez the contract that's come with far more negative than positive with the Tigers.

The future would be even brighter in Queens with Crow-Armstrong next to Soto in the outfield, a big miss on the Mets' part and a credit to the Cubs front office.

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