The Chicago Cubs traded Alexander Canario to the New York Mets on Monday. Chicago sends New York the 24-year-old outfield prospect in exchange for cash considerations. The deal comes after Canario was designated for assignment to make room on the 40-man roster for Justin Turner, who they signed last week. Canario was a part of the 2021 trade that sent Kris Bryant to the San Francisco Giants. Once thought of as a future franchise cornerstone, Canario is now a Met.
Alexander Canario is heading to the Mets where he will face some of the same struggles that he dealt with in Chicago. The Dominican outfielder hasn’t been able to find consistent playing time at the major league level with the talent ahead of him in the Cubs organization. The surging Mets boast a healthy crop of outfield talent, headlined by the $765M man Juan Soto. Being in a similar situation, Canario’s stint in New York may end the same way as his time in Chicago did, and he will be looking for a new team before the end of spring training.
Alexander Canario Traded to New York Mets
The Chicago Cubs reached an agreement with the New York Mets on a trade that sends Alexander Canario to the Mets in exchange for cash considerations. The trade comes as a result of the Cubs designating Canario for assignment last week in response to the team’s signing of Justin Turner. Canario had made a couple of appearances with the major league team but had largely been kept in the minors during his three-plus-year stint in the Chicago Cubs organization. He was brought in in the middle of 2021 as a major chit in the trade that sent Kris Bryant to the San Francisco Giants.
Twenty-one years old at the time, Canario was thought of as a major piece to the future puzzle of the Chicago Cubs. His athleticism and high potential had fans eagerly awaiting Canario’s rise to the majors. His debut came on Sept 9, 2023, but he couldn’t find consistent playing time and bounced between the majors and minors in 2024. Ahead of 2025, his prospect rankings have fallen, and his production in the minor leagues has taken a turn for the worse as well.
In his first full year in the Chicago Cubs farm system, Canario hit .252 with 37 HR, 97 RBI, and a .343 OBP in 125 games. He showed the front office enough for them to move him up from high-A ball up to AAA by the end of the season and his ascent to the major league roster seemed inevitable. He made it in 2023 as a September call-up and played well in his limited time. The outfielder hit .294 with 1 HR, 6 RBI, a .294 OBP, and a .941 OPS in six games and 17 at-bats. Heading into 2024, it appeared that Canario was ticketed for full-time major league status with the Chicago Cubs.
Canario Doesn’t Cut It with 2024 Chicago Cubs
Heading into 2024 with the Chicago Cubs, Canario was battling with various veterans for backup outfield at-bats behind Ian Happ, Cody Bellinger, and Seiya Suzuki. Canario was never able to set himself apart, and he moved between the majors and minors before a hamstring injury in the middle of the year derailed his season. Up until the mid-July injury, Canario had played in 15 games with the major league squad, hitting .280 with 1 HR, 2 RBI, a .357 OBP, and a .797 OPS. His hamstring injury opened the door for Pete Crow-Armstrong to get more playing time and the speedy center fielder never looked back, leaving Canario in the rearview mirror.
Canario now heads to New York, where he hopes a change of scenery will help him progress and develop. Dealing with some of the same log jam issues ahead of him and a loaded 40-man roster with the Mets, Canario may find himself on the move again before spring training is over. In Chicago, he came over from the Giants as a top-20 prospect but never cracked the top ten in the three-plus seasons he was in the organization. At 24 years old, Alexander Canario is at a critical juncture of his career, and it just got turned on its head in the last week after being designated for assignment and now traded to the New York Mets.
Final Thoughts
This move was bound to happen. Top prospects don’t go unnoticed when they are designated for assignment and the Mets did a good job pouncing on Canario while the iron was hot. For the Chicago Cubs, the trade is essentially Turner for Canario and that’s not a trade I would be willing to make. The team isn’t close enough to the top of MLB to be making the moves they have been making recently, turning them into the second-oldest team in baseball.
The rebuild is getting fast-tracked and microwaved by an antsy Jed Hoyer. The Chicago Cubs had a long runway and plenty of assets when it came to finding a path toward the next great Cubs team. A lot of that work and a lot of those assets are now gone after this offseason, and Canario is the latest example. The team should be better in 2025 with some of the moves they made, namely trading for Kyle Tucker, but this trade and the other offseason transactions show a clear difference in organizational philosophy and an urgency to win at the expense of the long-term health of the franchise.
Jed Hoyer’s contract status is undoubtedly a factor in these decisions, and Alexander Canario became the latest sacrificial lamb. He may not end up staying with the Mets, but he will find opportunities at the major league level somewhere and when he does get consistent playing time, he’ll have every opportunity to make the Cubs regret trading him away. I believe he will make the most of that chance and prove that trading his future and club control for six months of a 40-year-old Justin Turner wasn’t a smart move by the Chicago Cubs.
