Since taking over as owner of the Mets, Steve Cohen has shown he’s not afraid to spend. This winter alone, he has signed Justin Verlander, Edwin Diaz, Brandon Nimmo, Kodai Senga, David Robertson and Adam Ottavino. And so on.
In short, clearly, Cohen is ready to do anything to win, so he also pulled out the checkbook for Carlos Correa after his deal with the Giants fell through. However, Correa’s deal with the Mets has also wanked in the sleeveso Correa finally got along with the Twins.
I want to say that this time will be the right one, but you never know.
The Mets, who wanted Correa to pass a physical test every year to secure his contract, therefore find themselves with $ 315 million (over 12 years) less to spend than expected. And clearly, I think Cohen will want to reinvest this sum in his club.
The problem is that currently, quality freelancers are very rare. The Mets are linked to Zack Britton, who came back too quickly from Tommy John surgery last year, but it’s not 2016 anymore: he’s a deep reliever, nothing more.
In New York, Britton would reunite with his former manager Buck Showalter. I don’t know if the latter will use it in series this time, hehe.
But clearly, the Mets have money to spend, and in the short term, there’s no big name to go after.
And that’s where the year-ahead autonomy market comes in.
Next year, Shohei Ohtani and Manny Machado will be the two big fish in the market (Machado has to get out of his contract to do that, but that seems very likely). We suspected the Mets would be on the case, but with the money that was supposed to go to Correa who is now free, we can expect to see them be very aggressive in the file.
And in the shorter term, having this money to spend opens up avenues for the 2023 season. The team will be able to get a big salary at the trade deadline to improve training if it ever feels the need.
There will also be a cost in prospects, though, but with so many veterans, the Mets need to go all-in now.
I don’t know what the Mets will have in store for us in the next 12 months, but I expect at least another big signing from them before the start of the 2024 season.
It only remains to be seen if they will be able to choose a player who will not have too much difficulty passing a physical test.
