Reese Kaplan -- Things Will Likely Get Worse Before Better

Jealousy is a terrible thing.  You see your rivals do things to bring their clubs further down the road to post-season contention by securing players like Will Harris, Will Smith, Travis d'Arnaud, Darren O'Day, Starlin Castro, Daniel Hudson and Eric Thames, then you see your own club "improving" through the additions of Yefry Ramirez, Steve Gonsalves and career .227 hitter Jake Marisnick.  One (or more) of these things is not like the other...

With the tepid (to be generous) performances of Edwin Diaz, Jeurys Familia, Jed Lowrie, Robinson Cano, Yoenis Cespedes and others, it was most surprising to see the Mets rally into a contending style team for the post-All Star Game portion of the season.  It looked as if there was a foundation formed, though different than what was anticipated, and this off-season was going to be used to build upon the fine improvement achieved late last year.  Instead, there was a lot of waving goodbye to free agents, scrap heap picking other clubs' cast-offs and one solid addition of an injury ravaged reliever.  Why does it appear that the guy the Mets brought in to shake up the conservative thinking of the past has all of the sudden gone all head-in-the-sand while his competitors seek to improve their teams?

Several theories have surfaced as to why the Mets are not moving more aggressively towards post-season probability.  Most of them have money as the root of all inertia.  First there was the wished-for but not-even-rumored possibility that the Wilpon family finally would take their money and run by inviting one of the minority owners to ascend the ranks of power.  No one rightly saw the Steven Cohen change coming, and although it's technically not a real deal just yet, the highlights suggest it's merely a matter of dotting the i's and crossing the t's.  

Of course, no one knows if this deal was an exclusive offer to Cohen or if the shares merely went to the highest bidder from anywhere?  If that possibility was on the table, then it would explain the reluctance to go even deeper in debt with a higher payroll which would make it that much more difficult to entice someone to join in on a financially unfavorable enterprise.  Towards that end, one could see why there was so little effort put into spending money and increasing payroll.  The specter of the payroll penalties hitting would make any prospective outside investment that much dimmer.

Interestingly, many folks are grasping onto the Cohen news as the panacea to the years of Wilpon weaknesses.  Granted, any port in a storm is a valid cliched approach to fanning the flames of misguided optimism.  Being a perpetual pessimist, I will believe Cohen changes nothing until he actually does.  Consequently, I view the change as potentially positive as we have seen very little commitment to winning from the Wilpon brigade, but I'm not expecting the Mets to transition into a Steinbrenner-era Yankee club spending its way into championships. 

With the payroll changes likely happening after 2020 when the payroll picture is quite different, it's entirely possible the club can be rebuilt with some significant increase in spending without crossing the $208 million plateau.  Marcus Stroman, Yoenis Cespedes, Jed Lowrie and others will likely no longer be here and that difference alone could mean two superstar caliber talents joining the club without actually increasing payroll.  I'm not as optimistic about 2020 as I am about 2021 and the future, but to be fair the off-season is not yet over and more changes could still occur.