Reese Kaplan -- Eight Crazy Nights (Plus One Extra)

With today representing Christmas Eve it would be appropriately cliched to pen some kind of post set to the 12 days of Christmas or some other formulaic method of tying together the upcoming holiday with actions around the Mets team. 

Believe me, the thought definitely crossed my mind, but in the spirit of both the Cohen family household and my own irreverent sense of the absurb, instead let's look at what Adam Sandler once referred to as "Eight Crazy Nights!"

1 While people debated back and forth over the highest priority for the Mets with fully half of their players leaving in free agency, many felt there was greater necessity to lock up Edwin Diaz than there was Jacob deGrom. Before the ink was even dry on the end-of-World-Series paperwork the Mets did just that, making Diaz the highest paid relief pitcher of all time. It was the very start to the Mets Sandleresque offseason.

2 While one crazy night was beyond the Mets team control, they more than made up for it by inking the reigning AL Cy Young Award winner, Justin Verlander to join Max Scherzer at the top of the rotation and make the sting of the deGrom departure seem more like a a knuckle crack than a bone break.

3 After enduring far too many years of the penurious previous administration who avoided top tier offshore talents season after season, it was an unusual development not only for the Mets to land the biggest Japanese talent available in Kodai Senga, but also to do so at a bargain price only $1 million per year more than they are paying Carlos Carrasco and $5 million less than they paid Chris Bassitt.

4 With Edwin Diaz made a part of the Mets for the foreseeable future, the team still found itself without a large part of the bullpen supporting case due to free agency. Imagine the front office going to deliver one stellar setup man David Robertson to help ease the sense of dread when handing the starting pitcher's game over to the guys expected to hold it close enough to win.

5 The 2023 starting rotation didn't sport any notable lefties which sometimes meant bad matchups with the competition. With yet another opening to address the club was able to lure southpaw Jose Quintana to Citifield for a price under what departing Taijuan Walker and Chris Bassitt each got from their new employers while they look forward to a lifetime ERA 3.75 which would place him smack between the two of him for a back-of-the-baseball-card metric.

6 For a guy who was ridiculed in his high draft selection, Wyoming native Brandon Nimmo turned everything around when he made himself into the top centerfield option available to the highest bidder in this offseason. Not surprisingly, the deepest pockets belonged to Steve Cohen and he ensured that Nimmo will spend the majority of his career patrolling the outfield for the New York Mets.

7 Ever since losing out on Aaron Loup the Mets have been pretty much ineffectual against left handed hitters. Consequently the club's decision to go after one-year-wonder Brooks Raley seemed on the surface to address that issue by locking him up from the Tampa Bay Rays on a veteran-for-prospect trade that helps bring his high level of control and strikeout abilities to help alongside the rest of the pen brigade.

8 Of course, after the type of season Adam Ottavino put in for the Mets on their way to 101 wins in 2022 he was going to be a pair of mighty tough shoes to fill. Cobblers Cohen and Eppler went to work and built Ottavino custom fitting kicks for the next two years to bring back another key piece of innings 6 through 9.

*9 Now this last extra one can be taken one of two ways as newest Met Carlos Correa was off the market to the city by the bay, but an issue arose during his physical that made the Giants think twice. Rather than waiting for him to officially hit the market once again, Hawaii-vacationing Steve Cohen apparently adorned Correa with the right kind of lei and without anyone knowing what was happening, the big man was now a New York Met.

Surely there were other crazy nights as well, such as inking Omar Narvaez and trading James McCann, but the magnitude of those types of deals don't seem to hit the top eight which hopefully will make for a bright and happy future for everyone but Mets opponents! Happy Holidays, be it Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa or however you choose to celebrate.