Mike's Mets - Eating Your Vegetables Is Never Fun

 

By Mike Steffanos

Last winter was a blast for Mets fans, at least until the Correa deal fell through. This year is less about immediate gratification, with a significantly reduced level of fun.

What a difference a year makes. The Mets were quite active at the 2022 Winter Meetings, signing top free agents at a feverish pace. This year, the Mets departed Nashville with little to show for their time in Music City besides minor league deals to reliever Andre Scrubb and infielder José Iglesias, along with a split deal to reliever Michael Tonkin. Since then, most of the news has featured David Stearns doing organizational depth signings, primarily to minor league contracts with an invite to spring training. I certainly can't fault David Stearns for building as much depth as possible, but these aren't the sort of deals that will make Mets fans stand up and take notice.

There was a consensus around baseball that the free agent market wouldn't heat up until the big dominoes began to fall. The biggest finally did tumble, with Shohei Ohtani signing a record $700 million deal with the LA Dodgers — despite skipper Dave Roberts committing the reportedly unforgivable transgression of actually talking about meeting with Shohei and his club's desire to sign him. Meanwhile, rumors of Ohtani flying to Toronto proved to be unfounded. Apparently, it was actually a jolly old fat man in a red suit and some hoofed friends doing a test run for later this month.

The Dodgers always seemed to be the team that made the most sense as a landing spot for Ohtani. He preferred the West Coast, wanted to play for a winner, and never seemed a good match for the New York media market. Even if Ohtani decided he was okay with New York, the Mets simply have yet to establish themselves as a winner. Steve Cohen has invested a lot of money in the club in the three seasons since he took over from the Wilpons, but there is still only 2022's Wild Card round playoff appearance to show for it.

There has been some reporting that the Mets were unwilling to make the investment that the Dodgers were making with Ohtani, to the consternation of some fans. But it's unclear whether this was simply a money decision or if Shohei never really showing any interest in the Mets factored in. Either way, I'm just not going to lose sleep over it. I'm also not going to jump on the bandwagon with those criticizing LA for making the deal. It's a lot of money, but I'm sure the Dodgers took into account Ohtani's unique marketing value as well as his extraordinary talent.

It wasn't that long ago that the Dodgers franchise was a complete mess — not all that different from where the Mets found themselves at the end of the Wilpon era. After Parking Lot magnate Frank McCourt was finally forced to sell the team in 2012, the Dodgers turned things around fairly quickly, partially aided by being in a rather uncompetitive division, at least then. After a nice run, the Giants were on a downturn, and the rest of the clubs played in relatively small markets.

That's not to disparage what LA has accomplished. They've undeniably built an absolute juggernaut over the past decade. The Dodgers' ability to develop a ton of homegrown talent despite finishing at the top of the league year after year gives them a great deal of flexibility when they choose to go out and acquire talent, such as trading for Mookie Betts or signing Ohtani and Freddie Freeman.

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