A week ago, the free-tweeting, New York Mets-owning Steve Cohen voiced his outrage at the agent of established middle-of-the-rotation hurler Steven Matz when the lefty from Ward Melville elected to sign with St. Louis rather than reunite with the local Amazin’s. Sportswriters and oft-disillusioned Mets fans alike were quick to draw from their critical holsters, fearing the apt-for-candour billionaire who promised to save the Mets from mediocrity would deter bigger names from joining a franchise that replaced its brass dysfunction with a one-man act.
Now, after poaching Yankees assistant General Manager Billy Eppler to be his own sharp baseball-minded fellow “cash man” by extension, Cohen has shown the Francisco Lindor signing of last season was just the opener.
After a week working against the clock of a looming player lockout with regard to the negotiation of a new Collective Bargaining Agreement, it’s moves like signing infielder Eduardo Escobar and outfielder Mark Canha that indicate Cohen, Eppler and company can mirror a latter-day Brian Cashman. While netting multi-Cy Young Award winner and postseason bulldog Max Scherzer to the tune of a whopping $130 Million over 3 years proves the head of the new order has the capacity to tap into peak George Steinbrenner mode when he sees fit.
The Mets faithful are optimistic once more, as their crosstown counterparts bounce batty off failed rally-worn walls, hovering their collective thumb over the Yes App icon just dying to press ‘delete.’
In the Moneyball era defined by an ideological overhaul of how sports team-building is conducted from the executive top-down, those whose patience with the so-called “process” runneth dry take to lambasting the Freaky Friday situation of sorts that has resulted.
Serial playoff patrons like the Yankees often double-down on how sustainable their consistency to contend for the crapshoot can coexist alongside its uncharacteristic migration to cost-efficiency. Whereas Cohen, handed the keys to a castle with a weak minor league moat surrounding it, is expected to restore the Mets to relevancy plateaus they have rarely ever reached – and therefore can stand to dazzle at the onset of the offseason by spending to solve problems in vintage “George” fashion.
But maligned Yankee fans taken aback by the analytical shot-callers behind the moves their team makes and, more accurately of late, the moves they don’t, need to remember: most of Steinbrenner’s massive spending sprees – save for the first – did not spawn instant World Series championships. It was reluctantly deferring to the late Gene “Sticks” Michael’s mid-’90s advice on which homegrown talent to keep that helped pave the way for Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada and Bernie Williams to even blossom in the Big Apple. Had they come up a decade earlier, this core most assuredly would have been dealt for veteran pitchers who too could not retire Wade Boggs, and faded sluggers equally incapable of delaying the launch of a young rocket named Roger Clemens.
Should the 37-year-old Scherzer perform as well as the aforementioned did well into the final stages of his egregiously unrecognized by the Hall of Fame – a column for another day – career, Mets fans’ premature penchant to rejoice on this day will be fruitfully validated.
The risk is well-stated, though; Scherzer simply ran out of gas come elimination game time for the Los Angeles Dodgers team that rented him for staff-carrying duties during their eventually thwarted World Series repeat attempt. Concerns over incumbent ace Jacob deGrom’s questionable health after his injury-shortened season aside, the prospect of the pair getting their arms right in time to “flame-throw” together inherently became too rich – but not too costly – for the Mets to pass up.
One of the Mets’ long-term goals: ceasing to be considered merely the kid brother in town. A push for and pull of a commodity of Scherzer’s caliber helps to steer the desired narrative in their favor.
The longer the Yankees wait to make their offseason splash, if one is to be had, the more they invite fans to indulge in neurotic general management of their own – where they must convince themselves the Oakland Athletics’ Matt Olson is the second coming of Tino Martinez. In fact, the Sterling call writes itself: “an O-Bomb! From Ol-son!”
