The Los Angeles Dodgers continue to loom large over the Mets as the Amazins’ continue their quest for National League supremacy. The addition of two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell puts every team in the league on notice, but especially the pitching-strapped Mets.
The team that owner Steve Cohen cited when he purchased the Mets and the team that stopped the Amazins’ short in the pennant race a little more than a month ago now has seven players signed to nine-figure contracts. It’s a remarkable total that will undoubtedly anger fans of small-market teams.
Parity? More like parody as two teams will somewhat comically play in minor league ballparks and several others grapple with uncertainty of their broadcast contracts, while teams like the Dodgers continue to collect just about every star player available and comfortably enjoy their $8 billion TV deal.
The Guggenheim Group is trying to build a dynasty and they have the resources to do it. Shohei Ohtani sells tickets on his own. Dodger Stadium holds more fans than any other stadium in baseball and the team just sold a whole lot of $30 micheladas during the playoffs.
Thanks to Cohen’s deep pockets and a stable television contract, the Mets are one of the few teams in position to compete with them and counter them, both on the field and in the accounting offices. But Snell’s five-year, $182 million free-agent contract set the market for starting pitching, making it more expensive than initially anticipated.
The Mets have shown a willingness to go after the top pitchers on the market, signing Max Scherzer in 2021 and Justin Verlander in 2022, but they were both past their prime by the time they arrived in Queens and ultimately the Mets flipped them for prospects. President of baseball operations David Stearns came in last fall and brought with him a different strategy for starting pitching acquisitions, targeting veteran inning-eaters who sought short-term contracts to reset their own markets.
This strategy proved successful with left-hander Sean Manaea and right-hander Luis Severino turning in standout seasons and rejecting their qualifying offers. The Mets stand to gain some extra draft picks if Manaea and Severino sign with other teams. Stearns intends to stick with this strategy this winter, meaning Corbin Burnes and Max Fried likely aren’t on the radar.
The Mets are trying to avoid being saddled with bad long-term contracts that could hamstring them in the future, but more and more, we’re seeing players who want to find long-term homes through free agency. This was the case with Snell, who signed a two-year contract with an opt-out with the San Francisco Giants in March. Snell is about to be 32 and there are some health concerns, so it’s natural for a player of his age and caliber to seek long-term stability.
At some point, the Mets might have to relent and sign top pitchers for more than 1-2 years. That point might not be now, but it could be coming soon because it’s going to be tough to compete with a rotation of Snell, Ohtani, Tyler Glasnow, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tony Gonsolin next fall. Clayton Kershaw is likely to return for another year and Landon Knack and Bobby Miller are in the mix too.
And remember, the Dodgers won the World Series without a real starting rotation after injuries sidelined several of their top arms. They cobbled together a group of mostly depth starters and long relievers, kept them together with bubble gum and duct tape and still won.
Sure, there is more than one way to acquire starting pitching, but the Mets don’t have the same organizational depth as a team like the Baltimore Orioles and they want to protect the depth they do have. If the O’s and their new ownership group really want Garrett Crochet, they can send the White Sox any number of prospects and still have some to spare.
When Cohen took over the Mets, the goal was to be like the Dodgers. Now, it’s to beat them.
“When you look at the team and the whole organization, they’ve been doing it for a long time, year after year. And that should be our goal — not only to be like them but better than them,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said after the team was eliminated by Los Angeles in the NLCS. “And that’s not easy. We understand we’ve got a lot of work to do. But I think we took a really good step forward to move in that direction.”
To beat a dynasty, you have to build one yourself. Kodai Senga and David Peterson represent strong building blocks, but the Mets still have a lot of building left this winter, and now the pressure is on them to build something bigger and better than ever.
