The Mets’ sale to billionaire Steve Cohen was supposed to be the ultimate ailment for all the aches and pains the Mets fan base had suffered through. His money was the answer to all the questions raised by The Owners Who Must Not Be Named. They were the ones who failed to pay for the available free agent talent needed to put the Mets over the top.
Uncle Stevie has arrived and if you completely ignore the second-best season in franchise history; his reign has been a complete disappointment. They lost to the hated Atlanta Braves in September of 2022; and then lost to the San Diego Padres in the playoffs. Buck Showalter and the Most Expensive Team Money Could Buy completely collapsed the following season and now Yoshinubu Yamamoto is taking his talents to Los Angeles.
That the 25-year-old that hasn’t professionally thrown an MLB baseball and still signed for $325 million for 12 years shows capitalism on display and that despite rumors to the contrary, baseball is doing just fine. Start with the fact that any of the multimillionaires and/or billionaires who own an MLB team could have spent the money and made this deal happen. It’s not heard much around here, but the national conversation involves market size and how some teams can’t compete with the big cities.
It looks right past the fact this decision is being made by one person and what they want to do. Does he want to actually play for your team? Does he want to live in your metro-area for the foreseeable future? These are the true factors going into a life-altering choice like this; not if your team has enough money. Every owner of these billion-dollar clubs has the money - the question is if they want to spend it.
Questioning how other people’s money should be spent wasn’t part of the sports’ lexicon for most of the 20th century. I wasn’t alive to know about Julius Erving signing a contract with teams in both the ABA and NBA about 50 years ago. I certainly couldn’t confidently tell you what was written about, only know that it required actual journalistic reporting. That information was not easily obtainable and likely didn’t include the contractual minutia sports owners used to remain rich for years.
So even when players were exerting newly found freedom and power; they still weren’t making anywhere close to the people paying them. The baseball owners today may cry and complain about market size at times, but they are making money, or they’d sell their teams; especially since there is a a long list of willing buyers and each franchise is valued well above their original purchase price.
Since everyone speaks sports, salary caps in the NFL, NBA & NHL have expanded the language while creating the allure of fair play, turning the front office into a game of its own with executives actually getting traded to different organizations. The draft and lottery systems in place provides your fan base a chance to believe that hope is just a draft pick away; that success is possible and just over the horizon.
But the New Jersey/Brooklyn Nets are still without a title. If you’ve been born into the New York Islanders fan base; you hold onto the Bryan Trottier years from the early 80s like Linus clings to his blanket. That Peanuts reference dates me, similar to the last time the Nassau Coliseum held relevant postseason games before becoming the UBS Arena with a similar lack of playoff success. Postseason games are spoken of like they’re rare in the NFL; but it seems every team occasionally gets a taste.
The New York Giants have the worst record in the league over the past decade; but a 9-7-1 record and a road playoff win had fans like me believing in almost anything. But watching the playoffs is always a showcase of the fundamental differences between the good and the bad. A team’s flaws are on full display with analysts pointing out how the issue has been one all season. And we’re repeatedly told how the playoffs are a new season & how we must watch.
I’ve watched the Mets for decades; watched them on WWOR and Cablevision in the 20th century and on WPIX and SNY in the 21st. Last year, I faithfully watched them play the flaming Hindenburg airship; ‘Dazed and Confused’ in the background as the 101-win team from a season ago failed. I’ve patiently waited for Yamamoto to decide since the Mets made it clear their offseason plans revolved around him. It appears I will continue to wait and regardless of what happens next, I must consider this a failure.
But it is a failure for that specific reason, not all the additional items being added to the list. Not hiring Craig Counsel as manager isn’t a failure since he wasn’t trying to leave the greater Chicago area and used his former boss in Stearns to increase his salary. Not trading for Juan Soto is too sensible to be a failure since the left-handed right fielder with Scott Boras as an agent is a free agent next offseason. Not signing Shohei Ohtani can’t be a failure since it was never an option. Ohtani knew where he wanted to go and, in the end, the 25-year-old decided to run with the two-time MVP instead of Kodai Senga and that’s the truth.
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