Yankees managing partner Hal Steinbrenner probably never will admit to being worried or concerned that New York’s other Major League franchise won’t be the same old Mets with billionaire new owner Steve Cohen in charge.
Privately? Yankees ownership and management surely are nervous about the Mets’ sale being approved by MLB in October and becoming official in early November. They should be because Cohen is talking like he’s going to be running the Mets like Steinbrenner’s late father ran the Yankees in the 1970s and ’80s.
You have a glaring need? You go hunting for the best available plug, regardless of price. You have two or three needs? You do the same. Money doesn’t matter.
Well, money matters, but not the way it used to matter to the Mets’ past ownerships groups, who seemingly were outspent by the Yankees nine times out of 10 for all of their existence.
Without naming names, Cohen made it clear on Thanksgiving eve that the Mets are having internal conversations with all of the best free agents in this offseason’s class, including the one that the Yankees badly want to re-sign, second baseman DJ LeMahieu.
“We’re talking to everybody,” Cohen said in an interview with SNY that first aired Wednesday night. “I can’t predict if a player wants to come play for me. Maybe they want to play in a different city. So there’s a lot of unknowns, but we’re having conversations with everybody that matters and anybody that the fans are excited by.”
Translation: The Mets are talking to LeMahieu, who reportedly is seeking a five-year, $100-million contract after greatly outplaying his first Yankees pact, $24 million for two years. And all the while, it’s now known for sure that the Mets are interested in signing J.T. Realmuto, the best catcher on the market, and Trevor Bauer, the top starting pitcher on the market.
Cohen isn’t promising Mets fans that he’ll sign at least one of the three, but at the same time he’s not ruling out getting all three (or other top free agents) to jumpstart a franchise that has missed the playoffs four years in a row and is coming off a 26-34 pandemic-shortened season. After all, the Mets have needs at second base, catcher and starting pitching.
The Yanks are considered the favorites to sign LeMahieu, but that may not be the case. While Steinbrenner is expected to cut payroll after losing hundreds of millions this year due to the Yankees playing a shortened season with no fans in the stands, Cohen sees baseball’s COVID-19 problems as an opportunity.
“I think we can take advantage of the climate that a lot of teams are in where they’re trying to cut their expenses,” Cohen said. “I think we’ll be able to get ballplayers at prices that maybe in a normal year we wouldn’t be able to get.”
Thus, it might be false hope if the Yanks are thinking that they might be able to get LeMahieu to take less years and dollars. Nowadays, who’s to say that Cohen doesn’t swoop in and offer the most money like he did in late August when he outbid Alex Rodriguez’s ownership group and all of the others to buy the Mets?
We’re almost in December, so we’ll probably get a good gauge soon on how much money Cohen is willing to spend this winter. We’ll probably start getting a feel during the Winter Meetings, which will be held Dec. 6-10, and there likely will be some big signings by Christmas or early January.
The Mets want to sign big fish.
“Hopefully something happens, but I’m not going to predict it,” Cohen said. “The goal is to build a great team. We have a great core already, but we have holes. I don’t know if we can fill our holes the first year. That that might be a lot to ask, but I think we can make significant improvements so that we get closer to where we want to be.”
Sounds like George Steinbrenner circa 1976.
Yes, the Yankees should be worried about the Mets now having an owner that has the money and desire to sign any free agent.
Randy Miller may be reached at rmiller@njadvancemedia.com.