The Mets are in a curious position right now. Every few minutes at the winter meetings in San Diego, it seems, the Phillies are making an announcement, and their home city still basks in the fresh memory of a World Series trip. The Braves have been quiet but, then, they are the defending champions in the NL East, with so many of their core players locked up on long-term deals.
The Yankees just signed Aaron Judge, making a $360 million splash.
The Mets? Yes, they answered Jacob deGrom’s defection by replacing him with another big-ticket ace, Justin Verlander. They added an intriguing piece to their puzzle Wednesday in Jose Quintana, two years and $26 million of left-handed durability. They picked up a lefty bullpen piece from the Rays, Brooks Raley.
They’ve been busy in San Diego.
And they need to stay busy. Because the harsh reality of life in the NL East is this: At the moment, the Mets are a third-place club. And at the moment, the Mets have their toes snug against the border at which the harshest penalty-tax surcharge — one that was memorialized for their owner, Steve Cohen, while he is still quite alive — kicks in, a tidy 90 cents on every dollar over $293 million.
And that’s where the curiosity comes in. Cohen has never exactly been shy in vowing he will use his substantial resources to make sure the Mets are annually competitive. He also told The Post’s Joel Sherman and Jon Heyman on their podcast late in the season that a team should be able to compete just fine at $300 million.
In theory, he is correct.
In practice … well, it is pretty clear that the Mets, today, are not nearly as good a team as they were on the day the season ended, capping a 101-win season — and that’s before they officially part with Brandon Nimmo, which certainly feels imminent, and Chris Bassitt, which is starting to seem inevitable.
Of course, they don’t have to be in the second week of December.
But it does make you wonder what they have in mind between now and the second week of February, when they open for business in Port St. Lucie in Year 3 of Cohen and Year 2 of Buck Showalter and Billy Eppler.
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On the one hand, simple logic tells you Cohen wouldn’t have approved a massive deal for Verlander if he wasn’t fully intending to finance another swim in the deep end of the National League pool. On the other, simple math — not just in terms of dollars, but in the level of available replacement players on the board — makes you wonder whether Cohen isn’t soon going to wish he’d kept his $300 million-is-plenty pledge to himself.
After all, Pete Alonso will be playing his fifth year next year, and you would assume Cohen has already played around in his mind what it’s going to cost to keep the Polar Bear in New York beyond 2024. Jeff McNeil won’t command as much, but he also is a fifth-year player and if you trust 2022 more than 2021, he has officially become a proficient professional hitter, always a helpful asset.
Then you think about what a payroll in 2025 and 2026 and beyond might look like, and it makes $300 million seem instantly nostalgic.
Sure, in a perfect baseball world, the Mets not only find takers for James McCann and Eduardo Escobar, but Francisco Alvarez and Brett Baty seamlessly replace them. That’s certainly what would happen in Atlanta, where the Braves have perfected the knack of identifying kids on the come and then locking them up when they prove their value.
And it would be wonderful if it worked out that way for the Mets.
But that’s a huge “if.”
And, again: The Mets aren’t just an expensive team, but an old one. Verlander and Quintana actually increased the team’s average age this week, which already bordered on glacial. If they aren’t planning on going for it again this year, neither of those signings makes sense. And maybe, in his heart of hearts, Cohen really doesn’t care if it looks like he’s buying a championship or not. Which would probably be for the best.
Because it’s hard to see another way right now.