3 morbid Mets offseason scenarios to keep you up tonight

New York Mets fans are excited about this offseason for more reasons than you can fit inside Steve Cohen’s wallet. After such an electrifying year where the Mets didn’t spend a whole lot of money and now are expected to unleash something much closer to a Cohen-led attack in free agency headed by the mind of David Stearns, the excitement is palpable.

We know there will be misses along the way. There are plenty of contenders out there for the big tickets. Not all of them will call Flushing home in 2025.

Even in accepting these, there are certain morbid offseason scenarios frightening enough to keep Mets fans awake.

1) Juan Soto signs with another team despite the Mets making an equal (or better) offer

Only so much of the Juan Soto situation is under the Mets’ control. They can give him the biggest offer. Other teams can reciprocate by going one million more. What if the Mets did make the best offer and another team, let’s call them the Pew Pork Pankees, tells the young star they’ll match or go a little more?

It wouldn’t be the first time the Mets were left holding a paycheck. Far less significant than Soto, they’ve had offers of equal or greater value turned down by Kevin Gausman, Steven Matz, and Andrew McCutchen. More in the same realm as Soto is last year’s chase for Yoshinobu Yamamoto. The Los Angeles Dodgers were always going to win out. It was just a matter of them having a willingness to match or come close to the other best offers he received.

Soto (and his agent Scott Boras) are chasing after every penny. The destination doesn’t matter so much. This is a guy who has played in Washington, San Diego, and New York. He may have some personal preferences, but so far the front runners all seem to include Northeastern ball clubs. Both New York teams, the Boston Red Sox, and Toronto Blue Jays are heavily in the mix. All fine cities, the one advantage the Mets have over everyone is an owner with a reputation to uphold.

If a paycheck so large it crashes ADP doesn’t work, nothing will.

3) The bullpen goes mostly ignored with offseason additions

Fans haven’t really discussed much about the bullpen options and for good reason. Who the heck knows what any of those guys will do? The class includes some of the best closers of the modern era. Many of them are practically 40-years-old if not already there. Signing an experienced closer and turning him into a setup man for Edwin Diaz makes sense, but those guys generally cost the closer rate without the role attached.

David Stearns did a lousy job last offseason building the Mets bullpen. It’s okay. They overcame it with some trade deadline additions and deeper outings by the starters later in the year. This scenario might not cause you to check under the bed for monsters. You should though. This gripe we’re all bound to have with the Mets at some point in 2025 could completely eliminate the joy we’d have seeing Soto and a new ace on the roster. A two-homer game from Soto. Seven shutout innings by Burnes. Here comes a guy with a 5.00 ERA to pitch the eighth inning because the rest of the bullpen has been taxed.

Successfully building up the relief corps can take some creativity. The trouble here is there isn’t any obvious right or wrong answer. You don’t pay Tanner Scott $15 million per year to be the setup man. Do you invite Kenley Jansen over for a ride with the intention of moving him into the eighth inning?

Bullpens are difficult to build and all we can ask is that we don’t get another offseason of Jorge Lopez, Adam Ottavino, Jake Diekman, and Shintaro Fujinami. A stud in free agency and maybe a sneaky addition via trade can help us rest our heads comfortably at night.