3 false Mets narratives about the team’s offseason and players that need to go away

Fake news, sad, or both? There are a lot of false narratives about the New York Mets. Certainly plenty of agent created rumors about their offseason plans or bogus claims about players not even worth reacting to, there are a few we can analyze more thoroughly and conclude there is no smoking gun.

These three false narratives about the Mets, their offseason, and players need to go away.

1) False: The Mets didn’t spend money this offseason

But the Mets did spend. They spent a lot. Their payroll will be one of the top two in 2024 with a big asterisk because of what the Los Angeles Dodgers have done with paying Shohei Ohtani what the Mets will offer Joey Wendle.

The false narrative that the Mets didn’t spend money this offseason is largely based on how they’ve spent. They’ve approached things differently. Rather than hand out more high AAV deals on short-term contracts, they’ve gone short at market rate. David Stearns has been careful about not locking the team into any long-term deals. If you don’t like it, that’s a whole different argument.

The Mets were even willing to spend more. Yoshinobu Yamamoto was always going to get a matching offer from the Dodgers and he was going to play for them. There’s nothing the Mets could’ve done about this.

You may not agree with how the Mets have spent money in free agency this offseason, but to claim they haven’t paid players is completely false. They’ve added to an already high payroll.

Many of the best free agents the Mets could’ve targeted also came with the loss of draft pick compensation. Unwilling to go there with several of those guys, it was about more than money as to why they avoided certain free agents.