Mets Monday Morning GM: 5 future starting pitcher Christmas gifts we'd like to receive

Oi, it’s Christmas Day! Before the kiddos wake up for the morning or while you try to avoid eye contact with certain family members today, let’s spend a few brief minutes together thinking about the New York Mets. This story was published at 6am Christmas morning and with good purpose. I want you to have a good day.

The holiday weekend began with Yoshinobu Yamamoto choosing the Los Angeles Dodgers. A wrecker of holiday cheer, the good news is we always have the future to look forward to.

Unlike Scrooge whose Christmas future included a whole lot of headstones, including his own, ours can involve the Mets signing some big name free agent starting pitchers. Let’s get some morning coffee mixed with eggnog into our systems and explore some of those future options to help keep us happy on this holiday. In fact, let’s rank them.

5) Gerrit Cole

We need to put an asterisk on this one because, quite frankly, it’s a little too ambitious to believe Gerrit Cole will initiate his opt out and then come to the Mets. The two ball clubs have played nicely in the recent past when it comes to free agents. While a bidding war between the Mets and Yankees over Juan Soto is to be expected, it’s different with Cole. He has been theirs for a while now. It’ll be a little closer to marrying your neighbor’s ex-wife. In Soto’s case, it’s marrying someone your neighbor dated for a year.

Cole isn’t an ideal match for the Mets because of how familiar it would seem. Signing him would be revisiting the Max Scherzer/Justin Verlander plan. Cole’s AAV should skyrocket even further if he does end up as a free agent. Nevertheless, he needs to be on this dream Christmas wish list because of how good he is.

A perennial Cy Young contender and finally a winner in 2023, Cole is about as good as it gets in baseball. He hasn’t always been appreciated in the Bronx. Would it be different over in Queens?

As appealing as he should be, there are actually four other free agent starting pitchers who’d be a better match for the Mets.