Thursday Thought: The Mets aren't acquiring the face of baseball this winter

The offseason is still young, and there have been plenty of rumors surrounding the New York Mets. One that has been popular with writers and fans alike is the idea of the Mets acquiring the best player in baseball: two-way icon, Shohei Ohtani.

I’m here to give you a reality check, because the Mets will not be acquiring Shohei Ohtani this winter.

If you’ve read or listened to anything Steve Cohen or Billy Eppler have said since last offseason, you’ve heard that they “want to build a sustainable winner.” They want to build a farm system that can replace big league talent when free agents leave; basically they want to follow the Dodgers’ model.

If you’ve seen the trade proposals for Shohei Ohtani, you know they’re anything but “sustainable,” to use their word of choice. They all include multiple prospects that the Mets didn’t want to move at the trade deadline, so why people think they’re available now is beyond me.

Let’s use this trade proposal from SNY. They actually think, keeping in mind what Cohen and Eppler have repeatedly said, that the Mets would be willing to trade the guy who should be our starting third baseman by the end of next season, along with a future center fielder or catcher, and two more prospects. There was another mock trade by Sports Illustrated that included Francisco Alvarez, Baty, Ramirez, and Ronny Mauricio.

On the surface, are those trades bad? They're fair-ish, but hard to like. Selling such a massive part of the future is daunting, even though we're well aware of how fickle baseball prospects are.

Given the context of what Cohen and Eppler have said, and the fact that Shohei is a free agent next winter, why blow up the future when you can still go after him next year for just cash?

Shohei has made some comments that he wasn’t happy with how the Angels season went. Join the club, man. After comments like that, it’s hard to picture him re-signing there next winter. That’s when Cohen and Eppler can pounce, if they so choose (which they absolutely should).