Thursday Thoughts on Steve Cohen's spending spree, Billy Eppler's comments, and Carlos Correa rumors

The New York Mets have had an amazing offseason so far. They replaced Jacob deGrom with Justin Verlander, re-signed Brandon Nimmo and Edwin Diaz, and added David Robertson, Jose Quintana, Brooks Raley and Kodai Senga.

The theme for this offseason is that Steve Cohen will do whatever it takes to put a winning team on the field

The payroll currently stands at $305 million, according to Spotrac. This is the highest payroll in MLB history, and as I’ll talk about below, they’re not done. Since Cohen blew past the newest luxury tax threshold that was designed to prevent this, there will be another $100 million or so in taxes, bringing the Mets’ total payroll over $400 million.

As Ben Verlander said in the tweet above, there are entire teams that don’t have nine-figure payrolls. Obviously that reflects poorly on the sport of baseball when you have teams that refuse to do what it takes to win, but I’m thankful that teams like the Mets, Rangers, and Padres are demonstrating that when teams want to win, they’ll do whatever it takes to make it happen.

Billy Eppler says that the Mets aren’t done

Billy Eppler held a press conference on Wednesday to introduce Robertson, Raley, and Quintana. While he acknowledged that “a lot of the heavy lifting is done,” the Mets still have holes to fill. He said they will remain “opportunistic” and that “we’ll have more press conferences coming where we talk about the offense” with a child-like smirk on his face.

The Mets have linked to old friend Michael Conforto and slugger J.D. Martinez as DH/4th outfielder options. I am very intrigued by Conforto, who could be the steal of the offseason given his track record of success. The Mets are also looking in the bullpen market, with the hopes of adding another setup-type reliever. Adam Ottavino and Taylor Rogers are the two best names left there.

Carlos Correa signed with San Francisco, thankfully

The Mets reportedly checked in on Carlos Correa, but thankfully the Giants inked him first. Correa is a talented baseball player, but he’s also pretty overrated and his antics and arrogance would’ve been a mess in New York. 13 years is also an insane commitment, especially when you consider that a fairly large contingent of Mets fans didn’t even want to give Nimmo eight. The Mets have two good options at third already with Eduardo Escobar and Brett Baty. Expect Baty to get the lion's share of the playing time in 2023.