Why the New York Mets did a GREAT job in Free Agency heading into the MLB Lockout

Yo, what is good Mets Nation? Welcome back to Mets Media. This is Richie and in this video, I want to talk about all the moves that the New York Mets have made leading up until the lockout. As we know today, it's unfortunately official that the MLB is under a lockout and we're waiting to hear an agreement between the players and the owners. I'm not sure when that's going to be resolved, but the New York Mets made sure that they were active leading up until this lockout because they understood that it's a lot of uncertainty going into this lockout. The Mets were aggressive. They signed three players in one day and they go out there and get the big fish and Max Scherzer. I want to give you guys my thoughts of why this is a really good approach from the New York Mets front office, from Billy Epler, Steve Cohen, Sandy Alderson, because as we know, there's a lot of things surrounding the Mets this offseason because the whole GM search was pretty hectic. A lot of people were not understanding why some GMs around the league did not want to eventually get Billy Epler in the building. In two weeks, he's the Mets GM and he goes out there and makes great moves. In this video, I basically want to break down the mindset that we are seeing from the Mets front office with Billy Epler and Steve Cohen. We saw press conferences from Max Scherzer and all the free agents that we signed. You get a really good idea of the vision from Steve Cohen, Billy Epler, and Sandy Alderson of what they're trying to do to build this culture from the top down. I'm really excited to break down in this video. Guys, if you're new to Mets Media, please make sure you smash that subscribe button. I'll be posting Mets content all throughout the lockout leading up until the season. If you guys are new, please make sure you smash that sub button. It'll mean a lot to the channel. Also, make sure you smash that like button if you guys enjoyed the video. If you want to check me out over on Instagram and Twitter, that is at NYMets underscore media. With that being said, let's get right into today's video. Basically, before we made any moves, let's really recap it from the beginning. There's a lot of pending free agents that the Mets have, including Noah Syndergaard, Aaron Loop, Conforto, who's the only that's unsigned right now, and Stroman and all these guys. Going into this offseason, it was really interesting to see which players on the Mets are going to re-sign. Well, we did not re-sign any of them. All of them walked out the door. I think we all know that Michael Conforto will be gone. I think we all knew that going into the offseason. To start off with last week, where it all started, Noah Syndergaard was offered the qualifying offer around $18 million. He decides to not take it, goes to the LA Angels for $21 million. He basically took $3 million more to LA and move on from the Mets. At the time, if you guys remember, we're like, wow, okay, Syndergaard, nobody really expected that. Me personally, I did not expect that. I thought Syndergaard was definitely going to take that QO and come back to the New York Mets. Then we find out that Aaron Loop goes to the Angels as well. We're like, okay, Aaron Loop having a historic season out of the bullpen for the Mets last year, I wanted to re-sign him. Hey, the money that he got, not the end of the world for Aaron Loop leaving. I wasn't really that too concerned. Then that whole Steven Matz situation, the Mets had an offer, Steve Cohen calls out his agent, Steven Matz decides to go to the Cardinals. At that moment, guys, if you really remember where we were when Syndergaard left, when Loop left, and then the whole Matz situation, some Mets fans around the world were like, does anybody want to come to the Mets? What's going on? Are we going to make any moves? Steve Cohen says he wants to pay a lot of players to bring him in, but he's not doing anything at the moment. Steve Cohen went on Twitter and really had an outrage against Steven Matz's agent saying it was very unprofessional. At that moment, some of us were like, what is happening? Nobody wants to play for this team. Nobody wants to be the Mets manager. Nobody wants to be the GM. Finally, we got Billy Eppler in the building. What's happening? Everything felt like the world was crumbling for some Mets fans, but then Friday comes around and the New York Mets, they make three signings in one day, all of them going to be starters for this Mets team. It just came out of nowhere and it proved that the Mets are a destination that people want to come for. It also proved that, especially the Max Scherzer signing, which we'll get into, is baseball is going to be scared of the Mets. This is a proof that now that Steve Cohen is officially here, he is willing to do whatever it takes to bring the Mets to the promised land, whether it's financial flexibility, whether it's sacrificing, going over the luxury tax. Steve Cohen is an aggressive owner and we were waiting to ever act like a big market team. Here we are today, Steve Cohen is officially doing just that. We are now going to have the highest payroll in baseball going into the season. Let's start off with Eduardo Escobar. Eduardo Escobar, we signed him to a two-year $20 million deal. This is someone that's a very underrated signing in my opinion. He's going to replace that Jonathan Villar type of role and he's a better player than Jonathan Villar, especially at the plate. Eduardo Escobar, he's a guy that can play third base and second base. There's a common thread, if you hear what Billy Eppler was saying across all the press conferences, that the type of player that they're trying to bring in here to the Mets is basically versatility. Versatility on the defensive side of the ball because we need guys that can line up all over the diamond, all over the outfield because you never know what could happen with injuries and Eduardo Escobar is a perfect example of that. Someone that can line up at third base and second base and he's a guy that slashed 28 home runs last year. He's an established veteran in this league. He also has a good relationship with guys in the clubhouse already like Tywon Walker. Even Max Scherzer said he's never met Escobar but he's happy that he's a Met because that was one of the reasons why he came here, which is really interesting to hear that from Max Scherzer. Bringing Eduardo Escobar in here for just a two-year $20 million deal, it really shows that the Mets are trying to acquire depth in this lineup. And then we get into Mark Canna, the next player I want to talk about for a two-year $26.5 million contract. He's basically going to replace Michael Conforto in the outfield. He's either going to play right or left field. It's going to be deciding factor where Nimmo feels more comfortable. I think, you know, Mark Canna has played literally left, center, and right field for the Oakland A's so it's really up to him where he feels more comfortable. But Mark Canna is another versatility guy that can play anywhere on the outfield. He's someone that slashed, you know, his average wasn't that great last year but his on-base percentage was phenomenal with .358, had 17 home runs. He got pop on his bat and he said in his press conference that he wanted to come to the Mets because he wanted to, you know, be in a big market. He wants to have, you know, all the lights on him. He wants to prove that he's a serious player in this league and where else is there to go than New York where there's no place with brighter lights in the New York media market. So shout out to Mark Canna. I'm excited for you to come in here. Another established bat in this lineup that's really going to help, you know, get guys on base for the sluggers like Pete Alonso and all these guys, you know, in the lineup. And then getting into Starling Marte. He is going to be the starting center fielder for the New York Mets for the next four seasons. We signed him to a four-year deal, $78 million contract. This is just a really good signing for the Mets. We've been linked to Marte for I don't even know how long. It felt like four years straight we've been trying to get Marte to Queens and he finally comes and he's coming off a very good performance. You know, he started off with the Miami Marlins, then he went to the Oakland A's last year and he was phenomenal. He batted 310, had an on-base percentage of 383, 12 home runs, 47 stolen bases. Even though he's still up there in age around 32, 33 years old, he's still well, you know, suited to steal some bags and be a very impact player for this New York Mets team. He's a former out there in center field. So our defense got better. Our lineup got better. Everything got better with these three position player moves. I'm excited that the Mets made sure that they got these three guys in the same day because they understood that they're not going to make any risks. You do not know the uncertainty when it comes to the lockout and they made sure that they got these three guys. And I don't think the Mets are done just yet, just so you guys know. And then getting into Max Scherzer. This is the big fish that really proves that this Mets regime is different. We're officially acting like a big market team. Steve Cohen did everything in his power to make sure that Max Scherzer was a New York Met by offering him the highest contract in MLB history, three years, $130 million, the highest AAV by far in all time. You know, Garrett Cole was the guy to officially get that for the Yankees. He got $36 million per year on a longer term contract. The Mets give Max Scherzer $43 million on three years with a player option after year number two. So what this move tells me personally about the Mets in particular with Steve Cohen, basically Steve Cohen has the resources. He has the money to go all in and winning right now. And Steve Cohen has a, you know, a short-term mindset to try to win, but he's also not trying to sacrifice the future because he's trying to build a sustainable winner. So we have a window right now. What did, what does Steve Cohen see from this Mets team this year? We saw a guy in Jacob DeGrom having an historical season, the greatest season of all time that unfortunately had to fall short because of injury. So now we have Max Scherzer in the building. The one-two punch of Scherzer and DeGrom is going to be the best of all time because those two guys are historically the best pitchers of this generation, as we all know. So to have Scherzer and DeGrom in the same rotation at the top is absolutely phenomenal. And Steve Cohen was set and he understood that Max Scherzer is going to be the difference maker for this team, not only on the field, but off the field in the clubhouse because the, you know, winning mentality that he has, everything that he's going to bring to this Mets team is going to be so huge for the, you know, establishing a winning foundation and a culture here for the New York Mets. And another thing that really stood out to me, obviously the money was a big, big deciding factor for Max Scherzer, but also he talked to the press conference and he said that, you know, Steve Cohen and Alex Cohen, they really presented me a good vision for what they have for me and this Mets organization. And Max Scherzer said himself that it's very rare that owners really care about winning in this league because if you look around the league and even other sports, owners traditionally care more about money than they care about winning. Steve Cohen, it's not about the money at all. He has all the money in the world. He bought this franchise because he's a diehard New York Mets fan, just like all of us. And he's trying to bring this Mets team to the promised land and win a world series. And that sold Max Scherzer on coming to the Mets. And that's a really good sign for the future of this team by always being in on all the free agents. And another really good thing that I'll probably break down a future videos, but I had to bring it up because, you know, we, we missed out on Noah Syngard and Michael Conforto, obviously, but the good thing about that is we're probably going to get draft picks coming back. And we also did not sign anybody where we had to give up a compensation pick. So the Mets are really stockpiling draft picks as well as signing free agents. So that's really their mindset right now. They're trying to build this team through free agency and then make sure they hold onto their draft picks and establish a really good forum system. So in the future, we can either, you know, use those prospects to trade for superstars, or we can use those prospects to develop and come up because we do have a top heavy farm system, but unfortunately it's not super deep. And that's the, that's, I think that's the vision for this Mets front office is trying to establish a really good farm system by going through the free agency market, making sure they don't have to give up compensation picks. They get caught, they get picks back by Syngard and Conforto walking out the door. So yeah, guys, that's my thoughts about the Mets approach and free agency leading up until the lockout. I'm really excited about this Mets team. I think that they did a phenomenal job, everything that they did. I cannot ask for a decision from Billy Epler to go out there and be aggressive before the lockout, because if we did not get these guys before the lockout right now, there'll be so much uncertainty. So guys leave a comment down below your thoughts about the Mets moves. And I'd love to hear what you guys have to say in the comment section, and please make sure you smash that like button if you guys enjoyed, and I'll catch you guys in the next video. Let's go Mets. Peace.