Depth, Dearth, Desire

I count fourteen players with major league experience the Mets have picked up in the past month or so. I feel I recognize five, maybe six of the names. I’ve probably seen a few others as Met opponents but forgotten them. A generous portrayal of their collective appeal would be they provide our team with depth.

Absolutely none of these names is exciting, but I’ll take it on faith that their presence in Spring Training on major or minor league contracts is necessary. Following the crummy 2023 season, the Mets shook out from their roster a bunch of players fans of other teams might not recognize. Depth replaces depth. Depth is what you call the players whose presence amounts to a dearth of excitement.

We are in the museum gift shop phase of the offseason. I love going to museums. I recoil at the sight of their gift shops, however, because once you’ve toured the museum, you are vulnerable to books and posters and whatever other tchotchkes the gift shop is offering for a fee. It’s all stuff that’s neat, but it’s also stuff for which you hadn’t any need or desire before you showed up at the museum. You still don’t have the need for it, but the desire can be overwhelming. “Can I really leave here without this thing, now that I know the backstory of this thing?” I try to confine my purchases to a refrigerator magnet and otherwise keep my hands in my pockets.

“I just gotta have this pitcher!”

I didn’t know I desired Yoshinobu Yamamoto for the Mets until the Hot Stove tour guide mesmerized us with tales of the sensational pitcher. He’s thrown how many no-hitters? He’s won how many Japanese Cy Young equivalents? He’s only how old? His repertoire is how enticing? I was modestly aware of Yamamoto during the season, but now he’s the talk of the offseason, and I’d very much like him for the Mets’ collection…I mean rotation. His name permeates every 2024 Mets thought I’ve had lately, though such exclusivity is a little misleading. Other than the reports surrounding Steve Cohen and David Stearns flying to Japan to pitch the pitcher on pitching for the Mets, I haven’t much thought about anything specific pertaining to the upcoming season since the last one went away. Fourteen players with major league experience picked up, zero sparks given off. I can’t remember the last time I was less revved up for late March in mid-December.

Unless we get Yamamoto, who I have to have, the way I had to have Carlos Correa once it was clear we were getting Carlos Correa last December. We ultimately didn’t, but it was a pretty exciting thing to think we did, best deals sometimes being the ones you don’t make notwithstanding. We’re not quite in Correa to the Mets territory yet, let alone Ohtani to the Jays. Ohtani to the Jays was so much in the atmosphere that a Canadian front pushing down from Ontario was evident on weather apps all over North America. Except Shohei Ohtani signed with the Dodgers (boy, did he ever). I’m figuring Jays fans are a lot sadder about not getting their man than I’ll be if we don’t get our man. Unless Yamamoto’s flight into LaGuardia is tracked by reputable sources. Then all emotional bets are off.

Spoiler alert: Mets did not get their man.

I’ve been focused enough on Yamamoto to the Mets that I never devoted a byte of bandwidth to considering Ohtani to the Mets, other than knowing it wasn’t absolutely beyond the realm of possibility. With Steve Cohen, the Mets emerging as the choice of a player who winds up commanding $700 million over ten years is never beyond the realm of possibility. I know we’ve signed our share of glamour pusses in recent winters, but deep down, I view free agency as an excuse for stars the caliber of Reggie Jackson and Pete Rose to laugh off our feelers, instinctively flashing back to when baseball’s open market was very new and the Mets were acting very old. In the 1979 free agent re-entry draft, the system under which teams had to select negotiating rights to players, the Mets tossed their names in on mid-level availabilities Rennie Stennett, Rudy May, Bruce Kison, Greg Gross, Don Stanhouse, Rowland Office, Jim Wohlford and Roy White. None of those fellas was flattered enough by the attention to be swayed toward Shea. If memory serves, one of them huffed that if he wanted to play in New York, why would he ever choose the Mets? That’s what winter used to be like around here. It’s my version of insisting we walked to school through two feet of snow.

We’ve come a long way, baby, albeit in theory this offseason. Sometimes just being mentioned in the fifth paragraph as a place a player like Ohtani could go is tantamount to a fleeting Hot Stove moral victory. Those times are when you’re thinking to yourself, “Look how much we saved that can now go toward Yamamoto.” Meanwhile, Yamamoto has flown to the U.S. and is said to be talking with multiple teams on both coasts. His price is no doubt being driven up, but the gift shop isn’t closed until it’s closed.