When Steve Cohen gave the introductory press conference as the owner of the Mets on November 10, he mentioned the Dodgers as the team he wants to emulate his franchise.
On Friday, Cohen and the Mets saw the franchise widen as Trevor Bauer picked the Dodgers.
The gap is the physical one the Mets could do nothing about – the 2,805 miles that separate Citi Field from Dodger Stadium. Bauer, from the Los Angeles area, ends up going home.
But Bauer accepted a few million dollars less in total value as a Dodger, rather than the Met, for more specific reasons than in the Pacific. The Dodgers are everything the Mets (and almost every team) aspires to be.
They are MLB’s surest competitor, having won eight consecutive NL West and World Series titles last year. The Mets made the playoffs twice in 14 seasons. Dodgers are at the forefront of pitching modernity; vital for Bauer, who may have done more than any active player to incorporate state-of-the-art tools to maximize performance. The Mets are trying to play recovery speeds in this arena. Dodgers are blessed with a mature house type that can absorb a polarizing player. The Mets are still trying to prove that all the malfunctions in their store were not caused by Wipon.
The Dodgers also provide a mega-city scene for Bauer, who has ambitions to have a strong personal brand. New York City could deliver that too. In addition, under Cohen, the Mets may be financially competitive compared to the Fred Wilpon version, which has always tried to win back the Dodgers – Brooklyn Dodgers.
The Mets offered $ 105 million for three years, which was believed to be $ 40 million in each of the first two years, and the chance to give up after each – the annual value would have reached $ 35 million, just below Gerrit Cole’s record of $ 36 million. The Dodger deal is three million dollars for three years. He pays Bauer $ 40 million in Year 1 and $ 45 million in Year 2, and he can give up after any of them.
The power of today’s Dodgers is that they have created such a monster or financial flexibility, a productive farming system and an attractive location that they push into almost every market to see if they can land factors of difference. Their leverage is to know that they will still be great without a player. They, for example, tried hard last year on Cole, offered less than the other team in New York and didn’t catch him. They lost Kenta Maeda and Hyun-jin Ryu, who finished second and third respectively in the AL Cy Young race. And David Price gave up the season. However, they won everything, in part, because they still had oodles to start the picket.
This season, they didn’t offer as much as a New York team and still won the 2020 NL Cy Young Award. They tried this kind of high-value annual pitch a few years ago with Bryce Harper and didn’t worked. It has done so now, as the Dodgers have far exceeded the $ 210 million luxury tax threshold, capitalizing on when other big-market clubs, such as the Yankees, treat it as a demilitarized zone that will not come close. never.
Bauer is probably at least two years away from giving up (healthily) the $ 17 million in the last season of 2023. The Dodgers have taken out about $ 87 million from their books after this year, namely with free agents Clayton Kershaw, Kenley Jansen and Corey Seager. They will have to keep or replace Kershaw and Seager. But by the time they have to decide on Cody Bellinger and Walker Buehler, Bauer and his big payday days are probably gone.
This move also prevents NL West’s strongest Dodger fans, Padres, who have solidified their rotation this season with Yu Darvish, Blake Snell and Joe Musgrove. Bauer joins Buehler, Kershaw, Price, Tony Gonsolin, Dustin May and Julio Urias. This quality / quantity attacks a season in which teams are afraid to cover 162 innings after the players had only 60 working games last year (and none in minors).
In addition, the Dodgers kept Bauer from the Mets, who, with an ideal version of the law, would have become a stronger obstacle in the NL. It’s a loss this way. But I still think he was the wrong guy at the wrong time for the Mets, while trying to promote a culture and a foundation that can absorb any type of player.
The Mets still have ways to make a strong hit in 2021, without disturbing the future, improving in the center with a Jackie Bradley or a Lorenzo Cain, making a play with James Paxton or imagining – of all things – the Dodgers have finished spending and Sandy Alderson tries to reunite with Justin Turner.
But that’s around 2021. With Bauer’s failure, the Mets keep their second-round pick in June and $ 500,000 in international money (which would have been compensation for Bauer’s signing). He must use it wisely. There are many miles to go to meet Cohen’s ambition to be the East Coast Dodgers. On Friday, they met directly with what they are hungry for.