Catch me up in 30 seconds…
Steve Cohen shot down rumors on Twitter that the Mets were interviewing Indians GM Mike Chernoff for president of baseball operations.
However, Chernoff is still expected to be the leading candidate for the job.
Former Mets manager Terry Collins announced his retirement from baseball.
The Mets will open the 2021 season on ESPN against the Nationals.
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Robinson Cano’s Suspension
When Brodie Van Wagenen traded Jarred Kelenic (and more) to Seattle as part of a package for Edwin Díaz and Robinson Cano, everyone knew it was a risky move that left the team highly leveraged with an aging middle infielder who was owed enough money that Scrooge McDuck could take a swim in it, and who had been recently suspended 80 games for testing positive for steroids.
The hope was that the explosive arm of Díaz - coming off a 57-save season in Seattle - would make everyone forget about the giant pile of money owed to Cano in the twilight years of his career. Every Díaz fist bump after striking out the final hitter in another Mets win would mask the cost it took to acquire him.
You’re a Mets fan. That’s why you are reading this newsletter, so you know what happened next (and because you’re a Mets fan, you knew what would happen next even before it happened).
Things didn’t work out as planned, for either Díaz or Cano.
At least not until the pandemic-shortened season when both offered some hope of resurgence. Leaving Díaz to talk about on another day, Cano suddenly looked like his former self at the plate. He slashed .316/.352/.544 and smashed 10 home runs in 49 games—he had hit only 23 in his previous 187 contests.
This week we learned why Mr. Cano was suddenly swinging with youthful exuberance. In a season in which Covid protocols limited Major League Baseball’s ability to properly test players for steroids, the future Hall-of-Famer, who no longer will be, must have believed he had an opening to cheat again.
Why else would he risk everything to take stanozolol, an anabolic steroid that has been around so long that it originally became famous in 1988 when Olympic sprinter Ben Johnson was caught with it in his system? Taken in tablet form, it saves athletes from the messy and perhaps more guilty-feeling process of injecting something into their butts using a syringe.
You can just pop a pill and start raking at the plate.
The problem with stanozolol - and all of these performance-enhancing drugs sound like ingredients on a shampoo bottle if you ask me - is that it is easily detected. So why would Robinson Cano decide to use an old-school drug that is easy to identify as MLB cracks down on steroids across the sport?
As Joel Sherman of the New York Post explained a few weeks ago:
“Testing for performance-enhancing drugs was not done during MLB’s lockdown period and its frequency was down considerably — though it was not absent — during the 60 regular-season games and the postseason in 2020.”
Like all cheaters, Cano thought he could get away with it.
He didn’t. And now he will be suspended for the entire 2021 season and forfeit his $24 million salary, which bring us to the next section of the newsletter…
Insurance Money
In Robinson Cano, Brodie Van Wagenen had placed a ticking time bomb inside the Mets clubhouse, but luckily for Mets fans, it blew up in perfect time for Steve Cohen to collect the insurance money and build something better.
More than just the payout, destroying the brick and mortar that housed the constant reminder of a trade gone wrong is something worth celebrating, too.
Sure, we are a crucial blown save away from throwing our remotes at the TV and cursing Brodie again, but this news isn’t about Díaz, it’s about Cano and his former agent who became general manager and brought the second baseman back to New York with the promise that he wasn’t a cheat, when he was, and saddled an organization already strapped for cash with an albatross contract.
This represents the opportunity for a reset. If Jarred Kelenic turns into the next MVP, fine, so let him. But he’s part of the past now, part of the old way of doing things, like an empty lot where a restaurant once stood, a reminder of something torn down, of mistakes once made.
The Mets can live with those mistakes under Steve Cohen by building a new establishment in its place, one that serves caviar and duck (not that I have an affinity for these things, but after snacking on leftover bagel bites in the form of Jake Marisnick, I’m willing to see what the rich people eat in restaurants that require sports coats).
Finding out the Mets suddenly have $24 million extra to spend this offseason (and it is the full $24 million, The Athletic confirmed that even the $3.75 million owed from Seattle goes back to the Mets), feels like, for the layman or laywoman, finding a $500 gift card between your couch cushions: if it was cash, you would feel obligated to put it in your savings account, but since it’s a gift card, you might as well spend it on that fancy duck.
Steve Cohen is thinking the same way: "Spend it on players. Bullpen cart can wait,” he tweeted in response to a question about how the team could use the newfound Cano money on upgrades.
And, once again, this is welcome news to Mets fans. With two years and over $40 million still owed to Cano after this season, previous ownership, or even many owners across baseball right now, might be cautious in using the 2021 money until they felt confident about the possible actions they can take to somehow escape the final two years of a contract with a player that has now tested positive for steroids twice.
Not the Mets. Cohen is ready to spend the money immediately.
I will save the discussion on the best options for another newsletter since this one is already running long, but I do want to highlight one key point:
Cano’s suspensions gives the Mets flexibility in how they improve their roster from a positional standpoint just as much as it does from a financial perspective.
With Cano cemented at the keystone and batting in the middle of the order, it forced several awkward positional decisions, as well as created a more urgent need for a right-handed bat to even out the lefty-heavy order.
Now, the Mets can be creative in how they fill out their lineup. They can move Jeff McNeil back to second base (Hallelujah!) And by doing so, it gives them more freedom to find spots for J.D. Davis, Dominic Smith and Brandon Nimmo, especially if the designated hitter returns.
The possibilities for improving the roster through free agency or trade are endless.
It seems obvious that money is no obstacle for Cohen, so whether it really matters the the team has an extra $24 million before he would need to pay the luxury tax is debatable. You can only spend so much money in one offseason: maybe the wealthiest owner in sports isn’t spending as much time as you and me counting pennies. Either way, the Mets are better positioned to improve the roster with Cano out of the picture.
Thanks for reading! Look out for the next newsletter on Monday!
And please check out our newsletter about the Knicks, too.
To me the Cano/Diaz trade was always about getting the best closer in MLB at the time. Kelenic is/was a prospect which 95% of time never makeit in the majors if they make it. Doesnt matter now anyway - Cano is gone hopefully for good and Diaz should be traded brining back - guess what "a prospect".
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