Mets meet with Juan Soto, come away hopeful, optimistic

Steve Cohen, David Stearns and Carlos Mendoza all recently traveled to Newport Beach to meet with Juan Soto on Saturday

NY Post

What’s Up with the Mets? 🍎

• Mets owner Steve cohen, president of baseball operations David Stearns, and manager Carlos Mendoza met with Scott Boras and Juan Soto on Saturday in Newport Beach, CA (New York Post)

  • The Mets came away “hopeful” and perhaps “optimistic” of their chances of being able to sign Soto

  • The big presentation left a positive impression with Soto

  • They remain viewed as one of the favorites to sign Soto, as the meeting went very well

  • It isn’t known if offers have been made to Soto at this time

  • The Yankees will meet with Soto on Monday

• Luis Severino is unlikely to accept his $21.05 million qualifying offer (Athletic)

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Rumor Mill 💨

• The Reds are working on a trade involving Jonathan India which would send him to the Royals for Brady Singer (Athletic)

• Although the Orioles are moving their left field wall back in, they remain interested in signing top shelf starting pitching (MLB.com)

• The Twins aren’t inclined to trade Carlos Correa (Athletic)

• The Braves are showing interest in Walker Buehler (MLB Network)

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It’s now a Steve Cohen moment for the franchise… ✍️

NY Post

Juan Soto, Meet the Mets!

The Mets - as expected - met with their white whale late last week, sending a three-headed recruiting monster and who knows what else to Southern California to meet with Soto and his clever, high-rolling agent, Scott Boras, to try and make their case to convince him to come spend the rest of his career with them.

Boy, would I love to have been a fly on the wall during that meeting!

By all accounts, at least from Jon Heyman of the New York Post, who right now has the only account of the meeting, the Mets made a strong impression and continued to feel pretty good about their chances of signing the generational talent away from the Yankees.

As I wrote the other day, the Mets have a lot working in their favor over the Yankees at the moment. Having the richest owner obviously helps because that gives them a seat at the table right from the jump in this derby. From that perspective, the Mets are sitting at an estimated $150-160 million in committed payroll for 2025 with a declining number in future seasons after that.

The Yankees, on the other hand, have around $215-225 million in committed payroll for 2025. That’s a huge difference, especially for Hal Steinbrenner, who continues to publicly endeavor to lower the Yankees payroll obligations.

But I do think it’s bigger than that.

There are the objective reasons why the Mets should sign Soto. He’s great, he’s game-changing great, he’s an attraction, and he makes the Mets an attraction. He takes a team that is good and makes them that much better.

And spare me the nonsense about his defense. I am tired of hearing the knocks on star players and their defense. We can chat about Pete Alonso and Mark Vientos and hearing all the negatives about their defense before they came up before seeing they were more than competent at their positions in the end. Soto would be fine or good enough in right field or wherever it is he’d ultimately play for this club.

There are the baseball science and baseball analytics reasons why the Mets should sign Soto. I am not going to get into that because, I mean, whatever with all of that right now. Like, no shit.

But again, this is way bigger than all of that.

It’s really a Steve Cohen moment for this franchise.

I don’t know if he’s the club’s biggest fan, or their die-hardest fan. But he’s a Met fan through and through who happens to be in control of literally everything with his favorite team and has the financial power (without even making a dent into his own personal wealth) to change the trajectory of this franchise for the next 15-20 years with one swift stroke of the pen (and large cash withdrawal from his local bank, of course).

He knows that, Stearns knows that, everyone knows that.

Just ask Carlos Beltrán what he thinks the stakes are in this derby, and why the Mets are going “full blast” and putting all their cards on the table in an effort to land perhaps the second-biggest free agent ever.

This is an opportunity for Cohen to shine, and probably change the direction of free agency. It’s an opportunity for him to test the bounds of free agency and everything that has happened before it all while putting the Mets on a new course forward with one of baseball’s greatest stars.

And that opportunity is here with all of the baseball money in the world with one of baseball’s best executives and a new, rising star of a manager. The culture is now in place, and the Mets are really close to being the organization the Cohens wanted when they first bought this team in 2020.

And we aren’t just talking about being competitive enough to a point that the Mets can be a playoff team every year. They can be that without Juan Soto.

We are talking about making them competitive enough to win the World Series every year.

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Around the League 🚩

• Former Reds manager David Bell is joining the Blue Jays front office (Sportsnet)

• The Reds are expected to either keep or modestly raise their payroll in 2025 (MLB.com)

• Dodger reliever Brustar Graterol recently had shoulder surgery, and that is expected to keep him out for at least the first half of 2025 (X)