Outbid, and outgunned, and out Dodger'd

The Mets - and pretty much the rest of baseball - are not as good at anything as the Dodgers are

Simply put, the Mets are being outbid, outgunned, and out-maneuvered by the Dodgers at pretty much everything these days.

For as much as Steve Cohen and the rest of the Mets brass have pined to be the East Coast version of the Dodgers since he took ownership of this organization, they have only ended up chasing them as the Dodgers continue to create distance between them and every other team in the sport.

More, and more, and more.

At every turn, the Dodgers are right there with the trap. Whether it’s on the field or in their recruitment process. The Dodgers are better than every team at baseball, recruiting players to play baseball, and paying people to play baseball. They let everyone else set the basic terms of the market, and then they swoop in for the kill.

And, I’d hate to break it to the Mets, but for as smart as they think they are, the Dodgers are smarter. Hell, there are 12 other teams that looked a lot smarter than the Mets in 2025.

Each team is as smart as the record says they are in the end.

Such was the case on Thursday night when what I think what we all might have believed would eventually transpire did, again. The Dodgers procured the best free agent position player available in Kyle Tucker on the same terms the Mets wanted him on. But, they offered just a little bit more on top of the organic attraction the Dodgers have made themselves with both their organization building and their championship building. He will take four years, $240 million from the Dodgers with opt-outs after years two and three, a $64 million signing bonus with $30 million deferred.

It can be argued the Mets’ monetary offer was better because they were offering four years, $220 million with a $75 million signing bonus and nothing deferred. But, it was an opportunistic stance in the end and not enough to get them over the finish line with the player.

But what the Mets could never offer was the history of stability and credibility and at least a short-term potential of winning consistently, that which the Dodgers have earned through their play on the field.

And of course, the Mets couldn’t offer the same roster quality as the Dodgers.

The Mets are in this “opportunistic” mode with their roster building rather than being the aggressor, and again, they think this is a smart strategy. But the Dodgers are better at that game than they are, and it seems as though they routinely underestimate them and think they’re smarter and better at the free agent game than they are.

What is it getting them? Well, not a lot, and that’s putting it nicely.

The Dodgers have had the Mets’ number time and time again.

Dodgers head of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, Mets head of baseball operations David Stearns

Now, to be fair, as good as the Blue Jays are and as fun as they have seemingly become, at the moment anyway, they’re in the same boat here as the Mets. They have routinely been out-maneuvered by the Dodgers and, to a degree anyway, the Mets for free agents in recent years. They wanted Shohei Ohtani. They wanted Juan Soto too. Don’t forget that part of the equation.

That doesn’t excuse where the Mets are from a state of the franchise perspective, however. And, we aren’t here to talk about the Blue Jays, who have done their part this winter to make their roster better. There are no moral victories for the Mets just because they made a very hard-to-pass-up offer for Tucker, especially for the Mets who still, on January 16, cannot field a team of players who can start on any team in baseball, or really get through any given nine-inning game for that matter.

A lot of that is self-induced. Be mad at that. Be mad at the fact they’ve done this to themselves. Hell, be mad they let Pete Alonso walk, screwed things up with Edwin Díaz too. Those are all parts of the whole problem.

They’re the ones who botched the Díaz negotiation, and essentially let him walk backwards into Chávez Ravine with a big smile on his face. They’re the ones who let Alonso go more or less because they just weren’t interested. They’re the ones who created this massive hole in an outfield that already had a hole in center field after trading Brandon Nimmo. They’re the ones who traded Jeff McNeil for a prospect. They’re the ones who haven’t touched their starting rotation, the primary reason the Mets were awful in 2025.

They’re the ones that made losing out on Tucker— a player who is very good but was going to be overpaid by the Mets and will certainly be overpaid by the Dodgers— that much worse for the Mets than it is for the Blue Jays or whoever else was in on his free agency.

And so far, all anyone has really heard through the media is essentially, ‘we think this is a pretty good team.’ That’s nice, but the stats would disagree with them.

That’s the part to be angry at the Mets for. Not losing out on Tucker specifically and certainly not the deal they ultimately offered him. I wouldn’t even say people should be angry at them for letting Alonso walk, as difficult as it is to cover the offensive gap he leaves behind, as long as there is a path forward. A combination of Polanco and Mark Vientos and perhaps Ryan Clifford down the line is probably is not a 1-for-1 replacement strategy at first base for Alonso, however.

David Stearns can talk all he wants about how he thinks the team is fine, how the defense is better, how this is the right path forward for the Mets despite the frustrating winter, and all of that stuff. After all, he certainly isn’t going to tell the media his team stinks. His staff can talk all they want about internal projections and fWAR and bWAR and all of those stats. But I think we can all see where the Mets are at this stage of the winter, with 3 1/2 weeks to go before pitchers and catchers report to Port St. Lucie.

All anyone can really do today is chalk this up to another Mets GM talking about how they think this is the right path forward over the last 40 years. Maybe he’s right, and maybe he’s wrong, but we won’t really know that for a long time.

Right now though, this is a team that is fragmented after being dismantled. This is a front office with a confusing strategy. This is an organization which has perhaps pulled the wool over their eyes into thinking they’re better than they are because they think they’re smart, have a good farm system, improved defensively at one position, cleaned up a potential clubhouse mess, and are going to overpay a player in Jorge Polanco to play first base after never, ever, playing there in his career.

This is a team which has created a -7.0 fWAR deficit from the bad team they were in 2025, and that’s with the additions they’ve made. That means, if you believe in fWAR as a generalized metric to project how a team might be, not even Tucker’s 4.4 fWAR projection for 2026 would’ve covered that gap.

As much as I personally believe Cody Bellinger is a better fit for this roster, albeit as a lesser player to Tucker, he doesn’t do that either and there’s still no indication that he really wants to leave the Yankees for that matter.

And if he doesn’t end up leaving the Yankees, what then? Again, they created this product of sheer desperation. They no longer have a Major League option to start in left field.

Then there’s the rotation, which, once again, has gone untouched.

Yes, no matter who they bring in for 2026, they’re going to need Clay Holmes to continue to progress. They’re going to need at least one bounce back from Sean Manaea or Kodai Senga. They’ll need David Peterson to put together a full individual season of success after clearly hitting a wall late last season. They’re going to need at least one of Nolan McLean, Brandon Sproat, or Jonah Tong to emerge as the frontline starters they’re projected to be (McLean has eight big league starts under his belt, so to be fair, the jury has to still be out on him).

All of that needs to go well, and they need to get a stable, reliable frontline arm to fortify all of those IFs and MAYBE’s. It hasn’t happened yet.

Does that mean the Mets should go full bore on Framber Valdez? Well, they’re probably not going to sign him on a five-year deal, which seems to be the floor for frontline, free-agent starting pitching this winter. And, if they somehow were to sign Bellinger, it’s really hard for me to see them giving up four draft picks for them. That’s just not what this front office does.

That would leave them shopping in the trade market. They’re reportedly interested in Freddy Peralta, but there’s also Sandy Alcantara who would come with two years of control for more money. But the prospect currency going back for either one of them would be substantial, and probably cut into the names I mentioned above.

There’s also really no indication the Mets are prepared to deal what it would take to get either of them. They haven’t made a big trade like that since 2021, so while the Mets absolutely must act, I’ll believe it when I see it.

Lastly, while I think the Mets are going to make moves and at least attempt to reconstruct some of the broken parts of this roster, perhaps even in a big way, its unrealistic to expect the Mets to be able to fill all of the holes and fix all of the problems they have and have created for themselves between now and Opening Day. But again, be angry at them for perhaps preemptively stripping their roster down with no certain path forward. That is a fair criticism for the Mets right now.

It’s been a really tough winter in these parts. And time is running out. Fast.