Let the Money Do the Talking
Airing out dirty laundry is bad for business, among other things...
A team owner showing any sort of personality after the oft-cloaked (and sometime daggered) Wilpons, who had to, in all likelihood, be coaxed out of the mansion with a piece of candy or something of the sort just to make public appearances while at the helm of the Mets, was fun in its early stages.
Accessibility. A wry sense of humor. A fan’s passion to win. A metric shit-ton of cash to back it up. Hey, this is gonna be alright.
[Family Feud incorrect answer soundbite]
Like clockwork, the New York Mets found themselves in another kerfuffle this week. It’s a holiday tradition.
On Tuesday, left-hander Steven Matz’s free agency market was heating up, with reportedly over a half-dozen teams (including the Mets) with offers on the table for the 30-year-old Long Island, NY product and longtime Queens staple.
By late Tuesday night, it was announced that Matz had agreed to a four-year, $44 million deal with the St. Louis Cardinals. Close to his Nashville home. Historically solid defense (Cards defenders won five Gold Gloves 2021). Can’t blame him.
On Wednesday morning, just as Mets owner Steve Cohen was enjoying whatever it is multi-billionaires do in the early hours of the day, the guy who proclaimed at Billy Eppler’s introductory press conference less than a week prior that he’d by shying away from the full-throttle social media use he’s exhibited since taking control on the team fired off an incensed doozy.
Some context:
Per Cohen, Matz and his agent, Rob Martin (Icon Sports), approached the Mets with the idea of a reunion and “unfinished business” to accomplish. This interest led to a zoom meeting between Matz and Cohen with similar undertones being expressed and an unofficial pin being placed in the situation.
Matz and Martin no doubt took this information and built a market, hoping to inflate their value as much as possible (the new guy signing the checks in Flushing has more than enough to go around), as any good agent will do.
Apparently, their plan to circle back to the Mets was actually not their plan at all. They had their juice via reported interest from a deep-pocketed team. Matz got the offer he wanted from the team he wanted to be with and jumped. Once again, you can’t blame him.
Did they employ underhanded tactics to get what they wanted? Maybe? But who are we to say? These types of things could happen more often than we know. What should never happen is what we saw unfold on Twitter on Wednesday morning. Simple answer: it’s bad for business.
We’ve all gotten screwed over at one point or another. Some of us have even been okey-doked, as it appears Cohen was in this situation. Chalk it up, stick it in your back pocket, and keep it at the front of your mind for next time. Chances are, they’ll be across the table from Rob Martin again at some point in the future.
Plus, the airing of grievances a month before Festivus is highly frowned upon.
At this point — not only in this offseason but in the still-early stages of Cohen’s ownership tenure — the path is clear: Let those extravagantly publicized billions do the talking.
Because, to be honest, we all expected the quarterly national embarrassments to stop. They [checks notes] have not. And, at times, it’s been a direct result of the open-door approach Cohen’s taken to this.
Transparency is good. As is interaction. A peek behind the curtain at the butcher shop is not.
Change the culture of a perpetually woebegone organization by building a winner, off the field and on it and the rest will fall into place. Prioritize the fans’ lifelong investments ahead of your own. In the long run, we could all win.
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