Max Scherzer's bleak assessment of Mets seems accurate amid underwhelming offseason

It has been a pretty quiet offseason for the New York Mets. While the team has been active, they’ve mostly signed second-tier players and Yankees castoffs. They did offer Yoshinobu Yamamoto a ton of money, but his signing with the Dodgers was perhaps predestined.

The fact that the Mets haven’t made any big splashes to upgrade their roster seems to make the words of former Mets pitcher Max Scherzer very prescient. When it became clear that 2023 was headed toward dumpster-fire territory, he was shipped to the Texas Rangers.

Scherzer, who wanted to stay in New York, decided to waive his no-trade clause after talking to GM Billy Eppler about the direction of the team. Eppler told him that they wouldn’t be pursuing top free agents in the offseason and would instead be focused on 2025 and 2026. Said Scherzer:

“I was like, ‘OK, are we reloading for 2024?’ He goes, ‘No, we’re not. Basically our vision now is for 2025-2026, ‘25 at the earliest, more like ‘26. We’re going to be making trades around that.' I was like, ‘So the team is not going to be pursuing free agents this offseason or assemble a team that can compete for a World Series next year?’ He said, ‘No, we’re not going to be signing the upper-echelon guys. We’re going to be on the smaller deals within free agency. ‘24 is now looking to be more of a kind of transitory year.’”

Scherzer said that the Mets were also open to trading any player who will be a free agent after the 2024 season, and this includes Pete Alonso. While Eppler has now been replaced by David Stearns, the direction for the team seems to come from owner Steve Cohen, who told Scherzer basically the exact same thing he was told by Eppler.

Cohen essentially confirmed that. “Max asked me straight,” Cohen said. “He goes, ‘Are you going to be all-in on free agency next year?’ And I couldn’t give him that promise.” Cohen also said that he expects the team to be “highly competitive” in 2024 but that expectations should be lower.

While the Mets are essentially returning the same squad — offensively, anyway — that contributed to 101 wins in 2022, their new pitching staff leaves a lot to be desired. In fact, it has already been labeled as perhaps the worst in baseball.

So, what does this mean for fans? It means that once again they may have to be prepared for yet another "wait ‘til next year" kind of season.