Since buying the Mets in 2020, Cohen put an exciting, yet almost impossible goal on the Mets’ shoulders: Win the World Series within the first five years of owning the team.

Well, the team missed the playoffs in 2021, was knocked out in the Wild Card round in 2022, and finished with a 75-87 record with the highest payroll in baseball history ($343,605,087 million) in 2023. It’s fair to say expectations aren’t being met.

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However, year four of the Cohen era commences in 2024, and the landscape is completely different. Cohen finally found his perfect match in David Stearns, the former general manager of the Milwaukee Brewers, and former Met intern that the Wilpons refused to hire internally.

With Stearns at the helm, along with impressive names who were poached from other organizations, the Mets are finally staring at something the organization hasn’t seen since the 1980s — stability.

Year one of the David Stearns era could go in any direction. He turned the Brewers into a perennial threat in the National League Central within three years, but with Cohen’s money, he doesn’t need to be patient with building his foundation.

As it stands now, the Mets payroll is estimated to be $264,288,525 million after factoring in the competitive balance tax and estimated arbitration numbers. However, going into 2025, the Mets payroll is only estimated at $161,866,666 million.

The massively shed team salary in 2025 leaves Stearns with a lot of wiggle room this offseason. He has room to add whoever he wants, and with Cohen’s willingness to blow past the competitive balance tax, Stearns can piece together any roster he desires.

With potential future stars and bonafide future Hall-of-Famers available, Cohen and Stearns have the chance to set up the Mets for the next five years. With all that in mind, I laid out my ideal offseason for the Mets below.

ROTATION WISHLIST

The rotation is, well, not looking great for 2024. Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, and Carlos Carrasco are all off the roster, and David Peterson will likely miss the first three months of the season.

While some may see that as a net positive for the Mets, the four starters combined for 403 innings last season. That’s 76 combined starts and 47% of all the starts made by Mets’ starting pitchers in 2023.

The Mets will add starting pitchers via free agency and it may be the area where they spend the most. As stated earlier, the Mets have flexibility in the near future with their payroll and shouldn’t be afraid to spend big this offseason.

The starting rotation needs work. Here are the pitchers the Mets should target this offseason:

The first name is self-explanatory. The Mets should be all in on Yoshinobu Yamamoto. He had another dominating season in the Nippon Professional Baseball League, posting a 1.21 ERA and 0.884 WHIP in 164 innings. Yamamoto is easily the best free-agent starting pitcher available and is only 24 years old. The seven-year deal at $215 million would give Yamamoto an average annual value of $30.7 million and pay him like a top ace in the game.

Wade Miley makes sense from an organizational standpoint. The Mets need short-term answers in the rotation while Blade Tidwell, Mike Vasil, and others develop in the minors. Miley, despite being 37 next year, was solid again in 2023. He posted a 3.14 ERA in 23 starts, along with a respectable 1.139 WHIP and outstanding 137 ERA+.

Miley is currently projected to make $7.9 million by Sportrac.com and would be a cheap option to give the Mets breathing room for other additions. Miley is also a name Stearns has acquired in the past and played in Milwaukee in 2018 and 2023.

Another reunion that makes sense for the Mets is between Stearns and Brandon Woodruff. The righty owns a 2.98 ERA since 2018l, has made two All-Star teams, and finished fifth overall in the 2021 National League Cy Young race.

This move, however, wouldn’t impact the Mets until 2025. Woodruff recently had shoulder surgery and will likely miss the entire 2024 season. Still, it’s an opportunity to commit short-term to a once-dominant player and reap the rewards.

Woodruff recently turned down a two-year deal with the Brewers and would likely ask for a sizeable contract despite his injury. Woodruff, however, is one of the best pitchers in the majors when healthy, and Cohen has the money.

Even without Woodruff for 2024, the Mets rotation would still be in great shape. Here is the projected rotation with the additions:

  1. Kodai Senga
  2. Yoshinobu Yamamoto
  3. José Quintana
  4. Wade Miley
  5. José Butto 

RETOOL THE BULLPEN

The Mets bullpen is getting Edwin Díaz back next year, yet somehow is in a worse position than it was last year.

David Robertson, Adam Ottavino, and Trevor Gott are all gone, and like the starting pitching debacle, leave the Mets with a lot of innings to recover. The three of them combined for 134 2/3 innings in 2023, which the majority of were high-leverage innings.

Looking at the 2024 roster, the Mets are going to need at least new three arms in the bullpen to compete. Brooks Raley and Drew Smith are the only returning pitchers with over 50 innings in the bullpen from 2023, and Díaz is returning from a significant knee injury.

Besides those three, the 40-man roster currently holds Phil Bickford, Reed Garrett, Grant Hartwig, Sean Reid-Foley, and Josh Walker. Again, not great.

Luckily for the Mets, there are a lot of formidable pitchers who are free agents this offseason. Below, I picked out three realistic names that I believe the Mets could and should pursue:

Craig Kimbrel might disappoint as the headlining name in an offseason where Josh Hader is available, but hear me out. Kimbrel had another solid year for the Phillies in 2023 and finished with a 3.26 ERA and 12.3 SO/9. He continues to be an effective pitcher out of the bullpen at age 36 and proved he can still get outs in high-leverage situations, finishing and leading the Phillies bullpen with 23 saves in 2023.

Kimbrel might not be Hader, but he is projected to receive an AAV of $10 million a year, which is a steal for a pitcher who still strikes out batters at an impressive rate. Kimbrel did allow 10 homers last season, but put him in Citi Field instead of Citizen’s Banks Park and that number will certainly drop.

Like Kimbrel, Brent Suter is another older pitcher with a proven track record. The 34-year-old owns a career 3.16 ERA since moving to the bullpen full-time and is coming off an impressive year with the Rockies, where he posted a 3.38 ERA in 69 1/3 innings.

Suter is also an inning eater. He has pitched in 209 1/3 innings in the last three seasons with a 3.40 ERA and can come in to provide middle to late relief. Suter is also another Stearns pitcher and pitched in Milwaukee from 2016 to 2022.

Dylan Floro is easily the most surprising name between Suter and Kimbrel. He struggled in 2023, finishing with a 4.76 ERA between the Marlins and Twins in 2023.

But, when looking at the advanced numbers, Floro is due for a massive bounce-back season. He recorded a 2.96 FIP, which was almost two full runs lower than his ERA. Batters also recorded a .401 BABIP and 87.1 MPH average exit velocity against Floro, resulting in runs from weak contact.

Floro, like Suter, is another low-cost bullpen arm that could provide dividends for the Mets. Floro is an underrated arm on the market and has had recent success. He recorded a 2.85 ERA and 25 saves in 142 innings from 2020-2023.

With these additions, here is how the Mets bullpen would look like this:

  • CL: Edwin Díaz
  • SU: Craig Kimbrel
  • SU: Brooks Raley
  • RP: Drew Smith
  • RP: Brent Suter
  • RP: Dylan Floro

EXPLOSIVE OFFENSIVE ADDITIONS

The Mets offense unsurprisingly regressed last season. And yes, some regression was expected. The 2022 team batted .269 with runners in scoring position and led the majors in batting average.

Fast forward to 2023 and the offense only batted .243 with runners in scoring position. That’s a massive drop-off from the year before and another testament to how batting average isn’t a great tool to measure offensive production.

Still, the 2023 lineup dealt with injuries and underperformance, which leads me to believe that not a lot has to change in order for the team to produce runs.

The Mets offense is missing one middle-of-the-order bat, and below, I have my eyes set on one slugger and one player in the midst of a potential hall-of-fame career:

JUAN SOTO

Let’s start with the jaw-dropper: Juan Soto. The Mets were connected with Soto in 2022 when the Nationals decided to trade the outfielder after he turned down a mega contact. However, the Mets never had a chance due to their lack of high-level prospects and the fact that Mike Rizzo rarely trades within the NL East.

Instead, the Padres won the Soto sweepstakes and have enjoyed one-and-a-half seasons of the three-time All-Star. While he underperformed in 2022, Soto bounced back in 2023 and slashed .272/.410/.519 with 35 homers and 132 walks, finishing sixth in the NL MVP race. However, like the Mets, the Padres dealt with injuries and underperformance in 2023 and missed the playoffs.

Now, to the Mets’ benefit, the Padres find themselves between a rock and a hard place financially. The organization had to take a $50 million loan last season to afford its payroll and now has to find ways to shed money for the upcoming 2024 season.

Soto is the main candidate to be moved. He is projected to make $30 million in his last year of arbitration for 2024 and is at his highest trade value. Cohen proved last season that money isn’t an issue and a deal between the Padres and Mets makes sense.

A deal for Soto would require a top prospect and MLB-ready pitching. However, Jon Heyman recently reported that two top-100 prospects could possibly get a Soto deal done.

PROPOSED DEAL:

Mets receive: Juan Soto

Padres receive: Ronny Mauricio (No. 87, MLB.com), Kevin Parada (No. 89, MLB.com), and Tylor Megill

This deal checks both boxes for the Padres, according to multiple reports on what the Padres are asking for. The Mets give up two top-100 prospects in Mauricio and Parada, plus Megill, a starting pitcher who has four years of team control and is still pre-arbitration eligible.

Meanwhile, the Mets get Soto, a No. 3 hitter that the team desperately needs after the offense finished 20th in runs (717), 18th in OPS (.708), and 10th in homers (215) in 2023.

RHYS HOSKINS

The second — and less exciting — bat the Mets should pick up is Rhys Hoskins.

Hoskins has surprisingly been forgotten this offseason. He missed the entire 2023 season when he tore his ACL in spring training and was then non-tendered by the Phillies after the postseason. No setbacks were reported regarding Hoskins’s injury, but the only team that is reportedly interested in the slugger is the Washington Nationals.

Hoskins deserves more love. A lot more. He’s hit 148 homers across six seasons, which includes his rookie season and the COVID-19-shortened season. Hoskins also pairs his power with a great eye and has a career .358 OBP.

The former Phillie checks multiple boxes for the Mets offense. For starters, Hoskins provides more thump to a Mets lineup that finished 10th in homers. While 10th isn’t terrible, it’s behind the Braves and Phillies, who hit the first and eighth most homers in the majors last season.

The Mets also need another bat who can hit left-handed pitchers. The Mets finished with a .708 OPS (24th in MLB) and .398 slugging percentage (24th in MLB) against lefties last year, and were regularly dominated by southpaws.

Hoskins immediately flips the script for the Mets. He owns a career .250/.399/.522 slash line against lefties, along with 40 homers in 617 at-bats.

The Mets lineup becomes outright scary after adding Soto and Hoskins. Here is a potential lineup card if the two are added:

CF Brandon Nimmo
SS Francisco Lindor
LF Juan Soto
1B Pete Alonso
DH Rhys Hoskins
2B Jeff McNeil
RF Starling Marte
C Francisco Álvarez
3B Brett Baty

IN CONCLUSION

My offseason plan for the Mets may seem unrealistic, but hey, it’s Cohen we’re talking about.

Cohen blew past the competitive balance tax last season and there’s no reason to believe he won’t do it again. After adding up all the suggested contracts, the Mets would add another $113.2 million to their roster. So to sum it up, it would be almost impossible to add every player listed.

But this is what’s fun about being a Mets fan today. Cohen could add everyone on this list if he wanted. While my wishlist won’t be fulfilled, multiple players have to be added to this roster. As of Nov. 25, only 28 players are listed on the Mets 40-man. Stearns has a lot to do before the start of the 2024 season.