All along there’s been a big, big-city fever dream in the back of everybody’s minds that Shohei Ohtani ends up in New York, for all the talk that he’ll end up staying on the west coast once he become a free agent. Somehow the best baseball player in the world would come here the way Babe Ruth did over 100 years ago, and be that kind of star in a star town.
But even if that were a real possibility, no matter how much of a longshot it is, ask yourself something:
What exactly about the current state of the Mets and Yankees would make Ohtani even think about coming here?
Because what we have found out this season, both sides of town, over $600 million spent on two teams whose combined record coming out of Wednesday night’s games was a combined seven games under .500, is that it takes more than money to win. A whole lot more than a whole lot of money.
One team in last place, one in second-to-last. After Brian Cashman did next to nothing at the trade deadline, he said, “We’re in it to win it.” Cash really must have been talking about the city championship.
The Mets are already a baseball version of a stock market crash. If the Yankees don’t start winning games, and right now, they are going to finish out of the money. Hal Steinbrenner has spent a lot of money on his team, after spending — what? — a couple of billion, all-in, since the Yankees were last in the World Series. But for the time being, the Yankees look a lot like a baseball version of the Knicks, a team stuck in the middle. And even the Knicks don’t go into seasons with the personnel they have saying it’s NBA Finals or bust.
All of this means that apart from money, neither of the New York teams could possibly have anything the biggest baseball star in this world wants.
Ohtani has already seen what playing on the wrong team can do to a great player, no matter how much money he is making. Ohtani has seen that on his very own team with Mike Trout, who was the best player of his generation until Ohtani, perhaps the best player of any generation, came along.
Trout has now spent the best part of his prime playing for a mediocre organization, which is why all he has to show for his prime are three postseason games and one hit that turned out to be a home run. Those games were played nine years ago. Trout just turned 32 a few days ago. He could have chose to leave, decided to stay for a rich, long-term contract. Now Ohtani is the one who can leave after the season.
Forget about the Yankees for a moment. Why would he consider coming to the Mets, who are now talking about 2025 and 2026 with the prospects they got for Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander, as if 2024 is going to be some kind of speed bump? As much money as Steve Cohen has already thrown around, why would Ohtani consider becoming a Met for a New York minute not knowing who is going to be running Cohen’s baseball ops next year?
Billy Eppler, the current big baseball boss, talks about the Mets “repositioning” themselves, as if Cohen will send Eppler to the penalty box if he calls it rebuilding, even though rebuilding is exactly what the Mets are really talking about here.
Coming into this season, and coming off 101 regular-season wins, maybe Cohen thought that the Mets might be good enough to make themselves an attractive landing spot for Ohtani once he does become a free agent. Only the Mets aren’t an attractive landing spot right now. Neither are the Yankees, who still think of themselves as the capital of everything in baseball.
“We’ve got now,” Ohtani says in his New Balance commercial.
Where are the Mets and Yankees right now? Fourth and fifth place. The Mets threw in the towel at the trade deadline and even with that, they are only six games worse than the Yankees in the loss column going into the weekend. You know who might be giving some thought about how things might go at Yankee Stadiumn over the next few years, in what is supposed to be the middle of his own prime?
Aaron Judge.
Judge was the kind of baseball star last season on his way to 62 home runs that Ohtani is for the Angels this season. The Giants were the most serious suitor for Judge last winter before he re-upped with the Yankees for $360 million. They’re currently the second wild card in the National League, and in second place in the NL West behind the Dodgers. Imagine how much better they would be, and how much closer to the Dodgers, if they were the ones who had won the No. 99 Sweepstakes.
Maybe there was never going to be a chance that Ohtani would come east. Maybe nothing has changed with him since the Yankees couldn’t even get to the plate with him six years ago. Brian Cashman traded for Giancarlo Stanton instead, and we all know what a sparkling decision that has turned out to be.
Once it would have been a natural for New York teams to go after the biggest baseball star there is, as if going for a baseball Messi. Now all they would have to offer him is money. But it takes more than just writing a check. Check the standings.
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