The New York Mets Offseason Has Reached Crisis Level

When New York Mets owner Steve Cohen tweeted on Thursday, "Let me know when you see smoke," it was a reference to the papal election and, basically, a public statement that we're all waiting to find out whose offer top free-agent outfielder Kyle Tucker would choose.

After Tucker signed his four-year, $240M deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers a few hours later, the smoke you're now seeing is pouring out of the inferno of a dumpster fire that the Mets' offseason has become, and that tweet is all but guaranteed to become a meme used whenever things go sideways for the Mets for the foreseeable future.

The Mets reportedly offered $220M for four years of Tucker's services, but it wasn't enough, as has been the trend this winter.

Before we begin piling on the Mets, though, let's first offer a silver lining of sorts: The offseason isn't over yet, as evidenced by their pivot to giving Bo Bichette a three-year, $126M deal a whole 14 hours after Tucker signed (more on that later).

Most of the top free agents have signed, but Cody Bellinger is still available as a marquee solution to what has devolved into a disastrous outfield situation. Framber Valdez and Zac Gallen are also still up for grabs as potential upgrades to this problematic starting rotation. And as far as trade options are concerned, Steven Kwan, Byron Buxton, Hunter Greene and Tarik Skubal were among the 'Shooting for the Moon' options in Best MLB Trade Candidates.

But if we were handing out report card grades on how each team's offseason has gone thus far, let's just say this one is way more F than #LGM.

Let's recap, shall we?

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New York entered the offseason at about a DEFCON 3.

While the Dodgers put together a $417M tax payroll (and paid a $169.4M luxury tax) en route to buying their second consecutive World Series, the Mets and their second-only-to-LA $342M tax payroll (and subsequent $91.6M tax payment) managed just 83 wins and an October schedule wide-open for going apple picking.

That's twice in three years, we might add. Back in 2023, the Mets had an even more ridiculous tax payroll of $376M, the highest in the majors by more than $80M. And that team finished 12 games below .500 in one of the grandest single-season failures imaginable.

Not since Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne were blowing their noses into $100 bills has so much money been wasted on sadness. And if you're too young for that Dumb & Dumber reference, seems safe to assume you don't remember the Mets ever winning a World Series, either.

So, two expensive disasters in three years, with an NLCS appearance in between.

In 2025, it was mostly the fault of a starting rotation that had a 5.27 ERA from June 13 onward, which made that an obvious problem to address this winter. Yet the Mets also had Pete Alonso and Edwin Díaz among their mile-long list of impending free agents, needing to either re-sign two players who ranked top five on the roster in bWAR in 2025 or figure out a way to replace them.

While those two fan favorites were still unsigned, the Mets jettisoned another one in the Thanksgiving week swap of Brandon Nimmo for Marcus Semien.

We'll find out over the course of the next few years who actually won that trade, but increasing the 2026 luxury tax payroll by nearly $10M (NYM retained $6M of Nimmo's salary) to acquire three years' worth of a 35-year-old second baseman fresh off back-to-back seasons with a sub-.700 OPS was certainly a risky decision.

About a month later, New York sent Jeff McNeil to the A's for a 17-year-old pitcher with 15.1 innings of rookie ball experience, otherwise known as a blatant salary dump.

(By the way, Nimmo was their sixth-most valuable player in 2025, while McNeil ranked eighth in bWAR. Not exactly background characters or minor contributors.)

In between those head-scratching trades, the Mets lost Díaz to the Dodgers over a reported difference of $3M, followed one day later by Alonso signing with the Orioles.

Add it all up and that's four of last year's eight most important players out the door.

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All the while, the Mets have done diddly squat about their problematic starting rotation. They replaced Díaz with a Devin Williams / Luke Weaver combo that was so disappointing for the other New York team in 2025 that the Yankees traded for David Bednar, Camilo Doval and Jake Bird at the deadline to try to salvage their bullpen.

They signed Jorge Polanco for $40M, evidently planning on replacing the Polar Bear with a guy who has manned first base for literally one at-bat in his entire 16-year professional career. And in the ultimate panic move of the offseason, they made Bo Bichette the highest-paid infielder in all of baseball.

"Let me know when you see smoke."

At a Citi Field luncheon two days before the Tucker bombshell, Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns made his first public comments since the winter meetings. He acknowledged, "There have been points this offseason that have been frustrating for our fan base," even saying he's hearing it from friends and family.

Well...yeah.

What did you expect?

You keep talking about run prevention and the importance of defense, yet you've got a starting first baseman (Polanco) who has effectively never played there, and you're banking on Bichette's horrific defensive metrics at shortstop not being a problem at third base?

Your primary center fielder (Tyrone Taylor) is a colossal liability at the plate who has never tallied 400 ABs in a season in his seven-year MLB career. We have no clue what the plan is in left field, and evidently, the grand scheme for improving the starting rotation is to cross your fingers a little harder for better luck with the same group of arms.

You can't expect fans to just trust the process when it sure looks to everyone like you're in the process of putting a much worse product on the field.

And here's the crazy part.

Ready for the crazy part?

The Mets still have the second-highest payroll in baseball at roughly $360M—and arguably the third-best odds of winning the NL East to show for it.

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While the Blue Jays have gone all-in by adding Dylan Cease, Kazuma Okamoto, Tyler Rogers, and Cody Ponce to that $500M Vladimir Guerrero Jr. extension, the Mets are still on the hook for almost $50M more than Toronto.

It's not like they burned it down and suddenly find themselves with a windfall of cash to throw at Bellinger and Valdez to make all the wrong things right.

In fact, it's probably going to take at least a $30M AAV to sign either of those guys, and they're already committed to $40M more than where they finished last season. Signing either one would bring their tax payroll to the brink of $400M, which would mean a total bill well north of $500M, when they were already reportedly operating at a deficit, with a total bill of $438M this past season.

After half a decade of spending like there's no tomorrow, welcome to tomorrow and the 40-year anniversary of the franchise's last World Series title.

And if Cohen doesn't dig deeper into his mountain of money to make at least two more splashes in a quickly evaporating pool of offseason options, don't bet on a parade happening this year, either.