Mets faux spending spree screws Yankees as George Springer signs with Blue Jays

Once again, another move not involving the New York Yankees is going to directly screw the New York Yankees. And who do we have to thank this time? Not the Detroit Tigers. Not the Pittsburgh Pirates. Not the Chicago White Sox. It’s our inept neighbors, the New York Mets.

If Yankees fans have to hear one more time that Steve Cohen is here to blow the MLB away, empty his $14 billion pockets, and make the Mets into a super team, then a nearby object is going to break. We’ve been listening to this before the deal was even done for Cohen to become the Mets owner.

So far? He traded a bunch of scrap players for Francisco Lindor and Carlos Carrasco. He paid Trevor May $16 million. He passed up on JT Realmuto in favor of James McCann on a $40 million deal. And gave Marcus Stroman the qualifying offer (which any team would have done).

Aside from Realmuto and Trevor Bauer, many believed George Springer was among the Mets’ top targets this offseason given their somewhat-of-a-void in center field. Nope! Instead, they let the Blue Jays out-bid them by $25 million. Yup, $25 million! That’s a morning day trade for Cohen, but the richest man in baseball couldn’t stomach the idea of upping the offer to get Toronto out his way?

Great! Now the Blue Jays have their franchise center fielder to join Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, Lourdes Guerriel Jr. and others. What was looking like an extremely bleak offseason for Toronto has now been revived thanks to arguably the best deal they could have made. All because Mets fans have created a faux frenzy over how much their team is going to spend.

We’re not really mad that this happened to hurt the Yankees. It’s more of a frustration that we continually have to hear about the Mets changing the landscape of baseball. They aren’t. They’re afraid to go over the $210 luxury tax threshold as first-time offenders.

Right now, the Mets have $185 million committed to the 2021 payroll. They could’ve easily signed Springer, backloaded his deal in order to stay well under, and had room to make a few other deals. Apparently they’d rather keep their faith in Brandon Nimmo and give the Jays more breathing room to sign another All-Star.

The Springer signing could pave the way for Michael Brantley to stroll on into Toronto, adding another potent bat to this dangerous lineup. Just what the Yankees needed.

The Mets had a chance to make a very, very easy splash and out-bid a team that was getting zero bites in free agency in order to make all the Jared Porter news go away. But now they’ll have a very Mets-like controversy at the forefront of the discourse as they continue to underwhelm everyone with their fraudulent spending spree.

Padres trade package for Joe Musgrove proves Yankees were smart to stay away

The San Diego Padres traded for Pittsburgh Pirates starter Joe Musgrove on Monday and made it clear the New York Yankees were smart to stay away.