Steve Cohen passing on Aaron Judge gets stranger with every former Yankees signing

If being addicted to signing former Yankees brings about a buzz akin to heroin, then call the Mets Miles Davis. Sometimes, they're coveted Yankees targets like Juan Soto that send both sides of the "rivalry" into a full-year tailspin, calling "fake news" about whichever gossip report they don't like. Sometimes, they're the funniest possible crossovers — Clay Holmes the Starter, meet Adam Ottavino the Something.

On Monday night, the cycle elicited an all-new giggle when Devin Williams, the beard policy changer slash roller coaster rider, signed a three-year, $50 million deal to become the Mets' closer (setup man if Edwin Diaz gets $100+ million of Steve Cohen's money, too). Odds are Williams bounces back nicely next season, especially after he found his swagger in September in the Bronx. Odds are that, even if he does bounce back, he'll still have a few mind-numbingly bleak blown saves and will receive boos in exchange.

Bottom line? Whether a departing Yankee is a winner, a collective grumble, or something in between, the Mets seem to be very interested in bringing them aboard (look out, Cody Bellinger).

Williams is just another notch on the timeline that makes it ... all the more suspicious that Aaron Judge's free agency was a three-way tussle between the Yankees, Giants, and sneaky Padres ... without Cohen involved whatsoever. Call us conspiracy theorists, but there's almost nothing about the contextual maneuvers that suggest Cohen and Hal Steinbrenner didn't have a handshake agreement.

"Let me ... let me have this one. Come on, I need it."

Mets' handshake agreement not to interfere with Yankees' pursuit of Aaron Judge seems more obviously real by the day

At the time, Yankee fans thought Judge's market could leap to the stratospheric level of (gasp) $400 million! That's Kyle Tucker money a mere three years later, making Judge feel like a bargain from the Mesozoic Era, but still. It's pricey. It's not a rookie contract.

All we really had to contend with during the pre-Winter Meetings rumor mill was a winking Judge in a hotel lobby in San Francisco and a pre-2022 rejected contract extension offer that seems more laughable by the day. The mess hit the fan during that week — Arson Judge and all — but we didn't even know about the Padres' offer until the ink was dry on the Yankees' new deal. Judge messed around with his hometown team, never really raised the Yankees' price, and Hal stepped up from an Italy trip to deliver exactly what he needed to.

So you're really telling me that Judge was the only Yankees free agent during the past six years that didn't raise the Mets' eyebrows a little bit? Luis Severino on a pillow contract? Absolutely. A $30 million AAV for an annual MVP? No, thanks. We'd rather commit $86.6 million to Justin Verlander, which is a real thing they did that offseason.

$500 million spent, none of it on Judge. Thousands of rumors partaken in, none of them involving Judge. Cohen saw Soto as a last chance to add a generational talent, the likes of which don't hit free agency often. He didn't view Judge that way on a shorter deal?

The math doesn't compute, and the Williams contract is just the latest piece of evidence to underscore the reality that Cohen let Hal off with a warning.