Happiness is on Back Order

We have it from a reliable source that Steve Cohen was not happy yesterday morning. He had never seen such unprofessional behavior exhibited by a player’s agent. He guessed words and promises didn’t matter.

That was yesterday, Wednesday. Today is a new day, not only Thursday, but Thanksgiving Day. I hope Steve Cohen is happy this morning. I hope he sees professional behavior exhibited by players’ agents. I hope he revises his estimation on the mattering of words and promises. At the very least, I hope he and his family have a happy Thanksgiving.

If Steve Cohen can’t be happy, perhaps it proves the old bromide that money can’t buy happiness. Or maybe that happiness, like so many commodities these days, is bound to get held up in the supply chain. You’d think Steve Cohen would perambulate elated 24/7. You’d think we as Mets fans would be happy at least 23/6 that Steve Cohen lists the Mets among his assets. We sure as hell were a year ago. Perhaps our tendency to see Steve Cohen primarily as a walking billfold irked karma. Now that we’ve got an owner with sky-high resources, we’ll…

We’ll what? I’d contend we don’t know yet. We certainly haven’t contended nor poised ourselves to in the fairly near future. Early returns. Incomplete grades. Not much of a shakedown cruise in Season One of the Cohen Era, and Season Two can be termed only as in development. Steve tried to buy a little happiness by way of Steven Matz’s left arm. I don’t remember Long Island’s Own Steven Matz being a harbinger of happiness all that often as the kid from Suffolk County settled into his inconsistent period (2017-2020), but he was always a nice guy, he had a good free agent year for Toronto and did we mention he was from Long Island?

East Setauket Steve opted to go to St. Louis, prime destination for all our nightmare one-that-got-away scenarios. When we hypothesize worst cases, “just watch — he’ll go to the Cardinals and flourish” is our default mode. Should Matz indeed take to heart the unyielding embrace of the Best Fans in Baseball™, lap up the last ounces of nurturing Yadier Molina has on tap and evolve once and for all from a less aggravating Jon Niese to the second coming of Jon Matlack, well, happy Thanksgiving to him. And if he doesn’t, his agent still worked a pretty good deal for him: four years, $44 million. It’s gauche to count other people’s money, even if it comes with the offseason territory.

It’s gaucher, I would think, to throw a snit fit on Twitter, but maybe I don’t understand the particulars of super big business today. If the guy who could buy the Mets for $2.4 billion and not sweat the groceries prefers to call out Rob Martin — whose name I didn’t know until Steve Cohen made him a November 2021 character in our perennial twelve-month saga — rather than pick up a phone or send a message through channels, who am I to say that’s not the way it’s done? So we don’t have Matz. We didn’t have him anymore, anyway.

We also don’t have Aaron Loup anymore. We did have him. He was very good. His market was bound to blow up like a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day balloon after his ERA deflated so noticeably, all caveats about relief pitchers and earned run averages understood. Aaron might have pitched close to the tune of 0.95 again for us had the Mets matched or exceeded the length and width of what the Thorified Angels presented him (two years, $17 million). Or he and we might have come to learn why career years are termed as such. Good lefty relievers are by no means a dime a dozen, but arm barns are factory-installed with revolving doors.

Cohen tweeting his displeasure with Matz’s agent was a personal choice. The ballclub he owns opted for staid press releases (how quaint) to let us know three other tidbits Wednesday.

• The Mets signed Nick Plummer, a lefty-swinging minor league outfielder from the Cardinals organization (take that, Matz thieves).
• The Mets claimed waived Rockies righty reliever Antonio Santos, who used to be a starter and has mostly pitched in the minors.
• The Mets noted the removal from the roster of the Estrellas Orientales one Robinson Cano, whose lower back discomfort will be served better by physical therapy than continuing to play winter ball in the Dominican.

Plummer and Santos are each 25 years old. Coming to the Mets might do for them what coming to the Mets apparently did for Loup (or going to the Cardinals we dread will do for Matz). New GM Billy Eppler’s background is in scouting. Maybe he or somebody whose words and promises he trusts saw something particularly intriguing in them. Cano is 39, inactive for more than a year except for winter league stints and shaking off a second PED suspension. Unlike Plummer and Santos, Cano is owed an extraordinary sum. Extraordinary to everyday eyes. Cohen could probably write him a severance check between passings of the cranberry sauce this afternoon and still maintain a hankering for green bean casserole.

If our mouths aren’t exactly watering in the weeks since the hot stove began to flicker, let’s take solace in the knowledge that these days are just the appetizers. Even if everybody is instructed to leave the table and play a spirited game of lockdown touch football soon, a proper offseason dinner will eventually be served. Steve Cohen and we will find some semblance of happiness or at least more ballplayers, some of whom we’ll be delighted to have join us, a few more renowned than Nick Plummer and Antonio Santos, one or two likely fresher than Robinson Cano. There’s probably a manager plus a cornucopia of coaches being prepared for our consumption as well.

In the interim, a happy, bountiful and warm Thanksgiving to all. May it be filled with professional behavior.