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The Yankees and Mets are back with the rest of MLB just a week later than we hoped, starting Thursday and Friday with Opening Days, and in some ways you may not recognize which team is which.
The Mets are suddenly the big spender, the Yankees the relative saver.
The Mets possess more big names, the Yankees more helpful and handy role players.
The team in Queens is the one that made all the free-agent signings this winter, including the historically huge agreement to land three-time Cy Young winner/noted union negotiator Max Scherzer with a record per-annum $130 million, three-year deal.
The Yankees still do have a fairly robust $250 million payroll (about $35 million short of the Mets). Yet, they somehow managed to entirely avoid a free-agent market stocked with stars.
One reason is they want to save their loot is to try to lock up the beloved homegrown star Aaron Judge, whose judgment day comes Thursday (or possibly Friday thanks to the rainout that pushed the Opening Day deadline back). The other is, they have grown relatively prudent.
The Yanks declined to seriously pursue or sign any of the five mega-star shortstops — including arguably the biggest name on the market, Carlos Correa. You may hear Correa isn’t here possibly in part because he seemed to diss the Yankees’ last all-time great shortstop after embracing Derek Jeter’s frenemy Alex Rodriguez. But there are two much more valid reasons.
One, the Yankees have two shortstop prospects they like, and two, Steve Cohen doesn’t own the Yankees.
Cohen will be beloved in New York for doing whatever he can. Heck, there’s a collective bargaining agreement rule now to try to prevent him from doing what he’s doing. That 80 percent tax above a $290 million payroll has Cohen’s name all over it, and word is he has few qualms about breaking through it.
He won’t win a popularity contest among other owners. He should be a hero to fans.
Hal Steinbrenner, meantime, is a solid owner with a high payroll, but like most of us, he has limits. He’s believed to be making a strong play to keep Judge, but he has his red lines (well Mookie Betts and Mike Trout, understandably, so).
Steinbrenner gets a spot on the MLB negotiating committee. Other owners love him, and it’s not only because of his movie-star hair.
It is the Mets who will employ the game’s richest shortstop, Francisco Lindor, and hope his freshman year in Queens was a fluke. No reason to think not, based on a monster spring when he tore up lovely St. Lucie.
Meantime, the Yankees will go with Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who does little things (which is better than the baseball equivalent of having a good personality) while they await the arrival of their alleged next all-time shortstop. That would be Jersey boy Anthony Volpe, who possesses a New York name and sensibility but also a promise that won’t be realized for another year or two.
The Mets are the ones who have a fun, blustery Twitter-loving owner. The Yankees have a son of the guy who perfected the fun, blustery owner.
The Mets are the ones with much more Back Page potential. Even beyond all the signings (Starling Marte, Eduarado Escobar and Mark Canha joined Schrezer), they made headlines with spicy tweets from the top, a public rebuke over the Steven Matz talks and a diss by Marcus Stroman, who tweeted he’s glad he’s gone after trying to return.
Up in the former Bronx Zoo, meanwhile, all remained relatively sedate. The Yankees mostly sat in the dugout, save for the trade for Kiner-Falefa and the talented and intense Josh Donaldson, who at least gives the Yankees extraordinary potential to spice things up come summer.
The much-decorated, oft-dealt Donaldson coincidentally came in the very deal that enabled the smaller-market Minnesota nice guys to sign that very shortstop the Yankees passed on — Correa — who set a salary record for infielders, and got annual opt-outs. That gives the Yankees the chance to pass on him again next year. Or the year after.
The Yankees well know the Minnesota nice guys tried to excise Donaldson about five minutes after signing him to their then-record Twins deal. However, they see his noted “red-[butt]” rep for a mostly milquetoast clubhouse they felt needed a jolt.
The Mets even brought in ex-Yankees to run things, presumably the Steinbrenner way. Billy Eppler, Brian Cashman’s old right-hand man, is the new GM. And baseball savant Buck Showalter returns to a New York dugout as Mets manager 27 years after he left the Yankees, a fiery young man raised in the first Steinbrenner era. He’s back, seemingly much mellower but as sharp as ever.
Of course, some things never seem to change. The Mets’ hex continued, as Jacob deGrom, the consensus best pitcher in the game, continued to lead the league in MRIs as well as ERA and will miss at least two months after shoulder trouble flared up late. Scherzer, the toughest guy on the block, seems close to overcoming a hamstring issue like it was nothing, but Taijuan Walker’s knee pain added to the late-spring worries for the near $290 million team.
Many things have changed around the Queens team, but bad luck continues to follow it around. So at least we can put to bed the rumor that the misfortune and woe was entirely a Wilpon thing.
And though our two teams took different routes, both appear destined to win 90 or so games but have to fight to win divisions that are arguably the two toughest in the game. I see a pair of second-place finishes, behind the Jays and Braves respectively, that gets them into the expanded playoff scenario.
Baseball is best when New York has two viable teams, and thanks to Cohen and Co., that is the case now.
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