New York Mets Expected to be Idle During 2024 Free Agency?

With Steve Cohen as owner, the New York Mets have been major players in free agency, however that might not be the case this year.

When Steve Cohen took over as owner of the New York Mets, longtime fans were happy to finally have someone with the capital and willingness to spend for top free agents on the open market.

The Mets immediately did just that, spending large amounts of money on available players.

While it didn't result in winning anything of note, it still signaled that New York was in a different era under the leadership of Cohen.

With high-profile free agents available this offseason, led by Shohei Ohtani, the Mets were expected to be in contention for many of them after hiring David Stearns to lead their organization.

However, in a prediction piece from The Athletic that has them signing a veteran free agent, there was a line that suggests New York could have a much more quiet offseason than originally expected.

"If the Mets are serious about mostly sitting out this free-agent season...," Andy McCullough wrote ahead of his projection.

That's certainly interesting.

Considering that the Mets have been linked with some of the biggest names on the market like Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Matt Chapman and others, this report by McCullough would go completely against those previous thoughts.

During Stearns' time with the Milwaukee Brewers, they didn't have a huge payroll to play with and used their own farm system along with lower-level trades to build their roster.

While that will likely be a component of Stearns' strategy as the president of baseball operations, it seems odd that New York would not use their capital to address their obvious needs this offseason.

Whether McCullough's sentence in that piece is just a throwaway line or comes to fruition will be seen, but it seems like the Mets could be much more idle than expected.