NASHVILLE, Tenn. — You know what they say in the Big Apple:
If you can’t beat ’em, then indirectly sabotage ’em.
Here at the Gaylord Opryland, a biosphere-esque resort that many New Yorkers would regard as more over the top than the Naked Cowboy, the Mets and Yankees found themselves in the eye of Tuesday’s Winter Meetings storm. A storm that had to leave the Mets dazed and confused and that gave the Yankees a different look than many of us envisioned.
Ben Zobrist will be a Cub, once he passes his physical exam. Starlin Castro is a Yankee, with Adam Warren and Brendan Ryan going to Chicago’s North Side.
The Mets are back to Square 1 after swinging and missing — after acting quite confident they had connected — on Zobrist, their declared top target of the winter.
Zobrist agreed to a four-year, $56 million offer from the Cubs, and the Mets were right there on the dollars. They could offer Zobrist their everyday second-base job, just as the Cubs can with Castro gone.
The Mets lost out in two areas: 1) Zobrist wanted to play for Cubs manager Joe Maddon, whom he knew so well from their nine seasons together in Tampa Bay; 2) Chicago is about half as close to Franklin, Tenn., the Nashville suburb where Zobrist makes his home, as is New York. All along his first journey into free agency, Zobrist pined for the Cubs. It looked like the Cubs wouldn’t make room for him … right until they did, just as Zobrist was ready to make his decision.
As the Mets dove deeper into the Zobrist sweepstakes, taking him on a tour of the tri-state area last week, they increasingly viewed their winter as “Go Zobrist or go budget.” They didn’t envision themselves competing for the likes of Ian Desmond, Howie Kendrick or Asdrubal Cabrera if they failed to land Zobrist.
Now, though, they face a fan base that has to feel let down after coming so close on Zobrist. And there’s a rather obvious alternative still out there who is hardly identical to Zobrist, but who can hit some and is pretty versatile himself, and who knows the Mets’ terrain quite well.
If the Mets went four years for Zobrist, who turns 35 in May, then shouldn’t they do the same for Daniel Murphy, who turns 31 in April? We all know about Murphy’s inconsistencies in the field and on the bases, but the Mets need to add an established bat, and Murphy surely is that. He also would be more willing to jump around the infield than was Zobrist, a characteristic that could be quite handy given the uncertain viability of team captain David Wright at third base.
The early vibe coming out of the Mets’ camp Tuesday, in the wake of Zobrist’s declined invitation, was that they still didn’t own a great appetite for Murphy. These vibes can change quickly, though; shoot, late Tuesday afternoon, Mets manager Terry Collins was publicly musing about the idea of hitting Zobrist second in his lineup.
This is a dilemma the Mets, who still face a sizeable trust deficit with their fans despite their 2015 on-field success, hoped they’d never have to solve. As long as interesting, pricey names such as Murphy and Desmond loom on the market, and as long as the Mets face voids in their lineup and on the field as well as obvious room in their payroll, questions understandably will be asked about their interest in these guys.
The Mets took over the town in 2015. The Yankees’ best form of revenge will be turning the tables in 2016. This development, nearly four months before Opening Day, was quite the opening salvo.