Insider explains why Mets didn't go after Shohei Ohtani

Multiple knowledgeable individuals said long before the Los Angeles Dodgers signed two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani to a 10-year contract reportedly worth $700M that Ohtani wouldn't join either the New York Mets or New York Yankees because he prefers living on the West Coast. 

Mets insider Anthony DiComo of the MLB website offered more information Tuesday about why big-spending team owner Steve Cohen didn't take a serious swing at changing Ohtani's mind. 

"The reality is that the Mets, by all accounts, never talked seriously with Ohtani, which makes sense for two reasons," DiComo explained. "First, the industry consensus for years has been that Ohtani prefers to play on the West Coast." 

Ohtani had been linked in rumors with the Toronto Blue Jays, and Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet reported this past Sunday that "sources familiar with the negotiation say the Blue Jays' best offer was in the same financial ballpark as" the Dodgers'. Nicholson-Smith added that it's unclear how serious Ohtani was about potentially signing with Toronto. 

"Had the Mets signed Ohtani to a $700M contract, as the Dodgers did, they would still need to add two more starting pitchers plus multiple relievers," DiComo continued. "Ohtani alone couldn’t have transformed the Mets from a fourth-place team into an immediate contender; that sort of leap would have required the Mets to spend hundreds of millions more, potentially making this offseason more expensive than the last one." 

Spotrac shows that the Mets were responsible for baseball's most expensive squad this past season. Cohen's money essentially paid for a team that failed to live up to expectations ahead of a pre-trade deadline fire sale, and the 2023 Mets finished with just 75 wins. 

Ohtani's contract with the Dodgers reportedly defers $680M until the end of his deal, and DiComo acknowledged there are "no guarantees" the two-time American League Most Valuable Player would have signed a similar agreement with the Mets. While the Mets aren't completely punting on 2024, DiComo mentioned that the franchise is looking "toward 2025 and beyond." 

Cohen told Will Sammon of The Athletic over the weekend that it is "pretty telling" that Ohtani's agent "never reached out to me personally" during the free-agency process. That suggests rumors claiming Ohtani never wanted to call New York home were accurate from the very beginning.