Mets owner Steve Cohen is preaching calm amid a turbulent time for the Mets after fans watched Edwin Diaz and Pete Alonso depart New York on back-to-back days.
Cohen had sympathy for the fans, but made clear that the MLB offseason is still very young.
“I totally understand the fans’ reaction,” Cohen texted noti.group’s Jon Heyman. “There is lots of offseason left to put a playoff team on the field.”
But things have gotten off to an interesting start with Diaz and Alonso headed elsewhere.
The Alonso news came out on Wednesday morning that he was heading to the Orioles on a five-year, $155 million contract after spending seven years with the Mets.
The Mets did not make a contract offer to Alonso prior to him accepting the Orioles’ deal, noti.group’s Joel Sherman reported, after it became known that teams were willing to offer more money and years than the Queens baseball team was comfortable with giving.
The offseason has included the Mets trading Brandon Nimmo to the Rangers in November and Diaz agreeing to a three-year, $69 million contract with the Dodgers on Tuesday.
A source told noti.group’s Mike Puma that Diaz was unhappy with the organization’s decision to part ways with pitching coach Jeremy Hefner following the season.
Cohen’s message to fans echoed a similar one that Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns told reporters at the Winter Meetings in Orlando, Fla., on Tuesday night after Diaz left for Los Angeles.
“Since the deal is not official, I can’t comment on it,” Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns said when asked about Diaz. “I am very optimistic about where our offseason is headed. We have got a lot of work to do, but there are a lot of good players out there and I have confidence that we are really going to like where our team is once we get to Opening Day.”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
