Reasons why Mets should sign Judge

When New York Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner spoke this week about his recent conversations with Aaron Judge, his words were confident, built on the power of his team’s staggering wealth. “It means a lot to this organization,” he told YES Network, “and I’ve made it clear to him that we will do everything we can to make that happen.”

There is an assumption among many executives in other organizations that, in the end, the Yankees will keep their best player and biggest star.

But if the New York Mets are smart, they should make a major play for Judge, because no other player presents more perfect solutions to some of the challenges they face in reshaping the team for 2023. The Steinbrenner family has staggering wealth and the Yankees franchise might be more valuable than any other professional sports team in the world, but Mets owner Steve Cohen has the kind of personal wealth that would allow him to outbid the Yankees.

And now is the perfect time to revisit the idea, whether or not the staff believes it can get the slugger into a bidding war. Following a report posted on the Mets’ website, Major League Baseball investigators are doing at least a cursory examination of whether the Mets have backed away from pursuing Judge because they understand Cohen will politely back away from pursuing the Yankees star. If the Mets have not yet communicated with Judge’s representatives, they could do so now in an effort to avoid an investigation.

In the end, Judge might prefer to return to the Yankees, regardless of the numbers thrown at him by the Mets or Giants or any other team. But Cohen and general manager Billy Eppler should give it a shot, for many reasons. Here are some of the many reasons why the Mets should pursue Judge and try to lure him away from the Yankees:

1. The Mets need power in their lineup. Desperately.

The Mets offense was really good this season, ranking sixth out of 30 teams. But when manager Buck Showalter rotated players like Eduardo Escobar (20 home runs) and Mark Canha (13) in and out of the spot behind Pete Alonso as the Mets tried to fend off the Braves, it was clear that at least one other big hitter was needed. Atlanta connected for 243 home runs in 2022, 72 more than the Mets. The Braves had a heavyweight offense, a lineup replete with knockout ability; the Mets are composed of many middleweights.7

The addition of 6’7″ (2.01 meters), 282-pound Judge would drastically change the balance of power in the division; just one move, the pairing of Judge with Alonso in the middle of the offensive bullpen, could put the Mets on the same level as the Braves, and even the Phillies, another division rival loaded with power hitters.

The Mets could try to add power by spreading their available dollars on a designated hitter and outfielders. But no combination of signings or trades could come close to giving them what Judge would provide.

2. Judge fits the Mets’ positional lineup — and their payroll.

In the outfield, the Mets would have options for Judge: Showalter could put him in center field and keep Starling Marte in right field, or he could move Marte to his natural position, center field, and put Judge in right field. And as Judge ages or deals with nagging injuries, he could spend more days as a designated hitter, all places the Mets could easily place him.

And off the field, even a big contract for Judge is a better fit than you think. In the Mets’ internal big-picture discussions, sources say, they have talked about competing in the early years of Cohen’s ownership while also building and fostering the farm system. Cohen’s hope, sources say, is that as the minor league system improves and continues to graduate prospects like Francisco Alvarez, good (and cheap) young players will help keep the payroll balanced.

To that end, they’ve handed out a bunch of relatively short-term, multi-year deals. Max Scherzer got a three-year, $130 million contract. Canha and Escobar each got two years and an option, Marte got four years. When Cohen took over as team owner, he effectively promised he would spend, and he has.

But as of 2024, the Mets have only four players locked into long-term deals: Francisco Lindor, Marte, Edwin Diaz and James McCann. Lindor is the only position player signed through 2026, at $34 million annually. Let’s say the Mets offered Judge $45 million annually for eight years. They have the room to make that work, especially if they delayed the deal. By 2026, they would owe Judge and Lindor between $80 million and $90 million. That’s not prohibitive for a team that could spend $250 million to $300 million a year.

3. Judge already answered New York’s question.

Every winter, front offices in the Bronx, Queens, Philadelphia and Boston are forced to project whether specific players will handle the adjustment required to play in front of more intense and demanding fans in the Northeast corridor. The Yankees gambled that Sonny Gray and Joey Gallo could, and it turned out they were wrong. Similarly, the Red Sox bet heavily on Carl Crawford’s transition, and it turned out to be a disaster. “You never know,” a top executive once lamented about a player who flopped in New York.

Well, in Judge’s case, the Mets do know. Judge has already thrived in New York; he’s been booed out of his home park, even during a season in which he set the American League home run record. He has shown that he is an excellent team leader, malleable and affable, always at ease. And Eppler knows Judge personally from his own days with the Yankees.

This is an incredibly rare opportunity for a team in Boston, Philadelphia or just another New York borough to comfortably check this important box.

4. Judge has the kind of athleticism you bet on.

No one really knows how someone this big will age within the context of baseball, because there has never been an elite player as big as Judge. As he loses speed with the bat, will his long arms translate into a catastrophic decline in his ability to reach straight? When (if) the electronic strike zone comes into effect, will it make him more vulnerable at the top of the strike zone, or perhaps help him, protecting him from umpire errors, especially in the bottom half of the zone?

But what you hear more and more from front office guys is this: bet on athletic ability. You’re more comfortable betting on players with a wider range of physical skills. Judge can hit a ball 500 feet, but he can also run, catch and throw. He owns the strike zone and has shown he can make adjustments with his swing that other players can’t. “That’s how I would sell him,” said an agent who does not represent Judge. “You have a player who possesses a variety of physical talents that should make teams comfortable with a long-term investment.”

5. The Mets would own New York.

For some reason, the teams have basically taken turns as the dominant baseball power in the city. The Yankees owned the 1970s and 1990s, sandwiched around the Mets’ rise in the 1980s. And perhaps because of that, the two teams never really pursued the same superstars at the same time. The Yankees weren’t really involved in the Mike Piazza trade talks because they had Jorge Posada; under Wilpon’s ownership, the Mets often ended up a polite second place for the stars the Yankees pursued.

This is a rare case where the Mets could go head to head with the Yankees and take away their best player, the biggest star in the game. They have the financial power to do it, and Cohen has the kind of will to win to make it happen.

And if it were to happen, if the Mets were to succeed in taking Judge from the Yankees, Cohen would have initiated the most seismic event in New York sports history.