When Steve Cohen took over the Mets in November of 2020 and spoke at length about how he wants to play in the upper market of free agents, Mets fans became filled with illusions of grandeur about the lengths Cohen might go to sign big free agents. After years of dealing with the illiquidity of the Wilpon family, the Mets were suddenly owned by one of the richest people on Earth. The multimillions needed to sign the game’s top free agents amounted to nothing more than child’s play for a man in the Forbes Top 100.
However, it didn’t necessarily materialize as such right away when it came to free agents.