New York Mets latest drama is bungling their only chance to sign Juan Soto

The plan for the New York Mets has been quite clear ever since they sold a plethora of their veterans at the 2023 trade deadline. The plan has been for 2024 to be more of a transition year for the Mets and go all-in for 2025 and beyond. They wanted to see what they had internally and go from there. Things haven't exactly gone to plan thus far.

The Mets did scale back this past offseason outside of their failed Yoshinobu Yamamoto pursuit but have not done much winning at all. In fact, their 22 wins are the fourth-fewest in all of baseball. Things only seem to be getting worse as injuries have struck and Jorge Lopez got himself DFA'd after an eventful day on Wednesday.

The Mets might be a laughing stock for now, but at least they have Steve Cohen and David Stearns running things, right? Well, that might be true, but the drama continuing to pile up could wind up costing them in the offseason with the best free agent available, Juan Soto.

Latest drama can only lower Mets chances of signing Juan Soto

On paper, the Mets have as good of a chance as any team out there to sign Soto. Sure, the New York Yankees might have a bit of a leg up since Soto has enjoyed success in the Bronx, but the Mets have Steve Cohen's wallet. The Yankees do not. The Mets could offer Soto the most money, and with Soto being a Scott Boras client, that might've been all it took to get him to stay in New York but join a different team.

Turns out, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic says that this continued drama could wind up costing the Mets in the Soto sweepstakes.

As Rosenthal so eloquently put it, Juan Soto is no dummy. He sees what's going on in Queens, and there's little reason to believe he'd want to go there. Not only is the team subpar at best, but they continue to find themselves in the middle of the spotlight for all of the wrong reasons. There really is no reason Soto would even consider the Mets other than the money.

Soto is proving to be very comfortable in the Bronx and is playing for a team very capable of winning the World Series. There has been no drama, and the Yankees have been winning even with arguably their best player, Gerrit Cole, being injured all year.

The Mets would almost certainly have to be the highest bidder just to have a chance at Soto and with the drama continuing to mount, they might have to outbid a team like the Yankees by a substantial amount. As Rosenthal says, Soto might just ask them to get somewhere close to the Mets offer. Maybe the Mets blow everyone out of the water and they get the player, but that might be what it takes now that they give the player no reason to consider them otherwise.