Adding Kodai Senga just business as usual for Mets owner Steve Cohen
Japan starter Kodai Senga pitches against Israel during the first inning of a second-round game at the World Baseball Classic in Tokyo on March 15, 2017. Credit: AP/Shizuo Kambayashi
Signing a Japanese star can be a gamble for MLB teams regardless of the resume, and the higher the profile, the greater the risk.
That is why the Mets, under fearless, deep-pocketed owner Steve Cohen, should be perfectly suited to thrive in this particular marketplace, as Saturday’s late-night agreement with Kodai Senga on a five-year, $75 million deal would suggest.
Cohen, who made his $17 billion fortune in the hedge-fund industry, is comfortable taking a chance for the promise of a big payoff. Just as important, he has the financial resources to cover for any of his dice rolls, whether it’s Senga making the transition from the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks or giving $86 million to soon-to-be 40-year-old Justin Verlander.
Senga, who will turn 30 next month, appears to be a solid bet. He had a 2.69 ERA with a 1.12 WHIP and 10.3 strikeouts per nine innings during the past 11 seasons with the Hawks, relying on a lethal fastball-splitter mix.
Like all pitchers coming over from Japan, the two biggest caveats for Senga are the increased workload and an unfamiliar baseball. Both usually require an adjustment process. Starters pitch only once a week in Japan rather than every fifth day here, and MLB baseballs tend to be more difficult to grip than the tackier NPB version.
The timing of Senga’s free agency, however, could not have been better for the Mets, whose urgency to restock the rotation was exacerbated by Jacob deGrom’s jump to the Rangers a week ago on a five-year, $185 million deal. Whatever the initial shock was from losing the homegrown deGrom, a two-time Cy Young Award winner, Cohen’s subsequent blizzard of cash made people forget his defection to the Rangers in short order.
Over the next 72 hours, the Mets locked up Verlander as deGrom’s replacement, then signed Jose Quintana (two years, $26 million) two days later to help patch the departure of Taijuan Walker to the Phillies in free agency.
By that point, the Mets didn’t necessarily need another front-line starter, especially after Cohen had laid out $386 million on five players this offseason.
But we’ve learned by now that Cohen isn’t taking a conventional approach to retooling the Mets this winter. He’s not satisfied merely checking boxes on the team’s shopping list, and at this time of year, Cohen is behaving like a Santa-crazed kid let loose at FAO Schwarz with his dad’s platinum card.
The Mets’ owner is granting the holiday wishes of his fan base to a magnitude we’ve never witnessed before with this franchise. Not to this degree, anyway.
There were Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran during the 2004 winter. A year later, Billy Wagner and Carlos Delgado were acquired only days apart. But Cohen is spending at a rate that is rattling the sports world — not just baseball — in ringing up a record luxury-tax bill for his free-agent purchases.
Simply put, Cohen has made things like payroll flexibility and Competitive Balance Tax thresholds irrelevant in Flushing. They’re obsolete concepts to these Mets, who have plowed through this offseason without any concerns for price tags or antiquated notions like budgets. Those are for other teams to worry about.
Think of it this way In the absence of a hard salary cap for baseball, the CBT was designed to be an artificial brake on payrolls, the only compromise the owners and players’ union could agree on. Its four-tiered ladder, spiked with increasing penalties, provided excuses that owners could cite to curb spending.
This year, the top tier of that ladder is $293 million, the rarefied air known as the “Steve Cohen Tax.” It was given that nickname because it was supposed to act as a deterrent for the sport’s richest owner. To keep him in check, as it were.
So how’s that working out? Cohen has blown past the top threshold as if he didn’t even know it existed.
After Senga’s addition, the Mets’ payroll stands at approximately $350 million for CBT purposes, a whopping sum that would carry a luxury tax of roughly $80 million. Cohen’s tax bill alone is more than the projected payrolls of six teams — the A’s, Pirates, Orioles, Reds, Rays and Royals.
Counting Edwin Diaz’s $102 million deal and Carlos Carrasco’s $14 million option, Cohen has spent $475 million this offseason and invested nearly $430 million (including luxury tax) in the 2023 Mets, a total that surpasses those bottom six payrolls combined.
The Mets’ payroll has climbed so far so fast that we’ve barely had time to process what’s been going on. Cohen has brought back two key pieces to last year’s team in Diaz and Brandon Nimmo, swapped out Verlander for deGrom, and enlisted Senga and Quintana to replace Chris Bassitt and Walker at lower AAVs for 2023.
But Cohen isn’t finished yet. The Mets still need more bullpen renovation and could use another bat as well. With their farm system mostly devoid of major league-ready talent, Senga becomes the latest example of Cohen using cash to make up the difference.
Good thing he’s got a seemingly endless supply.
Kodai Senga will join a group of 10 previous Mets pitchers from Japan who collectively attained middling success (listed in alphabetical order):
Pitcher Mets Year(s) W-L ERA
Ryota Igarashi 2010-11 5-2 5.74
Kaz Ishii 2005 3-9 5.14
Takashi Kashiwada 1997 3-1 4.31
Satoru Komiyama 2002 0-3 5.61
Daisuke Matsuzaka 2013-14 6-6 4.06
Hideo Nomo 1998 4-5 4.82
Hisanori Takahashi 2010 10-6 3.61
Ken Takahashi 2009 0-1 2.96
Shingo Takatsu 2005 1-0 2.35
Masato Yoshii 1998-99 18-16 4.17
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
