Former All-Star rips Mets for fire sale ahead of trade deadline

Retired two-time All-Star Todd Frazier is the latest noteworthy member of the MLB community who has criticized New York Mets owner Steve Cohen for signing off on a pre-trade deadline fire sale when making the playoffs was still within reach. 

As mentioned by Kevin Manahan of NJ Advance Media for NJ.com, Frazier explained during a recent appearance on the "Amazin’ But True" podcast why he feels the Mets "might have" punted on this season too soon by landing prospects for big names such as co-aces Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer.

"With a guy like Verlander, a guy like Scherzer, I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to keep those guys for as long as possible," Frazier said. "I know people are going to say, 'Oh, they were struggling a little bit,' but I don’t care. They’re going to find a way to come back. They’re veteran guys." 

Frazier, who featured for the Mets during the 2018, 2019 and 2020 seasons, echoed comments offered by club legend Ed Kranepool. Kranepool noted last week he thought the Mets gave up on the current campaign "a little soon," and both he and Frazier may be right considering all that's occurred since the morning of Aug. 13. 

Heading into Tuesday's matchup at the Atlanta Braves, the Mets have won seven of their last nine contests. 59-67 New York began the day sitting six-and-a-half games back in the battle for a wild-card playoff spot, but FanGraphs gave the Mets just a 2.4% chance of qualifying for the postseason tournament at that time. 

After he was traded to the Texas Rangers, Scherzer revealed he heard from Mets general manager Billy Eppler that the club would use 2024 as "a kind of transitory year" with 2025 and/or 2026 in mind. 

Multiple industry experts have since said they expect Cohen to once again be active in free agency this offseason, and Frazier, who currently works as an analyst for the YES Network, shares that opinion. 

"I still think once free agency starts, all of a sudden Steve’s going to get excited again, and they’re going to start doing some crazy stuff," Frazier said. 

It's now assumed that significant clubhouse issues that remain unknown to outsiders impacted the Mets throughout the year and resulted in Cohen agreeing to blow things up well ahead of schedule.

If Cohen's stripped-down squad stays hot into the early days of September, he ultimately may regret building for the future instead of keeping baseball's most expensive roster intact through game No. 162 of the regular season.