Mets owner Steve Cohen blasts Steven Matz for signing with Cardinals

New York Mets owner Steve Cohen blasted the agent for newest St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Steven Matz.

Meet the Mess, er, I mean the Mets.

Late Tuesday night, the St. Louis Cardinals agreed to a four-year, $44 million deal with free-agent left-hander Steven Matz. They were one of eight teams in on him, with the New York Mets being another suitor strongly in the mix.

Hoo boy, Mets owner Steve Cohen is livid that his team didn’t sign Matz. In a tweet, Cohen said: “I’m not happy this morning. I’ve never seen such unprofessional behavior exhibited by a player’s agent. I guess words and promises don’t matter.”

It was later reported by Jon Heyman of MLB Network that Matz promised the Mets a chance to match any offer. They were under the impression that Matz wanted to return to New York. In the end, however, Matz had a change of heart and didn’t give the Mets a chance to match the Cardinals’ offer, with president of baseball operations John Mozeliak’s recruitment being what sold Matz on spending the next four seasons in St. Louis.

The Mets desperately need starting pitching. They were willing to match the four-year, $44 million deal he agreed to with the Cardinals. But with Matz spurning the Mets, and going to St. Louis, it adds to the pressure on newest general manager Billy Eppler — and also creates additional dysfunction around a Mets team that seemingly is incapable of getting out of its own way.

It’s unclear just what Mozeliak and the front office said to Matz to convince him so strongly to come to St. Louis, but the chance to throw to Yadier Molina every fifth day surely helped. Add in the Cardinals’ elite infield defense, which plays perfectly with Matz’s ground ball tendencies, and that’s a pretty strong sales pitch.

It was enough for Matz to not give the Mets a chance to match the Cardinals’ offer. And Cohen’s tweet is surely going to convince Matz that he made the right decision, signing with a veteran, winning team instead of returning to a place that is constantly surrounded by dysfunction.