Justin Verlander’s Injury A Reminder The New York Mets Aren’t Yet A Superteam

Steve Cohen would surely like this to be the final season in which the Mets are not a superteam.

But hours before the Mets did what they do better than anyone else — win on Opening Day — Cohen and those running his team received another reminder the construction of a superteam needs something even more vast than billions of dollars: Time.

The Mets’ attempt to take the shortest route to building a superteam took another hit early Thursday afternoon, when Justin Verlander went on the injured list hours before the Mets’ 5-3 win over the Marlins.

(For those of you keeping score at home, the Mets are now 41-21 on Opening Day, which is doubly remarkable considering they lost their first eight openers)

So just like a year ago, the Mets’ dream rotation didn’t make it to Opening Day. Verlander’s injury — called a “low-grade teres strain” by the team — isn’t likely as serious as the scapula injury that cost Jacob deGrom the first four-plus months of the 2022 season. Verlander is expected to continue throwing for the next week before he is rescanned.

Still, it was another reminder that while Cohen’s willingness to spend many millions of dollars on free agent players is a refreshing departure from the Wilpon-era norm, the splashy signings alone won’t achieve his goal of turning the Mets into the east coast version of the Dodgers.

It’s easy to forget the Dodgers’ current regular season dynasty (nobody said it was fair to judge teams on how they fare in the sprint of the postseason, but here we are) didn’t begin as soon as the franchise was freed from Frank McCourt’s disastrous grip.

From 2012-16 — the first five seasons under the Guggenheim ownership — the Dodgers averaged 91 wins and won the first four of their eight straight NL West crowns. But the Dodgers began the true construction of their power team by drafting or signing future stars Corey Seager, Walker Buehler, Will Smith, Gavin Lux, Cody Bellinger, Alex Verdugo, Dustin May, Tony Gonsolin and Julio Urias.

Those 10 players have combined to register 95.0 in WAR for the Dodgers since 2017, a span in which the Dodgers has gone 562-309 while winning three pennants and one World Series.

The pipeline has both been used to further fortify the big league team — Verdugo was one of the prospects traded to the Red Sox in the are-you-sure-you-really-want-to-do-this-Boston deal that sent Mookie Betts west — and replenish it. Seager exited as a free agent following the 2021 season and was replaced by Trea Turner, who was acquired along with Max Scherzer from the nationals for a quartet of prospects in July 2021. Turner departed for the Phillies over the winter and was slated to be replaced by Lux before he suffered a season-ending torn ACL in March.