The Mets’ “cynical ploy”

On Wednesday, I waxed cynical on the Mets’ reported interest in big fish like Jason Bay:

Here’s a theory of my own: if the Mets are suddenly thinking bigger, it’s because the Yankees have been going hog wild (relatively speaking) this week, and they don’t want to get blown the hell off the back pages of the tabloids.

Today The Post’s Joel Sherman echoes the sentiment:

Ticket sales are lagging and fans are screaming for the Mets to make a meaningful acquisition. And, poof, they suddenly were acknowledging making an offer yesterday to Jason Bay.

So was this merely a ploy to change the subject or was this a clear change of course this offseason?

I mostly went with my gut In coming to that conclusion. Sherman’s evidence: the fact that the “offer” the Mets reportedly made to Jason Bay was surprisingly similar to one that everyone knows he rejected from the Red Sox, with the thinking being that it was offered precisely because they knew he’d reject it. Sherman goes on to call it a “cynical ploy.” I think Sherman has a good point.

The Yankees have a plan. The Red Sox have a plan. Lots of other teams have a plan. The Mets seem to lurch from idea to idea with no coherent strategy in place. Sure-loser offers to players in whom they had not previously shown an interest is evidence of that. To date, I’ve seen no evidence to the contrary.