It’s an absolutely brutal time to be a Mets fan right now. Despite boasting MLB’s largest payroll by a large margin, the Mets have regressed considerably in 2023 and haven’t won a series in the month of June. They’re bad — so bad.
Right now, there’s not much that can turn around the Mets’ luck. But really, all they had to do was listen to The Draftnik on Twitter 11 years ago. He saw the future.
With Angels two-way star Shohei Ohtani coming off an unbelievable night where he hit two home runs and struck out 10 on the mound, fans took notice to a random 11-year-old tweet from a Mets fan. He tweeted at then-Mets GM Sandy Alderson, telling him to sign an 18-year-old named Shohei Ohtani before another team had the chance.
@MetsGM Hey Sandy. YOU HAVE TO SIGN THIS GUY! Shohei Otani is an 18 y/o in Japan who throws 100 MPH. Get him before another team does. #Mets
— The Draftnik (@draftniks) August 5, 2012
Just an amazing tweet.
At that point, Ohtani hadn’t even made his NPB debut in Japan, but The Draftnik apparently knows a special talent when he sees it.
To be fair to the Mets, they wouldn’t have been able to sign Ohtani in 2012 even if they wanted to. Japan has its own set of posting rules when it comes to homegrown talent making the move to MLB. And we often don’t see players leave Japan until they’ve played between six and nine seasons in NPB. Ohtani was a rare exception who posted a few seasons early, but he had to take considerably less money upfront to do so. It’s the same system that could delay pitching phenom Roki Sasaki’s arrival to MLB.
By 2017, Ohtani was a widely known phenom, and the Mets weren’t among his top 7 finalists.
I was 14 when I tweeted this too 😳 https://t.co/DVnyR2Lkzg
— The Draftnik (@draftniks) June 28, 2023
Still, fans were impressed with that tweet and deservedly so. The Mets should have listened and taken an early start on the Shohei sweepstakes.