For Mets fans who thought the negotiations to retain closer Edward Diaz were going to be simple and uncomplicated, it’s time to add a new term to your baseball vocabulary:

"Diaz money." 

If that phrase sounds ominous, that’s because it might be. The last time Diaz reached free agency after the 2022 season, he reset the market with the New York Mets by signing a five year, $102 million contract, which was the largest ever for a reliever at the time. 

Now he wants the same deal. Which isn’t unreasonable, other than the number of years he’s after. Diaz is also making this demand, assuming the rumored numbers are credible, in a market that’s full of late-inning options, so there is some risk on his part. 

The other shoe that needs to drop in this negotiation is how owner Steve Cohen feels about this. Cohen certainly wasn’t thrilled about the prospect of paying “Alonso money” for first baseman Pete Alonso last year, but he and his wife Alex are said to be huge fans of Diaz. 

Most of the recommendations have Cohen paying Diaz whatever he wants, but GM David Stearns is more about fiscal discipline, at least if you believe Ken Rosenthal and Will Sammon of The Athletic. That probably doesn’t matter in this instance given that Cohen tends to spend and loves to chase stars, but it should at least be mentioned. 

The other late inning options mentioned by Rosenthal and Sammon include Devin Williams, Robert Suarez, Ryan Helsley, and Luke Weaver, among others. None of them have the street cred of Diaz when it comes to pitching in New York, which Diaz has said is something he enjoys. 

There is another option here, at least in theory—more money for fewer years. That would put Diaz somewhere in the neighborhood of $75 million for a three-year deal, which is an ominous number for a closer, but it would allow the Mets to avoid the falloff that’s inevitable in the back end of this deal. 

Whatever decision the Mets end up making, the priority should be to do it quickly and avoid any kind of rancor or ill will in the negotiations. The Mets probably created at least a nominal amount of that with Alonso last year, but the last thing they need is a cranky, aging closer who thinks his team did him wrong in the process of paying up.