Scott Boras happy with what's on Mets' plate with Steve Cohen

Baseball’s biggest agent is very much among those happy that baseball’s richest owner runs the Mets now.

Scott Boras hasn’t had reason yet to engage Steve Cohen or his front office in major contract discussions. But during his annual December address — which usually comes at the winter meetings, which on Tuesday took the form of a video meeting — his Mets comments featured a marked change in tone from his usual one.

"It’s nice," Boras said, "to have an ownership with big apples."

For years, Boras has chimed in on the Mets and other baseball topics with food- and supermarket-related metaphors. He used "big apples" as a shameless segue from a Michael Conforto question to a pun-filled analysis of the Mets’ offseason.

* Regarding reliever Trevor May, who signed a two-year deal to bolster a bullpen that has been a weakness for years: "In the bullpen, they’ve answered the Mayday call rather appropriately."

* Regarding catcher James McCann, whose four-year contract became official Tuesday: "In the area of catching, they didn’t let anybody else eat their lunch. They went out and got a Big Mac."

* Regarding general manager Jared Porter: "You might argue that in the general manager category that they didn’t go out and get the Hamburglar. They got themselves a porterhouse."

One year, the Mets were shopping for "fruits and nuts," Boras said. Another year, they were in "the frozen section."

But now that Cohen is pushing the carriage?

"I think Mets are now kind of shopping in that organic produce aisle," Boras said. "I think this apple’s not going to have any worms in it. So Michael’s pretty excited about what’s going to happen to the New York Mets."

Michael is Conforto, a Boras client and the Mets’ homegrown star rightfielder who is scheduled to become a free agent after the 2021 season. In the shortened 2020 season, Conforto was as good as ever, hitting .322 with a .412 OBP and .515 slugging percentage. His track record is the kind that earns nine-figure contracts on the open market.

Boras indicated that neither party had broached the topic of a potential extension for Conforto, but he put the onus on the Mets’ hierarchy. Typically, those sorts of discussions come up starting in January, after the meat — if you will — of the offseason is over.

"Normally when you have a player who is in arbitration, you kind of prepare for the obvious negotiation," Boras said. "If there’s anything that Sandy [Alderson] or Jared [Porter] want to do, they kind of let us know later in the process. That’s something I have to leave to them."

Whenever asked, Conforto says he is open to a long-term deal with the Mets. In the meantime, Boras said, Conforto is most interested in how the Mets fare, which is a newly interesting question after Cohen took over last month and purged the front office.

It helps, of course, that Cohen has an estimated net worth of $14 billion.

"Michael is, like a lot of Met players, very encouraged," Boras said. "Michael’s concern is really about the performance of the team and how well they’re doing and what their chances are of winning."