NEW YORK — George Steinbrenner, he is not.
The first year of the Steve Cohen era was a wild ride, but the wildest part might have been an owner of a professional sports franchise taking to Twitter to express his displeasure as often as he did. Fans took this to mean he was going to run the Mets like the late Steinbrenner ran the Yankees, with deep pockets and little tolerance for losing. But Cohen isn’t The Boss and he’s not a ham-handed Wilpon either. He confirmed that Wednesday by publicly backing manager Buck Showalter and general manager Billy Eppler in his first press conference since opening day.
“I’m a patient guy,” Cohen said Wednesday at Citi Field. “Now, everybody wants a headline. Everybody says, ‘Fire this person or that person,’ but I don’t see that as a way to operate. If you want to attract good people to this organization, the worst thing you can do is be hostile.”
Eppler publicly pledged his support to Showalter and the rest of the coaching staff one day prior and Cohen only reaffirmed his commitment to Eppler and his staff. With the Mets in the midst of a historically expensive losing campaign, the team believes they need to stay the course because shaking things up right now might hamper their long-term goals of turning the club into a juggernaut.
However, that doesn’t mean that changes won’t be made by the Aug. 1 trade deadline. The Mets are on notice.
“In this position? I’m not adding,” Cohen said. “I think that would be pretty silly.”
The Mets are nearly halfway through the 2023 season and entered Wednesday sitting fourth in the NL East, 16.5 games game behind the Atlanta Braves and 8.5 games back from the final NL wild-card spot. The odds are not good: FanGraphs gives the Mets a 0.1% chance of winning the division and a 1.1% chance of winning the World Series. Their chances of making the playoffs are only 13.3%.
The owner and CEO is far from satisfied with these numbers, especially considering the Mets are spending over $400 million (including luxury tax) on payroll alone this season.
“It’s been incredibly frustrating,” Cohen said. “I watch every game. I see what’s going on. And if you asked me if I had expected us to be in this position at the beginning of the season, the answer is no. But here we are.”
Cohen is losing “more than a bread basket” of money this season, which he said isn’t “scaleable” long-term, but he’s content to keep spending if it gives the Mets a chance to win and made it clear that he can. Building through free agency isn’t always a sustainable way to build, but Cohen doesn’t see another way at the moment. The Mets have long been behind the curve when it comes to development, thanks, in large part, to the Wilpons’ reticence to spend money and invest in the club’s future.
The in-house talent deficiency has been especially glaring on the pitching side. Three homegrown arms have started for the Mets this season (right-handers Tylor Megill and Jose Butto, and left-hander David Peterson) and all three have had to spend time in Triple-A. The Mets haven’t developed a front-line starter since Steven Matz in 2015.
Cohen has invested money into player development and pitching development, but undoing decades of Wilpon management takes time.
“We haven’t developed any pitching, which is actually pretty shocking,” Cohen said. “I mean, we’re certainly capable of doing it. We may not have had the right infrastructure in place [in the past]. We just opened up our pitching lab. Well, guess what? Other teams had pitching labs six, seven, eight years ago. So we’re behind. The goal is to provide all the services and all the infrastructure that makes us competitive with those other things.
“Then, it’s on us to take those tools and use them.”
The born-and-raised Mets fan doesn’t want to embark on a rebuild or a retool. Those are tough sells for teams like the Mets but an even tougher sell in New York. However, he acknowledged that one could be inevitable if things don’t change quickly for the Mets. The Mets lean heavily on veteran players on the wrong side of 30 and have financial commitments to at least four players who will be 35 or older next season. It could be six if they pick up the club options on Mark Canha and Brooks Raley. Cohen indicated that some of those veterans may not be back next season if the club fails to reach the postseason.
The commitment to winning remains. But the five-year championship timeline? He seems a little more realistic about that.
Cohen is figuring out the hard way that while money might make a team competitive, it doesn’t always guarantee a World Series.
“Winning a World Series is really hard. I mean, 29 teams lose one team wins,” Cohen said. “But the goal is to put yourself in position for good things to happen.”
