It’s been a steep learning curve for Mets owner Steve Cohen, just as it is for most successful businessmen who buy professional sports franchises.
Since purchasing the team from Fred Wilpon in late 2020, Cohen has tried to buy his way to a World Series title, spending $1.57 billion on players, as accounted for by Major League Baseball‘s luxury-tax system. That’s on top of the $2.4 billion he paid for the franchise.
What does he have to show for it? Mostly a bunch of early postseason exits, and a team this year spending the final days of the season trying to make the playoffs after frittering away a big lead to the Philadelphia Phillies.
Even after a furious comeback to win 9-7 in Chicago last night, they’re 11 games behind the NL East-winning Phillies and only a game up on the Cincinnati Reds and Arizona Diamondbacks for the final NL Wild Card spot. Both the Reds and Diamondbacks own the head-to-head tie breakers over the Mets.
Last season, the Mets lost in six games to the eventual World Series-winning Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Championship Series. And they had to survive a three-way tiebreaker on the last day of the regular season to clinch an NL Wild Card spot to get that far.
That’s not a huge return on investment, particularly this season.
“This [year] has been a grind for this entire group,” David Stearns, the club’s president of baseball operations, said last week at a press conference in New York.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way, but the second half of this season has echoes of the Mets’ “worst team money could buy” squad of 1992. On June 12, the Mets had the best record in MLB at 45-24 with a 5.5 game lead over the Phillies. It has been all downhill ever since.
“When you’re sitting where we were in mid-June, we would not have expected to be in this spot, no question about it,” Stearns said, stating the obvious. “We’ll have time to evaluate and diagnose and do all of that stuff [after it’s all over].”
To be sure, the Mets could recapture come of last year’s magic and still make the playoffs. But that was the antithesis of this season when they went 19-9 from Aug. 28, 2024, on to barely clinch a Wild Card spot. This year, they are 7-12 in September, losing eight in a row at one point and haven’t shown much of a pulse.
Put it all in the pot.
Cohen’s record of sustaining his managers and baseball ops leaders is a lot like firing hedge fund personnel who do not perform. No matter what it costs him, he could bring in a whole new crew.
He’s had four heads of baseball ops and three on-field managers in the five seasons he’s owned the team, which may indicate trouble for Stearns and manager Carlos Mendoza. Billy Eppler lasted three seasons as general manager. The veteran Buck Showalter was fired after the Mets hosted and lost a three-game Wild Card Series to the San Diego Padres in 2022 and failed to make the playoffs in 2023.
Mendoza, who’s overseen a club playing 35-52 ball since its June apex, has to be on very thin ice. Stearns built a team that has hit the fifth-most homers in the league at 215 but has a 17th-ranked pitching staff with a 3.99 ERA. He, too, has to be accountable.
Milwaukee, which spent about $200 million less than the Mets second-ranked payroll of $340.6 million, has a pitching staff with the second-best ERA in baseball at 3.61. The Brewers have won 15 more games than the Mets and have the best record in MLB.
Cohen has certainly thrown money at it. Under his watch, the Mets’ payroll has ranked fourth, first, first, second and second. Last offseason he outbid the New York Yankees, signing Juan Soto to a 15-year, $765 million contract that will take him through 2040 when he’s 40 years old.
After a slow start adjusting to a new team, Soto has had another MVP-caliber season with 42 homers, 104 RBIs, a .931 OPS, a 163 OPS+ and a WAR of 6.3, the last number in the Shohei Ohtani range. He swiped his 36th bag on Tuesday night—an improbable feat for a not-so-fleet-footed player.
But when the Mets broke spring training at Port St. Lucie, Fla., this past March, their five projected starters—Clay Holmes, Tylor Megill, David Peterson, Griffin Canning and Kodai Senga—were earning a combined $38.7 million this season. That’s $12.3 million less than the $51 million paid to Soto alone.
That worked fine into June until pitchers started to go down, but now only Holmes and Peterson are still healthy. The Mets are using young starters Nolan McLean and Jonah Tong to carry them down the stretch.
The Mets didn’t retool their rotation in the offseason after losing Luis Severino and Jose Quintana from last year’s team. They added free agent Holmes, the Yankees closer, and converted him to a starter. Sean Manaea opened the season on the injured list because of a right oblique strain sustained in camp and didn’t return until July 13. He failed to replicate last year’s 12-win season and has won only two games.
Even with that predicament, the Mets didn’t add any starting pitching at the July 31 trade deadline. They did add to the bullpen, acquiring relievers Ryan Helsely, Taylor Rogers and Gregory Soto. But that hasn’t staunched a meltdown of late and 27 blown saves. Helsley, the former St. Louis Cardinals All-Star closer, has been awful with an 8.47 ERA in 20 appearances. Should Stearns have been even more proactive?
“If I knew how our season was going to play out? Absolutely,” Stearns said.
Those are the decisions Stearns is paid to make. As Cohen continues to navigate his own learning curve, you can bet the owner is evaluating.
Watch this space.
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