Steve Cohen conducted a press conference this afternoon, as promised. The Mets’ owner addressed the struggling franchise, which goes into play tonight carrying a 36-43 record that has them 8 1/2 back of the National League’s final playoff spot.
Cohen predictably expressed frustration with the team’s performance. However, he stressed he had no plans to remove general manager Billy Eppler or skipper Buck Showalter midseason (link via Andy McCullough of the Athletic).
“If you want to attract good people to this organization, the worst thing you can do is be impulsive, and win the headline for the day. You’re not going to attract the best talent. You’re not going to want to work with somebody who has a short fuse,” Cohen told reporters. “I know fans want something to happen. I get it. But sometimes you can’t do it, because you have long-term objectives.”
While there’s no sweeping leadership change in the near future, Cohen hinted at a noteworthy front office move further down the line. He indicated the club planned to hire a president of baseball operations at some point, though he declined to put a timetable on that process. The Mets have been without a team president since Sandy Alderson moved to an advisory capacity last offseason.
Initial expectations were that Alderson’s replacement would be focused on the business side while Eppler retained baseball operations autonomy. Cohen’s comments this afternoon suggest he’s likely to bring in a new baseball operations leader, pushing Eppler into the #2 role in the front office. Andy Martino of SNY writes that the Mets still also intend to hire a business-oriented team president. The president of baseball ops/GM hierarchy is relatively common around the game, though it’s rarer for a club to hire a president to take over the front office while retaining the same GM who previously led baseball operations. Martino suggests Eppler would be involved in the hiring process for the baseball operations president.
“My view is this is a very complex job and there’s a lot to do, and it’s a lot on one person,” Cohen said of the front office structure (relayed by Anthony DiComo of MLB.com). “That’s still out there. We’ll see. At some point, we will fill that position.” How that might affect Eppler’s future with the organization is undetermined. No new hire seems imminent, so the second-year GM will continue running the front office for the near future at least.
If that hiring process runs into next offseason, it’s sure to invite plenty of speculation about David Stearns’ future. The Mets reportedly showed interest in Stearns over the 2021-22 offseason prior to hiring Eppler. He was still serving as Brewers’ president of baseball operations at that time, though, and Milwaukee owner Mark Attanasio declined to grant the Mets permission for an interview.
Stearns remained Milwaukee’s front office leader through the end of last season. At that point, he stepped into an advisory role and ceded day-to-day autonomy to GM Matt Arnold. At the time, the 38-year-old spoke of a desire to “to (take) a deep breath, (spend) time with my family and (explore) some other interests” with fewer baseball operations responsibilities. He remains under contract with Milwaukee through the end of the 2023 season, so other teams would have to wait until the upcoming offseason to gauge his interest in new opportunities.
Whether the Manhattan native has any interest in jumping back to the top of a front office isn’t clear. For now, ties between the Mets and Stearns are simply speculative. Abbey Mastracco of the New York Daily News wrote again last week that some within the industry expect the Mets to renew their pursuit of Stearns next winter.
While the front office structure will be a pivotal decision for Cohen in the long term, the more immediate focus is on navigating the trade deadline. With a little over a month before August 1, he declined to commit to the club’s direction. However, Cohen did imply the team would have to cut into their deficit over the next four weeks for the front office to consider short-term help.
“If I’m in this position, I’m not adding,” Cohen said (via McCullough). “I think that would be pretty silly.” He didn’t sound anxious to tear the roster down, either, saying the team “would probably do very little” if they’re out of contention. David Robertson, Tommy Pham and Carlos Carrasco are the club’s notable impending free agents. Max Scherzer, Omar Narváez and Adam Ottavino all have opt-out clauses at year’s end. The team has options on Mark Canha and Brooks Raley, while Pete Alonso is arbitration-eligible for one more season.
Lolmets
Little – Bloom would make an excellent POBO for the Mets.
Come on Steve, ask John Henry for permission!
The funny thing is Henry would say no.
You’re a tool
But you’re a towel.
Best answer of the day.
Anyone with above average intelligence would be excellent for the Mets. Giving Lindor premium free agent $ while not a free agent? Who was going to out bid them if he got to free agency. 43 million a year AND multiple years for old pitchers? Trading your future 7th 8th inning guy for a fat platoon dh? Trading Davis and 3 prospects to complete the platoon? All they have to do is get on here and run their decisions by me for free and they will be a 100 game winner every year.
He just needs to spend more money on payroll.
All they have to do is get on here and run their decisions by me for free and they will be a 100 game winner every year.
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It’s an interesting wager. Given $380M, and a massive FO, I’m guessing a lot of us could put together a pretty good team.
I believe in you, GM! Lol
Everyone was screaming, ” Don’t hire Eppler! He’s horrible!” They were right.
@NYMetsFanatic Thing is, Eppler’s not actually the Mets GM. Not when by his own admission he had to go to Cohen to cut Ruf and Ruf’s $3.25m salary, never mind all the other occasions when it was clear Cohen was taking the lead in acquisitions and negotiations.
Speaking of which, what’s up with Mets coaching? They cut Ruf, Ruf returns to the Giants, and turns into an MLB average hitter. They trade a badly faltering JDD for Ruf, Davis immediately goes on a tear, and the Giants get a cleanup hitter (and make Davis an actually respectable fielder for the first time in his career).
Or take the Mets prospects. The longer Baty’s on the MLB squad, the worse he hits. Same with Alvarez. Vientos comes up and he immediately stops hitting. Something’s up!
In fact, Eppler had a surprising number of defenders, blaming his woes on Angels’ ownership, on sun blindness, on x and y and q. It was… weird.
Not much of an outlook.
Great comment Lil Stevie. Now go play outside with your whiffle ball.
That is something they may do, and would make sense.
Preller and Buck are walking corpses.
@vtadave Preller is an excellent GM. I’d take him over Eppler any day of the week. He gets the guy that you want to come see at a baseball game. Soto, Hader, Musgrove, etc. I understand they are underperforming but you can’t put the blame on him. My only gripe with him is his Machado extention and I think he overpaid for Bogaerts by about 100 million dollars
100 million!?! Hahaha! You might be right! Funny stuff right there.
@LFG Mets. Couldn’t agree more. In the early 2K’s I was living in San Diego. If the Giants came to town I could go down and get pretty solid lower reserve seats for two with no notice on a Friday afternoon at the stadium for a little over 20 bucks. And most the fans would be wearing orange and black. Now I get there’s inflation ect, but I went to a game against the Rockies earlier this year on a Saturday afternoon, a little over $60 got me seats in the nose bleeds (if any seat in that stadium can be called that). The place was sold out and the fans were all wearing Padres Jersey’s and enthusiastic as any night I’ve seen at Oracle, excepting of course the World Series game I went to against the Tigers.
But wouldn’t A.J. sell more tickets for the owners if he put together a team, instead of a collection of expensive allstars?
Just curious, how could the Padres sell out more than sold out? They are averaging about 40k a game. Mid-week day games have 32-35k in attendance.
They both stink. Eppler should’ve be anywhere near decision making and Preller maxed out Seilder’s credit card for a 4th place team
Padres still have time to turn it around. Mets just look completely dead.
The Mets are 17 GB of the Braves. 17!
Catch 22
More disturbing than that is that they’re 8.5 out of the Wild Card with too many teams ahead of them.
I understand they are underperforming but you can’t put the blame on him.
===========================
Then who would you blame? Same as the NYM. For that type of money, there needs to be a problem to identify, which in turn leads to someone to blame.
Eppler should get rid of all of the players who weren’t on last year’s team and use them to trade for the players who were. The chemistry (and pitching) was obviously better last year. Spending $300m this past off-season seems to have taken away any cohesiveness.
Preller did a better job building CLE PIT SEA than his own team and yet is still better than Eppler.
I think Preller has made plenty of questionable decisions, but I doubt the massive free agent contracts are all on him. That kind of stuff generally needs ownership approval.
John Mozeliak is available.
Amen to that. We just happen to live in a weird universe where SD, STL, and NYM all suck simultaneously against all odds.
I wasn’t big on STL at all. Last year they benefitted from a terrible division. Their early playoff exit sort of emphasized that. Mets and Padres though? I’m shocked.
Cohen did sound remarkably like Mozeliak there. I’m more convinced than ever that it’s time for the Cardinals to rebuild. Let’s face it. This slow steady stay the course has been a slow steady 12 year decline. I don’t see that changing without a rebuild.
@CardsFan57 They hardly need a rebuild, compadre—the offense is good, and actually a little younger than the MLB average. They made the mistake of having 3 starters in the rotation they were gambling on: Wainwright, Matz, and Liberatore. Actually, the first 2 weren’t gambles, they were likely to disappoint.
Difficult to foresee the entire bullpen collapsing, too. What they need to do for 2024 is focus on pitching. Assume Liberatore’s growing pains will pass. Assume Matz will stink. Assume Mikolas and Flaherty will be ordinary. Then add two starters if they can afford them who can pitch without embarrassment as your 1-2 in the postseason. Then beef up the pen.
As for the offense, only Goldschmidt and Arenado are actually old, in baseball years, and they aren’t going anywhere. Shouldn’t be hard to find a LFer and a DH who can actually, you know, hit.
Where are the Cardinals getting the 4 good starters they need? They aren’t getting one from what they are willing to trade. They aren’t signing three or four free agents. The bullpen already collapsed. They are in the bottom third of the league in bullpen ERA. The only thing making the bullpen look acceptable is the terrible starting pitching.
The best way to improve the pitching would be to find a pitching coach instead of calling an analytics guy with zero coaching experience at any level the pitching coach. If the Cardinals follow their current plan, they will be just as bad next year. DeWitt really needs to clean house from the top down and rebuild this tieam. It’s been a management clown show all year long. Who releases a player then signs him back in a few hours? Who throws their biggest free agent signing under the bus weeks into his first season? The defense is bad because too many players have become utility players moving all over the field. That should not be standard every day procedure.
Reasonable, measured response by Cohen. I mean, firing Eppler and Showalter probably won’t make a bit of difference this season, so there’s no point in casting another dark cloud over franchise operations.
October will be here soon enough and they can make whatever changes they need after their 70-win season ends.
But hiring a president of baseball op. is telling Eppler to bug off or shrink in his chair.
@aragorn Maybe so, but did anyone really think that Eppler was anything more than a placeholder? As soon as someone with actual skill was willing to take Cohen’s money to sit at the Mets’ summit, was Cohen really going to announce Eppler was still his man over the likes of Stearns, or the next Tampa Bay or Dodgers FO graduate? Not bloody likely.
I’d make book on this. If you have no problem spending $380M on players, then you should have absolutely no problem spending $10M+ on one of the best GMs in the game.
Way more than that. Much more. How much would Mike Elias be worth? He’s assembled a team and organization that will be better than the Mets for the next 5 years for a payroll that is $400m less annually. As an Os fan, I hate to say it, but Elias would and should command an Ohtani level package $100m annually for multiple years. Yes, he drafted high, but Gunnar, Westburg, Ortiz, Norby, Basallo, Mateo, Cano, etc. were all guys that Stearns, Eppler, the Mets and every other GM could have picked. Heck, Eppler gifted him Bradish, Brnovich and Peak for the carcas of Dylan Bundy. Offer the Os Sherzer, Alonso and Verlander plus 100% of their remaining salaries for permission to talk to Mike Elias.
100 million a year because the Orioles tanked for five years and got premium draft picks? Do you think five years of wild card contention is worth that?
What a phenomenal account name lmao
Like it? He was up all night
“Reasonable, measured”?
More like a preplanned posturing talk.
Look, the first thing Stephen Cohen needs to do is shut up and let his baseball people run that organization and speak with the media….like that has a chance of happening.
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Anyone on here that thinks someone other than Stephen Cohen is running the Mets team is delusional. He’s the one in love with Scherzer and Verlander. He’s the one that got pushed around by Lindor’s agents and agreed to a contract guaranteed to be one of the worst in MLB for at least the last 5 years of it. He’s the one that tried to sign Carlos Correa, only to be bailed out by an imaging test (from the Giants) that he knew about going into negotiations. He’s the one that encourages the overpayment (in both salary and years) of over-the-hill veterans with recent injury histories….that then get injured. He’s the one that showed up in Spring Training eating up the adulation from the NYC media, the national sports media, and Mets fans that treated him as a celerity because he won the offseason (along with the Padres – currently 5 games under .500) because they know so little about the sport of baseball that they think spending money is all a team has to do to win.
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MLB is not the financial markets that can be manipulated with money laid down in the right places. Yes, teams with more money have an advantage over the small market teams. But front offices are smart, and although it’s been forgotten in less than a year – last Fall and early Winter FO people throughout MLB were turning down offers to even interview with the Mets. For the uninitiated this made no sense – the opportunity to run the baseball operation for a large market team with an owner ready to spend big bucks and national publicity every time he/she blows their nose. Think maybe they knew something as they were happy to stay where they were with a lower job title and salary? Based on what happened since then with the Mets, why would anyone reading this article think that when Mr. Cohen outs out the “PoBO Wanted – High Salary, High Budget” sign that this year qualified FO personnel from around MLB will be jockeying one another around trying to be the first to interview?
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The Mets are a disaster….unless you’re a player in the game totally for the money and have agents that are in it for the same reason.
Samuel: Four paragraphs? Really?
avenger65
I stopped reading after the first sentence 🙂
It’s OK to rant, but brevity,man! We all have short attention spans!
Paying attention to Samuel is still a thing?
He’s a Met hater. He hates all big market team as a matter of fact. NYC in particular. He should be happier the Orioles are winning.
@Samuel Well said. People in the industry have hardly forgotten the utter fiasco of Cohen’s first, absurd year owning the Mets, a year that would have fit comfortably in with the absolute worst years of the Wilpons. It was only saved from topping the worst of that annual father-and-son catastrophe by the enormous good luck of Trevor Bauer deciding to take a few million less from LA just to avoid the foolishness that was likely to happen under Cohen.
Word
Lots of ‘em
The most concerning sentence in this whole article is him saying that the team would “probably do very little” if it out of contention (which is now). The Mets should be trying to unload at least half of this roster right now. To start with: Robertson, Marte, Pham, Canha, Carrasco, Ottavino should all be getting shipped around as we speak. One of Scherzer /Verlander should be traded (both if the return dictates you should). And I wouldn’t be averse to trading McNeil either if he starts to hit again. The Mets have suffered for years with GM’s that have zero creativity or ability to think outside the box. They couldn’t even figure out how to trade guys like Wheeler and Conforto when they knew they weren’t bringing them back – they just let them walk right out the door for nothing.
I really wish they could’ve coaxed Theo Epstein out of retirement because that man holds no illusions about the teams he takes over. He tears down what needs to be torn down and knows how to build winners.
“probably do very little”
===========================
Spot on correct. My RS are toast, so I want them to be the first team at the table selling off short-term assets. Maybe Cohen thinks he has enough cash to simply continuing to buy players, but I see -0- reason not to try restocking the minors a bit. Get a few 17 year old international kids that throws 98 with a future as an RP.
In the same press conference , Cohen mentioned that in the last few seasons there have been teams 8 games out in the Wild Card who end making a playoffs.. Well the majority of these teams fire coaches and make changes before going on a run. So his comments seemed kind of contradictory to me.
Cohen needs to learn this is not 1998 and he’s not George Steinbrenner
Ummm, if he were being George he’d have fired Showalter by now. Then re-hired him in 2 years….then fire him again. He is being anything but George Steinbrenner.
Don’t forget…and hired him again, and fired him again. But not before some doozies of a fight.
The silver lining is that he doesn’t have to worry about his Mets blowing a 1st place division lead this year late in the season and then choking in a Wild Card game 🙂
Not easy to buy a culture of winning. Build your farm.
Mets have a payroll higher than Willie Nelson, Snoop Dogg and Cypress Hill on a tour bus.
Cohen should have started off the press conference saying “We have officially relieved Billy Eppler of his duties as GM of the NY Mets”. Eppler is clearly the worst GM in the game. There is a reason hes been fired everywhere hes went. He was the Mets 9th choice at GM. The only thing Eppler is good at is cleaning shoes with his tongue, as that must of been the reason he got the job. 5 losing seasons as GM of the Angels with a top 10 payroll each year. Just get rid of him, hes a sunk cost
Brian Cashman is the worst, he taught Billy everything he knows 🙂
There’s always been a rumor around Texas connecting John Daniels to the Mets at some point after his Rangers tenure.
Eh… why?
BUT THIS IS THE WAY THE DODGERS WERE SUCCESSFUL THE LAST DECADE! THEY BUY ALL THEIR PLAYERS. THE METS SPENT MORE THAN ANYONE SO THEY SHOULD BE BETTER.
I DON’T KNOW WHAT WE’RE YELLING ABOUT!
Dorothy Mantooth is a saint!
Thank you, Stevewpants!
@hallofffamenobodycares, the Dodgers are a homegrown machine that consistently brings up prospects and just sprinkles in FA’s and acquisitions as needed. Not at all how you are describing them.
Is there a FA named Sprinkles I’m missing? In their reg position order, only Outman, Vargas, Will Smith was drafted by them. Sure, Lux would have been a part of that if not for the injury. Yes, they’re showing their depth in arms, though team ERA is 24 of 30 teams, while SP ERA is 16 of 30.
@RunDMC
Julio Urías
Will Smith
Clayton Kershaw
Tony Gonsolin
Emmet Sheehan
Bobby Miller
Michael Busch
James Outman
Miguel Vargas
Plus Walker Buehler, Lux and Dustin May on the IL
Dodgers farm system produces as well as any including your Braves.
@WampumWalloper
1) Ronald Acuña Jr.
2) Ozzie Albies
3) Austin Riley
4) Michael Harris II
5) Kolby Allard
6) Bryce Elder
7) Charlie Morton
8) Michael Soroka
9) Spencer Strider
10) Jared Schuster
11) AJ Minter
IL: 12) Kyle Wright, 13) Huascar Ynoa, 14) Ehire Adrianza, 15) Tyler Matzek
** you could even argue Max Fried (drafted SD, developed by ATL)
Heck, we even developed Evan Phillips, Freddie Freeman, Jason Heyward for you.
Yes, LAD has been incredible at development, but this year you’re largely dependent on position players development outside the organization.
I’ll take Braves over Dodgers. Was easy choice. Not that Dodgers aren’t good.
Adrianza and Matzek didn’t come up through the Braves system. Adrianza was a Giant I believe before a Twin and Matzek was a first round pick of the Rockies, and pitched as a starter for them before he got the yips.
Agreed. They do have a great farm system/player development program but they sign a fair amount of high profile veterans. Betts, Pollock, Freeman, Martinez, Heyward to name a few just in the past 3 -5 years.
Betts was a trade, not a high profile signing.
Pollock was a cheap deal. Martinez and Peralta were one year deals and far from “high profile”, and Heyward was picked up off the scrap heap.
If you disregard that pitcher who will not be named, the only real high profile free agent signing under Andrew Friedman has been Freeman.
Even though Betts was a salary dump deal – take away Betts, Bauer and Freeman and the Dodgers are not big spenders. Combined with being on one of the nation’s best media markets, they are overall a well run team. Not as impressive as Tampa Bay and Atlanta, who are 1-2 in that order, but in the next tier with Baltimore, Cleveland and Houston. Those are the six teams that impress me – although the asterisks would be in the top tier but for fostering the cheating and the poor response when it was uncovered.
Betts was pretty much a trade and sign (did they not sign him to one of the richest contracts in history?). JD Martinez has been a top 20 hitter for the last decade. Pollock as a “cheap deal” at $55/4 is exactly the type of thing a privileged baseball fan of a high spending team would say. Nine of the past ten seasons, the Dodgers have been in the top three highest team payroll category. Six of those nine they were number one.
Freddie Freeman is the only big name free agent they’ve signed recently. They seem to have gotten a bargain there. I’ve seen home grown and trades as the way they build thier rosters. They don’t even sign their own free agents. They extend them or let them walk
At least he was honest about the losing money situation and how it’s not sustainable. Pretty sure that would of been appreciated by MLB and most of the other owners. Looked like a man that is just guessing though. Desperately waiting for Stearns is what I got from it.
foppert1;
Stearns is the only one that hasn’t officially turned an interview down.
Because he hasn’t been asked. Can’t be until the Brewers give the Mets permission.
@foppert1 It’s broadly sustainable. Cohen could drop $200 million in excess payroll every year for the next 85 years and still be in the black.
what could have Eppler done differently? sign Degrom? not spend as much as Cohen told him to? who better to manager then Buck? bottom line the players haven’t performed. it’s on them
Maybe not give $100MM+ to a reliever. How often do those deals really work out? Giving 2/86 to a starter entering his age-40 season was probably not a good idea either. Scherzer appears to be another bust.
but hey, at least the horrible Correa offer fell through
Buck is probably not the cause of the Mets problems but he’s always been a way overrated manager.
No Lindor extension or for less $. No Scherzer Verlander or less $ years. No Vogelfat or not trading a mlb reliever for him. No Ruf or not trading 3 prospects along with Davis for him. No Baez or don’t trade PCA for him. Those are just the big ones that come to mind.
It you are not pointing things out that could have made the Mets better. You are just pointing out how they could have been just as bad for a whole lot less money.
I have to point out what they should have done? I was giving you and our other fine community members the benefit of doubt. I don’t want to insult anyone’s intelligence. It’s a very pathetically simple concept. But if anyone needs some mansplaining I will. Just let me know.
“if i’m in this position i’m not adding” but if they’re out of contention “we’ll probably do very little”
way to fire up the fan base, steve
he spent half a billion dollars.
Just imagine if they’d signed Correa how much they would have spent.
But how much of it on a farm and players without AARP cards?
He got himself into a mess by acting like a kid in a candy store. “I’ll buy this guy and this guy and this guy, because I’m a freakin’ billionaire and I can.” He should have listened to bb people he hired and presumably trusted who maybe would have told him, “Uh, Uncle Stevie, you don’t need that guy. We did alright last year without him.”
@avenger65 Bingo. It was entirely clear as of the 2020-21 offseason that the team would see massive turnover within 2 years, but instead of recognizing the Mets were best off throughout the majors and the farm AT SHORTSTOP, he just had to lunge after Lindor.
Even with a $363 million payroll it’s clear there are limits, and the $34 million going to Lindor ISN’T going to players at positions of genuine need, just as signing Scherzer precluded getting two Cy Young candidates during an offseason when pitchers like Gausman were going for around $22m AAV.
The ad hoc weirdness just seems to keep going—Cohen recognized the need to add 5 wins in going after Correa, but then doesn’t bother to pick up Andrew Chafin when Chafin was going cheap, or Brad Hand when Hand was going for a song? How do you figure you’re short a star, but when that falls through you just shrug at your obviously emaciated bullpen?
I said this the other day. I had no problem with him (over)paying for Scherzer and Verlander, but his 4-5-6 SPs are Megill, Carrasco & Peterson. Their 10-13 (13-21 in starts) and 5.97 completely undermines whatever Scherzer & Verlander do.
IMO, the best way to regular season wins is to have 5 SPs that deliver positive results almost every day.
@dasit Imagine owning this team and deciding as of a week ago… “get a couple of desperately needed, solid middle relievers like Brad Hand on one-year deals for the modest cost those players entail? Nah. Those grapes are probably sour, anyway.”
fans don’t root for payrolls and it sounds like no matter what happens this season the plan is to run it back in 2024
Mets fans might. I seem to remember mostly cheering for those awful contracts.
I dunno, the ones on here seem extremely fixated on them. Everyone thinks team X needs to spend more.
Lol Mets… another 40 MM ace wants out of NY, and I don’t blame him
Your Rangers overpaid deGrom when NYM wouldn’t only for the inevitable to happen only 6 GS into a 5-year deal.
Texas is looking like Steve’s golden parachute.
Another bailout for a billionaire thanks to Rangers and Correas ankle.
That ballclub with a golden parachute happens to lead the AL West over the Astros and Angels. Texas can afford to brush off deGrom having to undergo Tommy John surgery.
David Sterns and Craig Counsel both available at the end of the season. Could you also take Yelich off our hands at ..50 on the dollar discount. Just give us 5 years to pay off our fifty percent. Comon Man, make the deal!
Brewers fans loved that bargain home town discount Yelich took.
I remember commenting on that post here, saying it was a bad extension because they didn’t get much of a discount and still had 2 years of control. Of course, most of the 12 year olds that post here couldn’t comprehend that.
At least the Mets have some young, cheap studs to build around like Baty and Alvarez. They also don’t have the long albatross contracts like the Padres. Right now the lolMets are surpassed by the Sham Diego Fraudres in patheticness level. Will be interesting next week when these two loser franchises play each other.
Oil Can: Alvarez is a good catcher, but someone has to tell him to stop going out to dinner with Vogelbach.
Mets are in much better shape than Padres. Marte Verlander Scherzer off the books soon. Nimmo under 200 million at least. Lindor used to be able to play defense. If he still can thats good. Padres paid for Machado already. Were stupid and gave him a opt out. Should have let the Mets sign him. Instead they pay him again for his worst years. Then they paid Bogaerts without checking his home away spilts or realizing he is a right hand bat who played for Boston. Very generous to Darvish and Cronezone. All on top of trading away their farm. Not the worst because they did hit on a few key trades but still.
Well, Marte’s around until the end of 2025, at 20m per. Still, he looks sapped, reduced to slap hitting like a 45 year old Pete Rose, so if it’s the offseason surgery he endured Marte might have a couple of solid, starting RF-er caliber years left to him after a year of recovery.
And it only took Lindor about a week of power hitting to up his seasonal projection to 5 WAR, close enough to what they Mets are paying him to do—as much as I loathed the deal for Giminez et al and the 10 year extension. Ugh.
Can’t be thrilled. But when you are spending half a billion, 2 more years at 20 million won’t kill you.
Then they paid Bogaerts without checking his home away spilts
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One of the oddest signings I’ve ever seen. I’d have gladly traded Bogaerts for Kim last year. And Kim is a natural SS, and Cronenworth is a natural 2B, but they moved both off of their positions to pay $280M to Bogaerts. They should’ve kept Kim and Cro where they were and added a 1B and/or #5 SP.
X is still a good player, but an awful, awful fit.
@Oil Can
Is Baty a “stud”?
Better than anything Padres have gotten from the farm this year. He’d also be leading Padres in batting average. He’s also been compared to David Wright. So I’ll change to ‘possible stud’
I don’t think there’s enough talk about letting go of some of the core starting pitchers from 2022. Bassitt and Walker are leagues above Megill and Carrasco. I thought that was baffling from the start of the season. Don’t get me wrong, I’m shocked the Mets are this terrible, but I thought their SP depth was weak from the get go.
Agreed. Letting Bassitt walk was a poor decision. I was always leery of Carrasco staying healthy; that’s a bad signing. I have never been enamored with how Buck uses his bullpen
The worst of it was the bleating about how well off the Mets were after Carrasco as their #5 starter (never mind that since 2018 he’d had only one year of more than 80 innings with an ERA under 5.25), and that all of Megill, Peterson, and Lucchesi could start for half the teams in the league—when in truth none of those three had anything like a track record of consistent success, and that much of what good fortune Peterson had enjoyed was exactly that: good luck.
And when layered upon the fact that the rotation was relying on two near-40 pitchers to perform at an elite level, there was a lot of risk built in. So, purely from a risk management perspective, the front office was always playing with fire.
Also Senga and Verlander are used to pitching with extra rest. It all seems so obvious in hindsight.
I feel bad for Jeff McNeil and Brandon Nimmo.
Both of them show up every game ready to play. Bust their butts from the first pitch of the game to the last one, doing anything they can to help their team win. Dirt dogs.
Put them on a so-so team like the Red Sox in a sports-crazed market like Boston and that team’s a WS contender.
The problem is Cohen is the real GM he just puts his shopping list out there but he knows nothing about chemistry.
If he were smart he would do whatever it would take and get Alex Anthopoulos on the Mets and hire Ron Washington to be the next manager.
Ron Washington is the secret weapon behind the Braves chemistry.
No wait how about do what you’re going to do instead and pay Ohtani 600 mil and give Hader 85 mil to be the highest paid setup pitcher. And bring in Joe Giradi because the Mets always like to go with Yankee castoffs.
$600m? If Soto gets the $400m he wants, Ohtani might surpass $700m especially with the expected bidding war.
Bobby Bonilla is still getting paid and I haven’t seen him play once this season!
Well there’s his new set of eyes to run the Mets without spending.
And we’re only a couple of days away from Bobby Bonilla Day.
Inspired by Cohen and the urgency of the situation, the Mets went out tonight and CONVINCINGLY dropped another one.
I don’t know if Eppler is any good, but this all comes from the top. Eppler is not spending that type of coin unless specifically told by Cohen to spend. With Preller, it feels more organic, like he goes to Seidler saying all he needs is another $30M to complete the job. With Cohen, it feels like he said “here’s $380M. Don’t come back until it is all spent.”
Agreed. This is Coheb’s mess, not Eppler’s.
Pretty much. I don’t know how he could possibly split time between running a baseball org and a hedge fund while lobbying for a NYC casino license. Sure you can hire people but he still needs to meet and wine and dine people for the latter.
Congratulations to Domingo German—there aren’t too many pitchers *less* likely to throw a perfect game, but he’ll always have June 29, 2023 on his resume. Well done, sir.
Spoiler alert next time please.
A top Mets PoBO candidate is Jeff Wilpon.
He has baseball mgmt experience and most importantly is intimately familiar with the New York Way.
Sell him high for Ohtani now! Jk I was happy for him after the year he has had. Three Yankees perfectos I have witnessed live now.
Go to bed, Fred. It’s late.
Keaton is back as Batman. that’s all that matters.
lol mets
Besides the starting pitching woes of the Mets, their downfall started before the season with Diaz’s injury, which taxed the heck out of the bullpen, which has been an Achilles for sometime anyway, many blown leads and not much to save, almost every time we go into the 7th inning leading I tell my wife we’re going to lose. I feel bad for the regulars doing well, then blowing their leads that they’ve had. Maybe things can be fixed for next year, never thought we’d be 17 games back at this point of this season.
@Tomas7 Cohen was willing to spend $26m for the next 12 years on Correa, but somehow couldn’t pull out the wallet when Chafin and Hand were available for a combined $8.5m for 2023. The Mets were well placed to compensate for Diaz’s injury beyond just trying to replace him with Robertson, they simply didn’t bother.
It was unfathomable. It’s a pity NY no longer has actual sportswriters who enjoy playing investigative reporter and making the rich uncomfortable. That no one is asking Cohen this kind of question is ridiculous, the obscenity that is access ‘journalism.’
Those “actual sportswriters” included Dick Young, who ran Tom Seaver out of New York and sent the Mets into a dark era that didn’t truly end until Dwight Gooden came along.
@ChuckyNJ, Yes, probably a good thing, then, that I didn’t write a lament claiming that ALL sportswriters of that period did dogged investigative work.
If losing 1 arm taxes your bullpen then you didn’t have a bullpen to begin with. Even if it was your best arm.
@YourDreamGM Not to mention, once Diaz went down the Mets decided that using a 38 yo setup man as their closer (backed up by a 37 yo setup man and a 35 yo LHer in Raley who was below replacement level for his career through the end of 2022, then regularly injured Drew Smith, who has been able to accumulate all of 150 ip since the beginning of 2018, behind him), was a good idea.
Robertson has been great in the closer role. Perhaps he would have stunk as a setup man. Technically the Diaz injury didn’t hurt them so bad. Really they still have one of the best closers in the league. I think the media is looking for reasons why this team stinks, but the Diaz injury isn’t it. Diaz couldn’t possibly be much better than Robertson who has put up fantastic numbers this year. We can’t assume Robertson would have been as good in another role.
If it wasn’t for Robertson, the Mets would be looking up at the Nats from the cellar.
@VonPurpleHayes “Technically the Diaz injury didn’t hurt them so bad” only because of how badly the bullpen was crafted behind Diaz, Otto, Raley, and Smith (and the latter two didn’t have all that much to recommend them for critical spots in the bullpen) if you look at their performance and durability through the end of 2022.
Robertson has been a competent substitute thus far for Diaz, but given how bad the pen has been for an ostensible contender aiming at 95 to 100 wins, that just means the pen otherwise wasn’t well made. Cheers,
Thought it was already announced Stearns will join the NY Mets after the 2023 season?
Stormintazz,
It has all but been announced that Stearns will become the next Mets POBO and has been known for a long time except it can’t be officially announced without Cohen getting slapped with a tampering charge by the Brewers which would be a costly error. So the Mets and Stearns are keeping this on the down low lol.
Same old Lol Mets but with $ no accountability no planning, tolerating losing and mediocrity having to overpay veteran names to fill seats while they collect their retirement pay without any motivation to perform.
I talk to Mets ticket holders and they are not happy with the results and can’t sell their tickets on the secondary markets who have only been drawing in June because of Pride promotions. From July onwards look for the return of Citi Morgue.
Sue Cohen for not delivering a professional product and for his complacency.
@Robrock30 Hey, brother. How’s life?
Re the Mets, if I had to guess, I’d guess the Mets aren’t dogging it so much as they’re a very, very old team in significant decline, as tends to happen with old teams. On the hitting side, only McNeil and Marte are noticeably subpar. Alvarez is doing well for a 21 yo rookie at catcher, and Baty isn’t a complete failure at 3B, particularly when the context is that they could have platooned Escobar and Guillorme at 3B and gotten somewhat better performance.
Having two old players in your lineup in McNeil and Marte who turn out to be in significant decline through the first half of their age 31 and 34 seasons, respectively, isn’t all that surprising.
As for pitching, it’s not only the oldest rotation in the majors, it’s one of the oldest rotations in baseball history–and it was a case of serious misjudgment by Cohen (I’m treating him as the Mets’ de facto GM) to hug prospects such as Vientos and Mauricio the Mets had little use for along with SS Jett Williams and C Kevin Parada (you’ll notice the problem with having your best prospects at those positions, I’m sure), when after Quintana’s injury they desperately needed to deal for a starting pitcher they’d be happy to use in the postseason.
Instead, the FO was deranged enough to believe they had one starting pitcher too many, in Carrasco, rather than one too few.
As for the bullpen, Cohen decided not to beef up the pen before Diaz’s injury, even though the weaker half of the pen obviously had significant problems.
To cut this short, I see the Mets failure on the field this season largely as the consequence of a very subpar front office having made numerous mistakes, not just this offseason, but in the previous two offseasons, mistakes which compounded the problem of having an ancient, expensive team in significant and predictable decline. Just my two cents. Cheers, Jack
JackStrawb,
Happy 4th of July Brother and I hope you enjoy the Holiday and are well. I am doing well no complaints and I am hanging around
for my final big score before I roll into the endless sunset. Keeps me mentally sharp.
We are both smarter than the Mets FO this we know. Agree with you that Cohen is poor at hiring the right people to surround himself with. This was obvious to me with his first move which was to reinstate Sandy Alderson and it has all been downhill from there which adds to Lol Mets now with wasting tons of $. The Organization is horrible all the way down through the minors. No high end SP throughout the system and as we know he overpaid for Lindor, Max and Verlander who aren’t those guys they were. LOL
Cohen is also bombing out with his proposed casino and is holding the Soccer Team hostage which the community needs with Housing antagonizing the locals and politicos with playing hardball witholding CitiField parking while he needs their signoff on a change of Flushing Meadows Park designation. He is failing.
JackStrawb,
I just read that the Mets only have one token All Star which is Pete Alonso who was selected by Manfred. He threatened not to compete in the HR derby if he wasn’t selected. Neither the Fans nor the Players and peers voted for any Mets. How sad is that not that they are deserving perhaps Dave Robertson. Lindor is not held in high regard by the Fans or Players and peers obviously.
He has no plans to replace front office or manager, how about this at end of year he will finally hire David Stearns from Milwaukee and maybe just Maybe their manager Craig Counsell who has yet to give the Brewers a answer as to returning, Stearns would like a owner with deep pockets and Counsell would love to manage a team that will spend some money on players, as lets do the trifecta and bring Burnes over from the Brewers too.
Gio & Boomer gave a good idea : Scherzer and Canha going to Arizona for pitching prospect Brandon Pfaadt and if Verlander doesn’t want to stay to be the ace than trade him to Texas for pitching prospect Jack Leiter in these 2 trades as a Mets fan I would be willing to pay the remainder of this year’s salaries but nothing past this year, if these trades can happen that would reduce the 2024 payroll $43, $43, for the pitchers and Cano comes off as well as Canha,Escobar,Robertson,Carrasco,Vogelbach that’s about $155 million coming off and start over next year , with that savings go after Ohtani, Nola some bullpen guys and a power bat. Can the Mets and Yanks finally make another trade ? Marte and Quintana for Clarke-Schmidt and take on Donaldsons contract and then either cut him or DH him for the remainder of this year or flip him . That would reduce the Mets payroll again by another $30 mill next year. The Mets rotation if they can get the players mentioned above for 2024. Ohtani, Nola, Senga, Leiter, Pfaadt, with Megill and Peterson as backups.
The Mets aren’t moving Scherzer at this point unless they eat a substantial amount of his contract. That’s just to unload him.. if they are going to get a significant prospect back, they are going to have to eat even more of it.
CKinSTL;
No organization in MLB will take on either of those 2 pitchers and pay them $40m-plus past 2023. And I’m not talking about trading players to the Mets. I’m talking about even assuming those contracts. They’re absurd. Totally out of whack with MLB salary structure for players that age with their recent injury histories.
If the Rangers didn’t want to pay Verlander the $43M last year, when he was coming off of a 223 ERA+ season, why would they pay him now, coming off a 100+ season, let alone trading the overall #2 pick in the draft for him?
“I consider this years payroll a sunk cost”
Steve Cohen.
No one is paying any salary for anyone he trades.
I’m shocked to see Cohen talking about losing money and the club not being financially sustainable. It is not surprising that is actually the case, simply that he acknowledged it publicly. His posture all along seemed to be that he has infinite dollars to spend and he will do whatever it takes.
CKinSTL;
Haven’t seen where he said that.
However, I haven’t believed any public statements he’s made that were authenticated……his actions contradict his words.
Mets had a chance to hire someone who,in my opinion,is the best GM in MLB,Kim Ng. look what she’s done in Miami in just 3 years.
Two things I notice here:
1 – Steve Cohen doing the whole press conference and the words that he’s stating. Micky Arison of the Miami Heat is also a fan of his own team. He doesn’t have press conferences like this. When he talks to the media, he talks about he’s happy with the team winning and that he’s looking forward to see what his front office does. He never engages questions about potential moves. And he almost never does interviews about the team, and when he does run into reporters, he says things from a fan point of view…and occasionally mentioning how ownership for him is an expensive hobby he enjoys.
2 – First, like I’ve said before, Steve Cohen runs the Mets like MLB the Show with the Mets set to no budget and every other team set to having a budget. And he has Sandy Alderson in an advisory role, who runs teams like fantasy league teams. There is no one there that runs the Mets like a MLB team. You basically have a team built in the MLB the Show way prepared to play in Fantasy League, but have to play in MLB and in the real world where Father Time has beaten them up this year.