Steve Cohen during KC visit: 2024 Mets 'won't be as star-studded'
Mets owner Steve Cohen talks with members of the media prior to a game against the Royals at Kauffman Stadium on Wednesday in Kansas City, Mo. Credit: Getty Images/Ed Zurga
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — When the boss showed up at the ballpark Wednesday, he was ready to explain — and listen.
Mets owner Steve Cohen, at Kauffman Stadium before a 4-0 loss to the Royals, spent hours chatting with players, manager Buck Showalter and others, explaining — and getting their thoughts — on a drastic trade deadline that featured the Mets trading aces Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander.
That raised obvious questions about Cohen’s intentions and expectations for the 2024 team, which he said will be “competitive” — semantically a low bar to reach, but the same word general manager Billy Eppler has used in recent days.
“I don’t want to roll a team out there we’re going to be embarrassed by,” Cohen said. “But we also know that spending a fortune — everyone says I spent a lot of money and other teams did too — doesn’t guarantee you a trip to the playoffs.
“It won’t be as star-studded a team as it was, but stars don’t necessarily make for wins. I think we’re going to be highly competitive.”
Cohen said he would be “opportunistic” in filling out the roster in free agency this offseason. But as he said he explained to Scherzer over the weekend, before Scherzer accepted his trade to the Rangers, the Mets do not plan to go as big this time as they have in the past.
“Max asked me straight. He goes, ‘are you going to be all-in on free agency next year?’ And I couldn’t give him that promise,” Cohen said. “It doesn’t mean we’re not going to bring in free agents. It may not be to the extent that we did in the past.”
Cohen framed his presence in Missouri as part of a trip with fraternity brothers planned six weeks ago. By “happenstance,” he said, it allowed him to check in with the team a day after a reckoning — the end of a franchise-altering trade-deadline season in which the Mets dealt six players from their roster. Their plans shifted from winning immediately to, eh, see what happens next year and try hard again in a couple of years, building a better farm system along the way.
The players promised Cohen that “they’re going to play hard,” he said, “and that’s all you can ask for.” But they still were grappling with the shock waves that rippled through the clubhouse in recent days. The trades of Scherzer and then Verlander signaled a major change of thinking from the top of the organization.
“See, I had gotten to this place a few weeks ago. I had thought about contingency plans,” Cohen said. “They’re still processing it. Whenever something happens that’s shocking or not what people expect, it takes a while to process. You’ve got to give them room to process. That’s what the conversation was. I totally get there’s a sense of, ‘Wow, I didn’t expect that.’ They’re playing hard and they get close to their teammates and those things are hard. I respect that. They’re at a different point of acceptance than maybe I had gotten to, but they’ll get there. These are professionals.”
Brandon Nimmo, who has the second-longest contract (through 2030) on the Mets behind Francisco Lindor (through 2031), said he lost sleep Saturday night after learning Scherzer was on his way out and he was surprised to learn from Eppler Sunday morning about the Mets’ plans. But now he is getting used to it.
“A lot of anxiety,” Nimmo said. “Once I settled in on it, I thought, OK, this is an opportunity for us to come out better as an organization on the other side of this.”
Cohen also said, in a lighthearted tone: “Listen, nobody listens to me. We had a press conference [in late June], right? I kind of said it. But no one listens. Actually, I’m surprised you’d be surprised. Because what did I say? I said I wanted sustainability. If we were in the same position, I wasn’t going to add.”
After Cohen spoke, the Mets (50-57) dropped a second consecutive game to Kansas City, guaranteeing a series loss to the team with the second-worst record in the majors. Kodai Senga allowed three runs and a season-high 11 hits in 5 2⁄3 innings, nearly failing to escape the second before settling in. Jeff McNeil went 3-for-5 and grounded out with the bases loaded to end the game.
The Mets making the playoffs was a long shot. And merely making the playoffs isn’t good enough, Cohen said. So he gave up last week in the hope of a better tomorrow, heavily involving himself in the front office’s process in the lead-up to the deadline. That included being on the phone with Eppler “constantly” as trade talks picked up and being in the “war room” Tuesday,” he said.
Altogether, he agreed to take on nearly $100 million in “dead money,” as Cohen called it, paying the salaries of players now on other teams.
“It turned out that it’s a moment in time where other clubs are thinking very short-term and I was thinking more intermediate and long-term,” he said. “I was able to take advantage of that.”
Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.
