Five questions for Steve Cohen and Sandy Alderson ahead of Mets news conference

For the first time in the almost full year since his name entered the collective consciousness of Mets fans, Steve Cohen will speak publicly and at length about his plans for the team in a video news conference at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday.

His introduction as Mets owner also will serve as a reintroduction for team president Sandy Alderson, the former general manager who is back to oversee the entire organization on Cohen’s behalf.

Alderson has spent recent days reconstructing the front office after he and Cohen announced Friday — two hours after the sale of the team became official — that general manager Brodie Van Wagenen and most of his most senior lieutenants left the organization.

The news conference will be broadcast on SNY, on Mets.com and the Mets’ social media accounts.

Here are five questions for Cohen and Alderson ahead of them taking questions for the first time.

1. Does Cohen see the Mets as a business or a hobby?

Cohen made his estimated $14 billion fortune on Wall Street. He also has an art collection worth an estimated $1 billion. Both stocks and art are investments, but is a baseball team more like the former or the latter?

The Mets as art might suggest Cohen would be more willing to lose money/make less money — i.e., add good, expensive players — for the sake of winning. It is important to make the Mets a competent business, sure, but a hedge-fund view in which profits reign supreme would not be a good approach to baseball team-building.

2. What are the Mets' most pressing major-league needs?

On paper, it seems like an easy answer: catcher, starting pitcher, maybe centerfield if they don’t want to play Brandon Nimmo there anymore (although he has elite on-base skills and should play every day).

But Cohen's and Alderson’s takes should be enlightening — especially since the Mets’ season ended six weeks ago and we have no idea what they want to do. J.T. Realmuto, Trevor Bauer and George Springer are the top targets at the above positions.

3. How do they want to structure the front office?

This is mostly for Alderson, who seems to have widespread control of these decisions. As president, he will oversee all baseball and business operations, but he still needs people under him to run the day-to-day goings-on.

Does he want a president of baseball operations and a GM? Co-GMs as equals? Some other combination? How many assistant GMs? Designated player development and scouting overseers? How seriously are they going to build out the analytics department, which under the Wilpons always was well behind other teams?

And, significantly, when does he want to have the top decision-makers in place? Cohen and Alderson certainly didn’t waste any time doing away with the previous staff.

4. What else do they want to change?

Leave this one open-ended. The Mets are ripe for change, even beyond the areas where the wheels are already turning (front office, roster), and an ownership change can be a blank slate.

Cohen had been a minority owner since 2012 and has been a Mets fan for as long as they have existed. Alderson was the GM from 2010 to 2018. Both should come in with ideas on how they want to reshape the organization in ways we haven’t even thought of yet.

5. So … does Cohen actually like Twitter?

Cohen’s Twitter account — @StevenACohen2 — has been active for the last week-plus and he seems to enjoy it, soliciting feedback from and replying directly to fans.

He has said he wants to bring back a Mets version of Old-Timer's Day, plans to make an annual fanfest that is "a great day for everybody including me," and expects a Tom Seaver statue to be ready around the start of the 2021 season (which was the plan under the previous regime as well).

On Monday, he responded to a fan asking him to take a stand on not bringing back the Mets' alternate black jersey. "Do I have to take a stand on everything 4 days in? Patience my friend," Cohen tweeted.

But Twitter is a hellscape that can wear out even the most well-intentioned of users. Does he plan to keep tweeting? Does he plan to make news with it, as he did by announcing his news conference time and other tidbits?