Steve Cohen on Mets' season: 'I'm a realist . . . We gotta get going'
Mets general manager Billy Eppler and manager Buck Showalter "absolutely" will remain in their jobs through the season, owner Steve Cohen said Wednesday, but if the team doesn't play better he will pursue a trade-deadline selloff — a would-be first wave of potentially major change.
Cohen also offered unprompted that he still wants to hire a president of baseball operations, which would result in a de facto demotion for Eppler. Eppler has run the Mets' baseball department since his November 2021 hiring.
With about month until the Aug. 1 trade deadline and half the season remaining overall, though, Cohen emphasized repeatedly that the Mets still have the ability — if a dwindling amount of time — to turn the season around.
“I’m preparing all contingencies. We’ll see where it goes. It’s on the players,” Cohen said during a news conference at Citi Field before the Mets hosted the Brewers. “The veterans, they’ve been there before. I think these are players who have done it and we’ll see if they can get their act together and string together some wins.
“The reality is the reality. Players know it. Management knows it. I know it. And hope is not a strategy. So that's what we're faced with. We don't have a ton of options, right? Until we figure out where we are . . . I'm a realist. It's June 28. The trade deadline is Aug. 1. A little bit more than a month. We gotta get going.”
The context of Cohen’s rare in-season question-and-answer session, which was far more formal than his usual impromptu gatherings, was the Mets’ abysmal season amid their grand expectations and payroll. As he discussed his club, which has toiled in fourth place in the NL East, Cohen’s tone was calm and measured even as he made clear his feelings: This is not acceptable.
He explained, though, that he will not fire anybody right now, at least partially with an eye toward the Mets’ future and his reputation within baseball.
“Everybody wants a headline. Everybody says fire this person, fire that person,” he said. “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 impulsive and win the headlines for the day. Overall, over time, you’re not going to attract the best talent. Because they’re not going to want to work for somebody who has a short fuse.”
Showalter said of Cohen’s patience: “I appreciate that.”
Attracting the best front-office talent has been a problem for Cohen since he purchased the Mets after the 2020 season. In both of his first two offseasons, he tried extensively to hire a president of baseball operations, but he failed to woo the quality of candidate he sought. Multiple hiring searches yielded Eppler, now in his second season as Mets GM and seventh overall as a major-league GM.
Cohen intends to revisit his search for a president of baseball operations (in addition to finding a team president/CEO, a separate and often business-centric position, to replace Sandy Alderson, now a consultant) but said he is not in a hurry.
“I don't want a rookie doing this . . . If I don’t find the right person this year, I’ll wait,” he said. “At some point, someone's gonna come available. It's not gonna continue this way forever.”
A very specific someone will become available shortly: former Milwaukee baseball boss David Stearns, a Manhattan native, Harvard alumnus and former Mets intern. Cohen tried to interview him in the past, but Brewers owner Mark Attanasio denied that request, as was his right because Stearns was under contract.
Stearns, who transitioned to an adviser role last offseason, is set to become a free agent after this season.
“There are ways to hire people a lot easier than there is in baseball, following the rules,” Cohen said. “The type of person I want doesn't grow on trees. So I have to be patient.”
The more near-term decisions facing Cohen’s Mets revolve around the trade deadline. Last week, the Mets dealt Eduardo Escobar to the Angels, paying almost all of Escobar’s remaining salary in exchange for better prospects.
If the Mets indeed become full-blown sellers, Cohen said, he would take the same approach with other trades.
“I already consider the money spent,” he said. “So if I can find ways to, in that unfortunate circumstance, if I can find ways to improve our farm system and that's the path we take, I'm willing to do it.”
Would he consider trading Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander, each of whom are making a record $43.3 million salary (and are due the same next year)?
“They were brought in there for a reason,” Cohen said. “And so, you know, I don't want to broach that topic. I haven't gotten that far yet.”
He’ll get there at some point unless the Mets start winning.
“If I'm in this position, I'm not adding [to the roster at the deadline],” Cohen said. “That would be pretty silly.”
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.
