Mets' Steve Cohen has more than just a lot of money . . . he has a great relationship with Scott Boras
Mets owner Steve Cohen during Game 1 of the NLCS against the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on Oct. 13, 2024 Credit: Newsday/Thomas A. Ferrara
Here the Mets find themselves again, at the start of a potentially transformative offseason, with a bunch of roster holes to fill and a functionally infinite amount of money they could spend. Under the stewardship of multibillionaire owner Steve Cohen, this has become their winter norm.
Contributing to the unpredictability of the Mets’ next several months, however, is another variable, especially relevant in the context of this particular offseason: Cohen’s friendly, cozy, productive relationship with agent Scott Boras.
In addition to representing this year’s top free agent, outfielder Juan Soto, Boras counts among his clients first baseman Pete Alonso, the homegrown slugger and fan favorite, as well as righthander Corbin Burnes, lefthander Blake Snell and third baseman Alex Bregman, all of whom are feasible fits. If the Mets hand out one or more nine-figure contracts, Boras is likely to be involved.
In the four years since Cohen purchased the team, Boras has demonstrated that his long-standing, career-making ability to convince owners to spend big — spend massive — on players very much extends to the Wall Street giant-turned-Mets boss. And Cohen is very much a willing participant.
How would Boras describe his connection with Cohen? He paused to think for a moment.
“He is an owner that does what my clients want owners to do,” Boras said at the general managers’ meetings at a San Antonio resort on Wednesday.
Translation: Cohen spends a ton of money on the on-field product.
“And my clients are the kind of players [with which] an owner would want to do what [Cohen] wants to do,” he continued.
Translation: Boras represents (many of) the best of the best, players who can help their team win.
“So there’s certainly a common thread that exists between my clients and what Steve’s intentions are,” Boras finished.
That didn’t really answer the question, though, of the Cohen/Boras relationship. So let’s answer for him: They’re quite tight. Cohen, baseball’s wealthiest individual owner with a net worth of $21 billion, as estimated by Forbes, at this point may well be closer to Boras than any of his counterparts.
Boras has cultivated Cohen as a good bud. They routinely spend time together at and away from the ballpark when Cohen visits Los Angeles, where he has a home (in Beverly Hills) and where some of his children live. And each of their Mets deals came together quickly once Cohen got involved.
Whereas some owners are wary of Boras and try to avoid talking to him — leaving that to their general managers, who have been hired to handle such matters — Cohen is more than happy to engage.
“He's missing the fun!” Cohen exclaimed during spring training of a fellow owner who doesn’t deal with Boras. “I have a good relationship with Scott, and I think I add value to that relationship with David [Stearns]. I don’t see that changing.”
Consider their history. The first Cohen-Boras pact was Max Scherzer in November 2021, when the Mets were trying to start fresh after a dismal debut season under Cohen. For three of Scherzer’s post-prime years, Cohen agreed to pay $130 million — a then-record average annual salary of $43.33 million.
That remains the richest contract for an external free agent in Mets history (a mark that a Soto deal would quadruple or even quintuple). It did not yield the championship they hoped for, but Scherzer helped change the culture and put the Mets on the map as a well-paying destination.
About a year later, in December 2022, several teams were hot after free agent Brandon Nimmo. Then Cohen reached out to Boras.
Nimmo said: “I hadn’t even really heard from the Mets until Steve called and Scott called me and he was like, hey, I’m talking to [then-GM Billy Eppler] and Steve right now. Four hours later, it was done.”
The result: an eight-year, $162 million deal. It was a bit longer and larger than anybody really expected. Once Cohen started talking numbers at those levels, blowing away what other clubs had been thinking, it was a wrap.
“I’m done here. Let’s get this over with,” Nimmo recalled of the end of his time on the open market. “It was just kind of like Steve was ready to get it over with. OK.”
Days after that, Cohen — sipping margaritas on vacation in Hawaii — and Boras agreed to a 12-year, $315 million contract for Carlos Correa. Even at the time, that seemed like a bad idea, especially after Correa’s similar deal with the Giants fell apart over medical concerns. The Mets eventually bailed for the same reason, but it served as another data point: Cohen and Boras like to do business.
So as the Mets engage on Soto, Alonso and others in the coming weeks and months, there are lessons worth knowing. When it comes to Cohen and Boras, Boras and Cohen, contracts can be consummated quickly — and at a level higher than anticipated. Boras extracts value. Cohen has value to extract. Shoot, when it comes to nine-figure commitments to players, Cohen has more experience than Stearns, his president of baseball operations.
And don’t forget what a Cohen colleague said in 2020 during the elongated process that resulted in his buying the team: “What Stevie wants, Stevie gets.”
“I'll do it my way,” Cohen said. “I have a great relationship with Scott. I enjoy the conversation.”
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.
