For Mets fans, Steve Cohen has become face of the franchise
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla.
At one point during the latter years of the Wilpon Era, fans paid for a billboard outside Citi Field that demanded the owners sell the team.
Now these same people come to the Mets’ spring training complex wearing T-shirts with Steve Cohen’s face on the front.
Think about that. Fans have plenty of other wardrobe choices: Pete Alonso, Francisco Lindor, the newly acquired Justin Verlander. Maybe even a Keith Hernandez throwback.
Nope. Better to show love to their beloved champion, the bespectacled hedge-fund titan, a 66-year-old multibillionaire who grew up, like many of them, on Long Island. Not since George Steinbrenner has a New York owner stirred such adoration in a fan base, but with Cohen, there’s none of the contempt that used to be lobbed at The Boss on occasion.
Cohen already was viewed as a savior for rescuing the franchise from the Madoff-derailed Wilpons. But after he plunked down nearly $500 million this offseason on players, virtually thumbing his nose at the cheapskate owners in the MLB fraternity, Cohen’s popularity among the previously downtrodden Mets faithful is off the charts.
At a time when some other markets are screaming for the removal of their tight-fisted owners, Cohen is a bigger Queens hero than Spider-Man (a Forest Hills native) and these days probably is selling more T-shirts, too.
“I pay them to wear them,” the smiling Cohen said Monday. “Actually, I’ve lost some weight, so the picture doesn’t look as good as maybe, well, I don’t know how good it looks now . . . But listen, if the fans get excited by whatever they get excited by, they’re passionate, they feel like they’re a part of something bigger than themselves, I represent the Mets. It’s not me, OK? It’s the Mets. And they’re getting excited.”
Like Steinbrenner, however, Cohen’s presence looms large over his franchise, and his massive investment ($374 million plus another $100 million luxury tax) in this year’s roster figures to be a significant reason for its success. For a fan base begging to have its ownership pony up the cash for a World Series contender, Cohen is the literal answer to their prayers — while being the rest of baseball’s worst nightmare.
When asked what the blowback has been from his MLB brethren, Cohen said they were cordial to him at the owners’ meetings earlier this month. But it’s no coincidence that MLB has set up an economic study committee to examine the growing financial disparity between franchises, mostly due to Cohen’s lavish spending since buying the Mets three years ago.
“I had owners coming up to me and going, ‘You’re 100% right,’ ” Cohen said. “ ‘You are following the rules.’ Which I am. They laid down the rules and I’m following them.”
What else could they do to try to neutralize Cohen’s bold attempts to buy a World Series winner? The owners already got the players to sign off on new luxury-tax thresholds and penalties in last year’s collective bargaining agreement, including the highest one ($290M) named after Cohen himself. That was barely a speed bump for the Mets’ owner.
And good luck with a salary cap. There’s four more years left on this CBA, and Scott Boras would sooner settle for a hometown discount than allow the union to whisper those two words.
Cohen, for his part, tried to play nice when asked Monday if he would support a salary cap for baseball.
“I’m not going to say for now,” he said. “I would need to understand the underlying rules behind it. The answer is I’ll make that decision when we get there. But I totally sympathize with the issues in baseball. And, ultimately, I want to develop a farm system and lower our payroll to something more reasonable. I’ve always said I’m ‘bridging.’ I’m open to new ideas, but I have to understand the underlying facts.”
We don’t doubt that Cohen truly wants to build up the Mets’ organizational depth and create a talent pipeline modeled after the Dodgers’ machine-like efficiency in that area. Not only is that a way to compete using cheaper stars, but it also would allow him to use those chips to trade for game-changers that otherwise would be unavailable.
From what we’ve seen so far, however, it doesn’t seem as if Cohen could just go cold turkey when it comes to free agents, either. He definitely appears to enjoy the rush of his spending sprees, along with the rock-star treatment that follows. No matter how many billions he made, Cohen didn’t get on the back pages until he purchased the Mets. Now he’s a regular, and you can’t buy that kind of coverage — unless of course you’re throwing money at Verlander or Japanese ace Kodai Senga.
With Shohei Ohtani and Manny Machado likely on the market next offseason, Cohen is going to be first in line, checkbook in hand. And if there is any hate directed at Cohen by the envious world outside New York, or from the suites of rival owners, Mets fans will love him even more.
“When I do something, I don’t do it halfway,” Cohen said. “When I’m in, I’m all-in. I don’t accept mediocrity well and I have certain high expectations. If it requires me to invest in this club, then I’m going to do it.”
Not that Cohen even has to say those words anymore. He had Mets fans at hello.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
