Steve Cohen (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Steve Cohen has had an extra few days to stew on his team’s 0-4 start after a pair of rainouts and while it has not been an ideal start for life with president of baseball operations David Stearns and manager Carlos Mendoza — both in their first seasons at their positions — he’s trying to take the long view of things.
“It’s only four games into the season,” he began while making an appearance on CNBC. “You still have a lot of time left to do what you do. Sure, nobody wants to start 0-4 during the season, but it’s early. During the season, you’re going to have losing streaks. We just happened to have one at the beginning.”
His sentiments echoed what Mendoza put forth on Monday night following the Mets’ 5-0, 10-inning loss to the Detroit Tigers to remain winless in 2024. In four games, New York’s struggling offense has been held to one or fewer runs three times already.
“At some point throughout the course of the year, you’re going to go through stretches like this, and for us, it happens to be the first four games of the season,” Mendoza said then. “It’s one of those things where we’re trying to keep things simple, control the things you can control, and try to compete.”
The slow start has taken low expectations surrounding the team entering 2024 and sunk it a bit further, even if it is so early in the season. Cohen and Stearns repeatedly implored that the Mets were going to compete for a playoff spot despite not going all-out in free agency over the winter.
Such a move lines up with Cohen’s philosophy of building long-term sustainability within the organization. The Mets have a crop of promising prospects brewing in the farm system, whether that be Luisangel Acuna, Drew Gilbert, Jett Williams, or Christian Scott.
Developing from within not only provides a steady stream of talent, it also keeps the figures somewhat smaller in Cohen’s checkbook after blowing by Major League Baseball’s luxury tax. For every dollar he spends this year, he’s charged an extra 110 cents, which is why he explained on Opening Day the need to be opportunistic rather than overly aggressive as he had been in years past.
Come next winter, though, such sentiments might go out the window when the likes of Juan Soto and Corbin Burnes are available on the open market. Slugging first baseman Pete Alonso will also be a free agent and will require a sizable contract to remain in Queens.
Such is life when carrying the responsibility of being a philanthropist — as he described it — for a starving fan base.
“I don’t care about the cost side,” Cohen said. “That’s why I bought the team. That’s exactly why I bought the team. I said in my original press conference if I can make millions of people happy, how cool is that? I actually view it as a civic responsibility.
“Nobody wants to lose money forever and spend money and not have success. To me, I deem success as not only getting in the playoffs and winning the World Series. It’s also developing a deep farm system that creates talent over the years — over and over again.”
For more on the Mets and Steve Cohen, visit AMNY.com
Source link
