Owner Steve Cohen Speaks On Struggling Mets: ‘not going to blow up’

The owner of the New York Mets, Steve Cohen, declared that he is “not going to blow up” over his team’s dismal start to the season and urged that neither manager Buck Showalter nor general manager Billy Eppler face immediate termination.

The MLB season of 2023 continues to develop gradually as usual. We have reached the halfway point of the regular season, despite the fact that it is still very early. What comes next is a routine denunciation of the most disappointing team of the 2023 campaign so far, Mets, and what comes next is a relatively noticeable impending checkpoint combined with negativity as a primary principle.

This team had some success in 2022 and was predicted to be a top contender in 2023, but they have so far fallen well short of expectations.

The MLB team with the highest salary in 2023 is the New York Mets. Additionally, it has the largest salary in the history of the sport.

With the massive expectations of winning a championship that come with creating this Mets squad, Steve Cohen has spent in excess of $400 million. Therefore, it seems sense that the team’s difficulties through early May have been concerning.

In general, the Mets’ season hasn’t gone well; their offense now has the 12th-lowest OPS in the NL, while their pitching staff has the 11th-lowest ERA.

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Prior to defeating Pittsburgh 5-1 on Saturday, New York was in the middle of a seven-game losing run that caused its record to fall to 30-34. They are 9.5 games behind the NL East-leading Atlanta Braves, who recently humiliatingly swept the New York Mets, and 3 games back of three other clubs for the wild card.

The Mets had lost seven straight games entering Saturday, including a disastrous 14-7 loss to the Pirates on Friday in which Tylor Megill was chased after giving up seven earned runs in 32/3 innings. Cohen repeatedly mentioned his team’s starting pitching as the team’s biggest problem in an exclusive interview with Joel Sherman of The Post.

“The offense has been fine. Earlier in the year it got off to a rough start. I just think the pitching has been so spotty,” Cohen said before the Mets’ win. “You can’t win games if your pitcher goes three innings, four innings. You just can’t. It is like a cascading effect. It burns the bullpen out. These are veteran pitchers that pitched well last year. I don’t know why [it isn’t going well], to be perfectly blunt. I know they’re working hard. I know they’re motivated, and it doesn’t preclude things getting better.”

By adding Justin Verlander (two years, $86 million), Kodai Senga (five years, $75 million), and Jose Quintana (two years, $26 million), Cohen significantly improved the Mets’ starting pitching this offseason.

Owner Steve Cohen Speaks On Struggling Mets: ‘not going to blow up’

But when asked if Showalter’s or Eppler’s jobs were in danger, Cohen responded that he would wait.

“When things get really bad, I’m not going to blow up,” Cohen told the Post, which published the interview before the Mets’ victory Saturday over the Pittsburgh Pirates. “I don’t think that’s the proper response. I don’t think it solves anything, other than it gives people a one-day story. But it doesn’t really solve anything.

“There’s plenty of blame to go around from a performance point of view. So blowing up, I’m not sure it solves anything. It would demonstrate, ‘Oh, he really cares. He’s one of us.’ But the reality is it’s not going to solve our problems, and I think in some ways it can be demotivating.”

“For now we have good players. They’re talented, they’re smart, they’re passionate, they’re veterans. We have some Hall of Famers. I’m not writing these people off. Their record is too strong to just write them off. I know these guys. I have conversations with these people. I know how much they care. I know how much they want to win. This is a smart group. It’s actually a good, smart, thoughtful bunch. So, if I were to bet, I would bet that they’re going to right the ship, and that’s what I firmly believe. So yeah, am I frustrated? Of course, I’m frustrated. We’re all frustrated. It’s hard to watch your team get blown out or lose leads, but I don’t think that’s going to continue the whole season.”

Eppler, who is in his 22nd season as a manager in a major league, told the Post on Saturday that he had faith in Showalter, a four-time Manager of the Year. Cohen agreed, claiming that the Mets’ issues are “organizational” and expressing his desire to avoid becoming “reactionary.”

“This is an organizational problem, it’s not on any one individual. I think it’s a joint effort. In the end, everyone has to put their heads together, make sure that we’re all communicating and being open with a common goal of trying to fix what we can fix and be on the same page.”

Cohen, a hedge fund manager headquartered in New York, bought the team in November 2020 for a record $2.4 billion, turning the Mets become one of Major League Baseball’s most expensive teams during the preceding three years.

“That’s not how I’m going to run this team,” he said. “That’s not how I’m dealing with my people. And if people don’t like it, what can I tell you? I’m gonna do it the way I do it. I don’t know who they thought they were getting.

“Just because I spent money doesn’t mean a change — I’m gonna run it in my style: thoughtful, involved. And sometimes there are no easy answers. And you have to accept that.”

 

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