Paul Articulates - It starts at the top

As the weeks and now months have gone by since the end of the World Series, it has been remarkable to watch how the New York Mets have maneuvered through their off-season.  From the initial qualifying offers to the roster decisions to the minor signings and then the big Soto deal, the Mets have deftly navigated their way towards a better 2025 team.  In the business of baseball, this is no easy feat, as you are competing with 29 other teams for the best talent and have to solve the multivariable equation that is presented by all the players that you have and that are available.

If you were to just dive into this without a plan, it would have disastrous results.  There has to be a very well thought-out strategy underpinning every move, and a full board of options to pursue when the primary path is blocked.  You need a very deep and well-researched set of data on your players, your opponents’ players, and the full set of draft choices, international prospects, free agents, and trade targets.

I believe that the Mets have laid a very strong foundation for this year, and it will be built upon for many years going forward.  Their scouting system seems stronger based upon some of the moves that worked out last year.  Their player development, analytics, and technology appear to be producing results already.  The leadership in place from the top of the organization to the dugout to the farm system appears to all be in synchronization.  This kind of operation is only built with great vision and commitment from the top.  

If you pay attention to the articles in Mack’s Mets and across the media as well as the comments, you see a trust and respect for the Mets leadership that is unprecedented.  Long gone are the days where fans were just waiting for the next short-sighted move that resulted in underperforming or incompatible players.

Steve Cohen has changed this organization by focusing on building the organization.  This is vastly different than past organizations that pursued star power without a thought as to how they would be complemented by the surrounding team.  No, this approach began with strategy, invested in infrastructure, and hired the people that knew how to work with that.  That is a difference that will withstand the test of time.  There may be good years and bad years, as fate always delivers a fickle twist.  But the core will continue to strengthen and will support many great seasons to come.

So as we scour the networks for news about player signings, trades, and organizational moves we are hopeful and confident that the news will be good for the Mets.  The loyal fans that have supported this organization for so many years can feel good about the direction we are headed.

Mike's Mets - Steve Cohen Keeps Daring Us to Dream Bigger

 

You think I'm done?
Hand me my checkbook

By Mike Steffanos

Steve Cohen is giving Mets fans a lesson in what is truly possible with the right owner.

I wrote a piece earlier this week that I liked a lot. I thought I did a good job capturing the euphoria of a lifelong Mets fan (me) responding to Steve Cohen's relentless drive to field a great team. And this was based on all of the signings and what, at the time, was an unsuccessful pursuit of Carlos Correa. As I was finishing up the piece, I saw the information come across that the San Francisco Giants had postponed their press conference to welcome their new star. For a moment, I let myself consider the possibility of Correa becoming available again for Steve Cohen to sign, and then chuckled. This offseason has been a fine antidote to all of us who long suffered under the Wilpons' stewardship of the club, but there had to be a limit — didn't there?

I was walking my two dogs that afternoon after publishing the piece. As always, I had a lot of time to think during that exercise. While, at times, I can inspire my pooches into periods of fast-paced hiking, there are other times when the need to stop and explore the scent of every other rock and fallen leaf will drag our pace down to a virtual crawl. I implore my dog Nutmeg, a Treeing Walker Coonhound mix, to pick up the pace. She just gives me a look with those profoundly sorrowful hound dog eyes, full of pity for me — a creature incapable of comprehending the fascinating world of scents under my feet waiting to be explored — and continues to do pretty much exactly what she wants. And I retreat into my thoughts until she is ready to walk at a faster pace again.

That Tuesday afternoon, I found myself dreaming again about how sweet it would be for the Mets to add Carlos Correa to an already colossal payroll, then chortled at my unbridled avarice. Steve Cohen's aggressiveness is spoiling Mets fans like me, who spent years watching all of the big moves take place outside of Flushing, Queens.

The press conferences to introduce newly added Mets to the fanbase had been coming so fast and furious this winter that I actually got bored with them. Not that this isn't always the case. You can essentially predict what people will say and the questions they will be asked in advance after you've watched a few of them. The Mets generally sign so few big-name players that there isn't a chance to be bored with them. But this year is different. Press conference overload is a real problem. God bless Billy Eppler for continuing to appear excited about the latest signings when he's probably just wishing he could get back to the day's Wordle.

So anyway, while Nutmeg was exploring the world of olfactory wonder, I thought about the Mets teams of my youth. With a few notable exceptions, they were unremarkable. Good years featured numbing mediocrity, while in bad years, the club was barely watchable when Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, or Jon Matlack were pitching. All too often, the Mets' pathetic offense offered them no support. During those years, I first became a huge fan of Strat-O-Matic baseball — still, by far, the best choice for nerdy baseball fans who are convinced they could do a better job managing their favorite ball club. I spent many hours playing the game, usually by myself. I know, pathetic. It's still amazing to me that I ever lost my virginity.

A big problem for young me was that the Mets were so bad that managing them was dull. So I came up with the solution of "enhancing" my Mets ballclubs. At first, this involved a sprinkling of my favorite non-Mets superstars on the roster. Eventually, it became a wholesale replacement of every .200-hitting position player and relievers who couldn't get anyone out. By the late 70s, with Seaver, Koosman, and Matlack long gone, my final roster contained few actual New York Mets. The teams I created were virtual juggernauts in my own personal baseball league play. But I always knew what I was doing was merely an exercise in wishful thinking.

I haven't thought much about those endless S-O-M games in a long time. But when I awoke Wednesday morning to the news of Correa signing with the Mets, it occurred to me that Steve Cohen was doing in real life what I had done back then  — creating a tangible version of my decades-old fantasy. Rooting for the Mets for most of my life meant understanding that you had to settle for what was left over after the big spenders were done picking through the best free agents. Man, it's a whole new world these days.

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David Jacks - Mets are the Bullies Now!

When Steve Cohen bought the Mets it sent reverberations around the league. No longer would the Mets be pushed around - they’d be doing the pushing. 

He started with a bang, trading for, and then signing Francisco Lindor to a massive extension. He followed that up by giving Max Scherzer 40 million a year to pitch in flushing, but this off-season has cemented himself, and the Mets, as the bullies of the off-season. He’s spent more money in free agency in one night than the Pirates have spent in over 10 years combined. No player is off limits anymore. No player is too expensive anymore. So, you want Ohtani? You go through uncle Stevie. You want Soto? Let’s see what Mr. Cohen has to say about that. 

“The Mets are just trying to buy a championship”

You’re damn right they are. In the 90’s and early aughts the Yankees, and more recently the Dodgers, treated the Mets and other teams like their own personal minor leagues. Picking off talent to bolster their championship runs. Mets fans watched as the Wilpons replaced studs with mediocrity and then had the gall to say the Mets were the team to beat. No longer! 

It's the Mets who are coming for your players now. For better or worse that stud under rookie contract in Pittsburgh or Arizona  is now being groomed for the Metropolitans. Everyone complaining about the haves and have nots should realize all these owners can spend, they just choose not too. They treat their teams like a business, and nothing more. THEY are the problem- Not Stevie - he doesn’t need the Mets to be a business. He has several. 

All this spending doesn’t guarantee a championship. There’s an argument that the Mets at over 350 million are still not the favorites for a World Series, but Cohen has brought Mets fans hope. And hope is a wonderful thing, maybe the best of things. 

“What about the kids?”

This actually gives the kids more time and more cover. Alvarez is still very young and this will give him time to cook in AAA (he could still be on the Mets opening day roster too, but only if they have at bats for him). Baty, who played a decent left field for 20 games in AAA, still has a spot now or in the immediate future, as Canha signed a short deal. 

Mauricio will learn to play other positions and will become more valuable in doing so. The short term, high aav contracts, have set the kids up for the future. Currently only Nimmo, Correa and Lindor are here  for the long term. There’s time for the kids and there’s even less pressure now. As Sandy Alderson once said, some prospects are for playing and some are for trading. Stay tuned, the Mets aren’t done, but make no mistake they are the bullies now! 

Mike's Mets - Beyond the Power of Reason

 

By Mike Steffanos

Being a Mets fan often required a good deal of faith, but believing in the franchise is a hell of a lot easier these days.

Things have been progressing slower for Mets fans after the frenetic week of baseball's winter meetings. There have been some press conferences and a surprise near-miss on another huge free agent. The Mets also signed a catcher, ratcheting up the speculation that James McCann won't be back next year. There is still a definite need to procure a productive fourth outfielder. They re-signed Adam Ottavino, but the Mets may also seek to add one more experienced late-inning reliever to the bullpen mix. Beyond that, as the pursuit of Carlos Correa proved, it's unwise to make any assumptions about what the Mets still might do to make a successful offseason even better.

I never doubted that Steve Cohen would be willing to spend enough money to ensure the 2023 Mets were a legitimate playoff contender, but I expected them to take a baby step backward from last season's success. I didn't believe it was realistic to win over 100 games again and challenge for the Division title when so much of their pitching staff achieved free agency. To be clear, it will still be a difficult task to approach that level of success again. The Braves and Phillies have improved their clubs. With all of their excellent young pitching, even the Marlins should be able to find a way to improve on last season's 69-win campaign. But Steve Cohen's willingness to take his payroll beyond any reasonable expectations entering the winter ensured that the Mets would have a real chance to contend for an NL East title again next season.

We Mets fans are now two years removed from the "good enough" Wilpons bumbling ownership. Steve Cohen's relentless drive for greatness stands in almost surreal contrast to those years of stumbling around in the wilderness. A thought occurred to me after the Mets reached an agreement with Koudai Senga to cap off their remarkable week at the winter meetings — in my wildest dreams of what might happen with the Mets if the Wilpons were finally forced to sell, I never pictured anything quite like this. I really just hoped for someone with competence and a few bucks to spend.

There is a famous quote from Voltaire: "Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe." When I've run across this quote, it is usually referencing religious faith. However, Voltaire was notoriously not a big fan of the Catholic Church or organized religion in general. I've thought about this quote often over the years in trying to make sense of how I could remain a fan of the Mets for decades, long after it had become painfully evident that they were one of the most poorly run franchises in American sports. Perrenial, laughable losers, despite the enviable advantage of playing in the largest market in the country.

Since the one actual dynastic period in Mets history faded as the 80s transitioned into the 90s, it's become harder and harder to look at the Mets and see the hope for anything beyond brief flashes of success. I recently stumbled across a piece by Joel Sherman from 2004. It begins with the following quote from Jeff Wilpon:

"I AM not an idiot, I am not abrasive, I am not running the day-to-day workings of the baseball operations, I 'feel the pain' of Mets fans because I am passionate about winning and – most important – I am not going anywhere."

It was a rare sports ownership moment, indeed, where the owner's son felt the need to go on the record and deny being an idiot to the fanbase. But the Wilpons, Jeff in particular, were infamous meddlers, as Sherman's piece went on to document. A few snippets:

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Mike's Mets - Cohen-Vision

 

By Mike Steffanos

While a former New York Met waxes poetic on the vision of the Rangers' organization, things are looking just fine here with the old club. 

In the olden days, hearing the Mets associated with the name of a premium free agent was almost inevitably a precursor of eventual disappointment, even before the Madoff fiasco crippled the team's finances. One of the factors that made Omar Minaya so popular with the fanbase initially was his signings of Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran during his first winter at the helm. I remember feeling electrified by the news of Beltran's signing, fully expecting Carlos to end up elsewhere that winter.

Those signings turned the franchise around. For an all-too-brief period, they made Queens a preferred place to be. Sadly, Minaya's magic faded, soon followed by the owners' finances. By the time Steve Cohen took over the club in November 2020, New York's National League franchise was about as favored a destination as Khabarovsk in January. The eventual cure would take one measure of spending and another measure of winning to turn things around for the Mets.

Newly appointed Mets GM Billy Eppler went on quite a spending spree last November, inking Max Scherzer, Starling Marte, Eduardo Escobar, and Mark Canha just before the lockout shut down baseball. Then the club hired Buck Showalter to be their manager the following month. The Mets were coming off a disappointing season in Cohen's first year as owner. It was clear that Steve Cohen had no intentions of enduring another. I remember thinking that the rapid-fire signings, necessitated by the lockdown, would likely be a one-of-a-kind experience for Mets fans like myself. Not that I didn't expect the Mets to sign some free agents in the future, just not at last November's frantic pace.

As you know, it took only another year before my assumption was blown out of the water. It began late in the evening of last Friday, December 2, with the sad news that Jacob deGrom was leaving town, heading to Texas for oodles of cash with a side order of vision. The Mets headed into baseball's winter meetings in San Diego with a big hole to fill in their rotation and other essential needs to be addressed. The Daily News' Deesha Thosar neatly summarized the events of the next few days in this tweet:

Mets free-agent signings since Jacob deGrom bounced for the Rangers:

-Justin Verlander (2 years, $86.7M)
-Brandon Nimmo (8 years, $162M)
-José Quintana (2 years, $26M)
-David Robertson (1 year, $10M)
-Kodai Senga (5 years, $75M)

$359.7 million guaranteed in one week. 💸

— Deesha (@DeeshaThosar) December 11, 2022

In a scant few days this past week, Steve Cohen's club went on an epic spending spree that dwarfed last November's haul. First, the Mets replaced deGrom with Justin Verlander, the one available starting pitcher capable of truly replacing him, ace for ace. Then they added third and fourth starters to the rotation, an important setup man to the bullpen, and brought their leadoff batter and CF back into the fold. Oh, and they traded for Brooks Raley, finally adding a capable southpaw to the bullpen. A week after deGrom's departure left a big hole in their roster, the Mets plugged that hole and arguably just about every other hole that needed filling.

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Mike's Mets - Savor the Moment

 

By Mike Steffanos

The Mets earning a playoff berth was special. Make sure you enjoy it.

(Note: this post was originally written Tuesday morning.)

When the Mets beat the Brewers to clinch a playoff spot last night, it affected me more deeply than I expected. After all, despite their stumble against the Cubs last week, I've known the Mets were playoff-bound for quite some time. But I shouldn't have taken for granted the meaning of just earning a playoff spot when your team has only accomplished that feat 9 times in the previous 60 seasons. Therefore, I will ignore anyone who tries to crash this party and put a damper on the significance of last night's achievement.

Maybe it's a little petty of me, but I couldn't help but take a little extra satisfaction that this moment happened in Milwaukee. As Gary Cohen mentioned on the telecast last night, the Mets have fared horrendously in that city in recent years. But it's more than that. I couldn't help but hope that Brewers' owner Mark Attanasio attended the game last night and took great displeasure in the result. Not so fun when someone else is denying you something you want, right, Mark?

But, my pettiness aside, last night was special. Max Scherzer comes back and gets his 200th career win in dominating fashion. Pete Alonso hit an absolute bomb of a home run. The Mets beat an ace pitcher in Corbin Burnes. They played an excellent game as a team last night. Yes, the Braves are still on the Mets' heels, and Atlanta is playing the Nationals, who have essentially packed in their season. Nonetheless, last night's achievement really matters. If you run into anyone trying to pour cold water over the good feelings, in person or in the media, freaking ignore them.

Yes, there is still work to be done. I really want the Mets to finish ahead of the Braves. The Mets have only won the NL East six times in 60 seasons. That's an insanely low number. Almost by itself, that number is an indictment of the futility of the Wilpon years. So when I choose to allow myself the right to feel good about making the playoffs, that's not to say that I won't feel much, much better if the Mets manage to take the division. The next time the Mets win the division, whether this season or in the future, will be really special to me in a way that probably only long-time fans could understand.

But ending the playoff drought is a huge achievement. One of the hardest things to do in sports is to successfully perform a U-turn from being a perennial loser to a real contender. It takes more than just spending money (although that certainly helps, no doubt) to change the collective mindset of an organization where mediocracy is an acceptable outcome, and performing horribly when your team needs you the most doesn't leave you "devastated."

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Mike's Mets - Living in the Land of Plenty

By Mike Steffanos

Being a Mets fan no longer means sadly watching the fans of other teams get nice stuff that you can't have.

I was browsing through some of my early posts when I revived this blog in March 2020. I came across this post, written at a time when Steve Cohen had apparently backed off from buying the Mets. It was disappointing — not because I was convinced back then that Steve Cohen would be an ideal owner, but rather it meant that Fred and Jeff Wilpon would linger on the scene for a while longer. As I noted in that post, the Wilpons were "like guests that you were never all that excited about in the first place who have seriously outlived their welcome."

I envisioned a reality show based on ABC's long-running The Bachelor, where I would be allowed to bestow the ultimate rose of Mets ownership to the rich person who checked all of the boxes for me. A little arrogant? Sure, but it was my damn fantasy. I had fun writing the piece.

Although it was written with tongue firmly in cheek, I was pretty honest in laying out what kind of owner I was hoping for. Looking back on what I wrote, it's funny how well Steve Cohen ticked all of the boxes:

He/she needs to be rich. Really rich. Hate to be mercenary, but if you want my damn rose, I don't want to spend the next 10 years worrying about your finances. If you have to ask, you can't afford it. F*** off.

He/she needs to be able to hire good people and then let them do their jobs. Sure, any owner will have a say in any significant money expenditure, but my Big Bucks Dreamboat doesn't have any illusions that he can make day-to-day baseball decisions because he placed third in his fantasy baseball league 7 years ago. Remember, while George Steinbrenner brought the Yankees back to winning in the 70s, he almost buried them in the 80s.

He/she can make a plan and stick with it. I get a freaking headache when the franchise seems to retool and change direction every 5 years or so. Make it a priority to hire good people from top to bottom and build a real organization that can find talent, sign it, grow it and roll it out on a big league field. Splashy free agent signings are cool, but winning is sustained by doing the little things right.

He/she respects the past of this franchise. If you own a team, you shouldn't have to be guilted into honoring those who have shone for your team in the past. Retire a couple of numbers. Celebrate past championships. And for God's sake, I don't want to hear about feuds between you and former players.

Finally, no Drama King/Queens need apply. We've had more than enough of that with our exes. Let's just make it about baseball this time around.

Obviously, Steve Cohen is rich enough that I don't spend any time worrying that his finances could adversely affect how the franchise operates. Quite the opposite, as a matter of fact. Fred Wilpon never had a Luxury Tax level named after him.

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