While everyone bemoans the 2026 season, how nothing worked out as planned, how injuries and slumps derailed the post season plans and how roster inclusions made by David Stearns failed spectacularly, there’s another way to look at the club.
Step back for a moment and think about that metric. Is it good, bad or mediocre? For point of comparison, during the Wilpon era the Mets were worse. From 1981 through 2020 while the Wilpons held the reins the Mets were 3776-3875, a negative winning percentage of .494. If viewed through this scope it would appear the Cohen era is a net positive change.
Delving a little deeper into the 2021 through 2026 seasons you have the Mets above .500 three times and below .500 three times (assuming no miraculous finish closes the 15 game gap during the current year).
So how do you view the Cohen ownership? Has he spent money? Most definitely. Have the results matched expectations? Probably not.
What needs to change?
Well, issue number one is the front office. Good or bad, the fact is that David Stearns has demonstrated more bad than good during his tenure post Milwaukee Brewers. He’s made some highly questionable contract decisions, allowed some stellar players leave the team without effort to keep them and gambled badly on the health of various baseball personnel with the results indicating poor scouting or indefensible choices.
Next would come the guy in the dugout with the lineup pencil. Luis Rojas was a bit of an odd choice. Buck Showalter was more good than bad for this club but the fit never seemed to work perfectly under this regime.
Then came rookie manager Carlos Mendoza who did not demonstrate the ability to motivate his highly questionable roster to perform at a top level which resulted in him becoming the scapegoat for players he did not select. Now Andy Green is keeping the lineup pencil in his pocket as an interim skipper while the club prepares for Carlos Beltran or someone else to be named after the 2026 season for the Mets comes to a merciful end.
Another aspect of this period was supposed to be the vast improvement of the minor league system, but the arrival of lower rated prospects from other organizations who ascended to higher spots when becoming a part of the Mets’ less than stellar hierarchy. It would seem that this revision and enhancement of the minor leagues has not panned out as hoped.
Then there is the continual inertia about people who simply are not getting it done. I’m not going to reiterate the laundry list of below average performers who return year after year. Sometimes it is a matter of long contracts being impossible to move. Other times it is the patience awaiting young players to propel themselves into solid major league personnel. Then there are times when addition by subtraction would seem to make sense (think Frankie Montas, for example).
So how would you grade the Cohen era New York Mets organization?
12 comments:
This is a tough answer for me to determine.
I recently had a personal relationship with him that went sour post trading deadline.
What did you say?
.513?
That's not buying you shite in Peter Lugar's.
You can't compare apples (Cohen) to REALLY rotten oranges (Wilpon).
I will say this...
Cohen's many failed decisions at GM, whatever the hell POBO is and manager prove he should have stuck to hedge funds.
Hedging in baseball ownership is so Charles Finley.
Cohen’s job was to provide the money, and that’s what he did. It’s not his fault that one GM turned out to be a pervert, then got fired and went to Chicago and told the Cubs to go after PCA. Then, another GM got pulled over drunk. Another GM got busted for doing what every other GM does with the IL.
Even with Stearns, there are moves to pick on and moves that you don’t. He didn’t get rid of any “stellar” players. Let’s get real. Did you like Diaz’s two consecutive blown saves this weekend and 10.80 ERA for the season so far? There were no stellar players lost. And while the Montas move was scorned immediately, what other move was? I thought Polanco and Bichette were two solid players. I knew Semien was getting older but didn’t think he would crater that badly. And I liked the Robert trade for Acuna. My huge issue was not firing Mendoza when it was obvious the team had no motivation. I don’t care if he is Santa Claus in real life and Stearns shouldn’t either. It’s his job not to care. That is probably the only real failure that I give him in real time and not the benefit of hindsight.
The Mets are just 11 games out of the Wild Card, and everyone is hitting but Juan Soto. Figures.
Oh, I forgot! The ?2025 trade deadline disgrace of a season from trading for Mullins and putting a hot Mauricio to the bench, to trading three assets for a sidearming middle reliever. Helsley was supposed to be better and Greg Soto was needed, but Mullins and Rogers were foolish and shows that Stearns needs a buffer.
The Polanco injury killed them. No one saw the Senga crapola coming.
Peralta crapola, too.
And that Baty and Vientos, without Pete in their way, would simply suck?
Manaea? How were they to know he’d throw 88 in April, but 95 now?
Now, Robert is hot, Bichette is hot, Young is hot, Lindor is hotter than he was, Alvarez/Torrens are hot, Semien is hot, Their problem is no one can hit on Pity Field when it is cold and damp in the spring.
You are wrong Gus
He picked these flawed leaders. That's on him. Due diligence and picking seasoned winners with moral values were and always are the right way to go
Leave Baty and Vientos where they are
There's currently
No one in Syracuse that can help this team this year
This is your team
If you are a fan watch them tonight play the Braves
If not, watch Sophie Cunningham
Texas, what was the injury history of Robert Jr. and Polanco?. How do you ignore that?. Jose Siri, Mullins then Robert Jr.
What other team would have paid over 40M+ per year for Bichette?. What other team would have paid Polanco the money he is getting?.
The simple fact is that the Mets traded a very good BP of major leaguers for a couple of good prospects and a bunch of lottery tickets. But guess what? that BP will have to be replaced for 2027 at a much higher cost in all likelihood.
I question why the Mets did not keep a part of the team that was working well in order to trade it for prospects that will in all likelihood not impact the 2027 season.
Soto, Ewing, Benge set outfield.
Alvarez, Torrens set catchers.
Would have had a set BP.
Holmes, McLean, Scott, Manaea, Thorton/other. Good with a chance to be great if the kids improve from 2026.
Only needed a couple of hitters. Now add BP pieces to it and at least one #1 starter.
Cohen has done what he promised, put out the money.
I don't have a settled view about the Cohen era so far. Of course it is disappointing, but an emotion like disappointment is always relative to a baseline of expectations and I have no reason to think that any of us put a lot of thought into what was a reasonable set of expectations. I don't think Cohen did either, as he was overcome by enthusiasm and excitement as were the rest of us
I am genuinely dismayed by some of Stearns' moves. And even more dismayed by what strikes me as the wrong approach (and I am talking only about things I know something about, i.e. understanding of biomechanics, movement patterns, and learning and ingraining environments, etc) to player development.
I usually agree with Viper, but we were not in a position to keep our bullpen. We had only two players of those we let go under contract: Weaver and Brazoban. Nothing we could do about Raley and Minter choosing FA. Same with Holmes as a SP. I don't think we can expect next year's bullpen to perform as well as this year's, but then again even if we kept everyone somehow, I would not have expected it to perform as well as this year's unit.
Weaver and Brazoban both performed significantly above their priors.
So all we had control of re: pitching staff, going into next year were: McLeean, Scott, Thornton, Manaea, Senga, Williams, Weaver and Brazoban.
Senga is moved to the BP, We always would have needed two starting pitchers either from FA or trades: one to replace Holmes, and one to replace Manaea, who is in the last year of his contract and a very likely trade candidate at the deadline or gone in any case at the end of the year.
Viper, relievers are very fickle. They can lose it from year to year and Weaver and Brazoban IMO were pitching better than we all expected: they were cashed in.
Holmes was going to opt out and he was open about that. Everyone else was a free agent after this year.
Bichette was offered $27MM per year by the Phills for seven years and that agreement was basically done, with Bichette signing the next morning. Everyone knows the Mets overpaid, but it is a year to year deal and it was last minute because Tucker got $60MM from that National League team from Los Angeles and the Mets had to save face.
I didn’t know Polanco’s injury history but Robert Jr. only cost Acuna whom I wasn’t sad about losing. Mullins was a disgrace of a deal, I wrote that the day it happened and have kept repeating it; ditto Tylor Rogers.
Jules, Manaea has one year left. Megill’s will be back next year for his last year. Senga will be in his last year.
My memory failed me: Bichette walked away from $200MM for seven years, or close to $29MM per year, from the Phillies.
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