Cautious Optimist -- The Mets Are Finally A Start Up With A Big Investor: They Need to Act Like One

 

If you don't know where you are going every road will take you there

On the other hand, even if you know where you trying to go, you still have to figure out how to get there.  

Many promising roads prove to be dead ends. 

The Cohen Mets have never lacked for a destination. 

From the day he took over ownership of the team, Steve Cohen identified two goals for the Mets: Win a championship within five years and enjoy the sort of sustained success over the long term that would make the Mets one of the premier franchises in the baseball. 

They have, however, lacked a roadmap for achieving those goals. 

It may well be true that you don't know what you've got till it's gone.  But it is equally true that you don't know what you've gotten yourself into until you've moved in.

That is surely the situation Cohen and his team found themselves in.  As a result they found themselves trying to solve a myriad of problems simultaneously almost from the outset, including:

*     Figure out how to structure the organization, as the one they                   inherited was little more than a family organization.

*     Develop a talent evaluation and development program.

*      Assess the talent at the major and minor league levels.

*      Create a pipeline of talent in the minors that would set them up for            ongoing success, while

*      Adding enough talent at the major league level to win a                            championship in the near term.

And more.

The task they faced would have been easier with an expansion team, starting afresh.  

These are challenging conditions for authoring a credible roadmap to success, and it is not surprising that the Mets were guilty of overpromising and underperforming.

In fact, in retrospect, I don't believe the Mets fully understood that they lacked the talent in the major leagues to compete for a championship in the near term until last offseason, nor did they appreciate that they did not have sufficient talent in the minors -- let alone a pipeline -- adequate to secure sustained success over the longer term until this season.

They were mislead by the surprising success of the 2024 team and by the high ranking of their minor league system in 2025.

The disastrous second half of the 2025 season was eye opening regarding prospects for imminent success at the major league level; and the putrid first half performance of all their minor league affiliates in 2026 sounded a similar alarm about their overall talent level on the farm.

They were a year late on both accounts, but it's hard to blame them for that given the misleading signals they had received.

It's easy to fault the FO for underperforming, but the real mistake was overpromising in the face of so little information.  Maybe they believed that all their problems could be solved by money.  In which case they were no more mistaken than was the majority of the fanbase.

And they did end up spending lots of money, much of it to clean up the mess, clear the brush, and pay down a few poor decisions that displayed more hubris than insight.

But the truth is that once the FO realized that there was no way that the core of the existing team could compete for a championship at any reasonable cost over the short term, they shifted gears and pushed out their window for competing to 2028.

And then once they realized that they lacked the talent in the minors necessary to supplement the major league roster, they turned their attention to infusing talent into the farm system, at key positions up and down the leagues.

At the same time, they obviously decided that the approach to developing talent needed an upgrade as well.

The Mets overall have been around for over 65 years, but the Cohen Mets took a few years to achieve the status of a genuine startup. 

They reformulated the time frame for their goals, set out to structure their organization, bring talent aboard and create a product that would succeed in the market place.  All they needed was a plan.

Their first effort at creating a plan was not well conceived.  Rather than throw good money after bad at the major league level, they would bide time by creating a bridge team that would be competitive until the minor league replacements for the both the bridge players and those the team let go in the purge of the 2025 offseason would arrive in 2028.

The plan was doomed from the outset.  The bridge signings were disastrous and had provided little reason to think they would merge with the remaining post purge players to form a competitive team.  Half the signings had injury histories and spotty performance records.  The saving grace in all but one case was the short duration of the the contracts.

Once the expected injuries occurred and the better players from the farm were called to major league duty, it became obvious that there just wasn't that much left on the farm across all the positions that would need replacements.  What a mess.

On the other hand, the Mets did a hell of a job correcting for the deficit of minor league talent both in the draft and in the trade deadline deals they made.

Like a good startup, they quickly and decisively pivoted from their orginal plan.  Instead of a bridge team to be supplemented by talent drawn from the minors, the new plan has adopted the opposite approach.  The championship team and the teams thereafter will fundamentally be drawn from the talent now in the minors and soon to be supplemented by even more talent at key positions.  That core is as much formed by Benge, Ewing, McLean, Scott and Thornton as it is by Lindor and Soto.  The only bridge player worth taking seriously at this point is Bichette.

Semien and Polanco have no real place on this team going forward.  They haven't earned time over the likes of the top prospects on the infeild, Voit, Petri and Rojas, among others not all that far behind them.  Tong and Santucci are knocking on the door.  What we are looking at is a reversal of approach where the vets will be brought in to supplement the in house talent, and not the other way around.

I believe that we have witnessed in effect a revision of the original plan (which only came into being last offseason) in the light of the new evidence presented by this season's performance. New manager, additional baseball voices, an infusion of a good deal of talent into the farm system.

We are almost at a dawn of a new beginning, but we haven't yet chosen the roadmap we will follow.  I say that because while there is no doubt that the future will be driven primarily by in house talent finding their ways to the majors: talent that has been chosen for speed, versatility, athleticism and defense, the fact is that it is not obvious that enought of that talent will be ready next year. Which leaves us with two possible roadmaps:.

Two options

I think there are two paths that can be successful, and I am pretty sure that fans (and perhaps voices within the organization as well) will disagree about which to pursue.

These are: 

* The transformation continues

* The hybrid approach steady the ship and pick your spots as you continue transformation

According to the latter plan, keep some of the vets. -- Lindor, Bichette (his choice, not ours), Manaea, Senga;  the new talent from the minors is infused slowly with respect to position players, with only one of the three top prospects (in my view of them) -- Rojas, Petri and Voit -- making the roster to start the season, unless Reimer or someone else like Amick, becomes part of the 1B platoon.  Gaps in pitching -- both starters and relievers -- are filled by a mix of FA, trades and promotions from the farm. 

Pitching is the anchor of the team that is being built: pitching and defense.  The team has exhausted its inhouse pitching talent ready to compete for starting jobs -- when you add Tong and Santucci to the current mix.  You don't have a top rotation guy or an innings eater.  With the exception of McLean no one currently on the staff can be counted on for for a majority of 6-7 innings performances and no one is an ACE.  So we need to go outside the house and look for trades and free agents, but not as bridges, but as the additional pieces to complement the home developed talent.

This is true whether we choose the hybrid or the transformational plan.  The advantage of the transformation plan is that we infuse more talent into the mix immediately through trades.

As long as it is clear that the main driver is transformation, I can see slowing down the process this year while bringing in heavy duty talent -- especially pitching talent to set us up for the long haul. Our hand may be forced to infuse minor league talent -- perhaps prematurely -- if Bichette opts out

And so we return to money.

You knew we couldn't escape it.   If we go the hybrid strategy for the next year or two, we will be asking Cohen to pay for a high priced pitcher or two, a platoon right hander at 1B (either Goldschmidt or Tucker until Amick or Reimer is available. If one of those pitchers is Skubal we are talking real money.

But our ask is greater still.  Because the one thing we have to do no matter which plan which choose is close the books on Semien, probably do the same with Polanco who will give us less than a full season at best, get rid of low priced players like Vientos, and the slew of AAAA players from Wagaman to Melendez to Pasche and Morel who created one of the worst benches in baseball.  No competitive team can afford to have those players being the core of their bench, let alone receive regular playing time. 

And we have to request that Cohen replace them with short term professional major leaguers. Semien is 47million over two years; Polanco is 20 million for a half a season.  Add the price of a Skubal or an extension for another top of the line pitcher obtainable in a trade and an innings eater -- not to mention two or three bullpen pieces and your are looking at another 100million in payroll for this one year.  

It's not my money but I think it may be worth it.  Manaea comes off the books as do Senga and likely Bichette  after next year, and the payroll is right back where it belongs.  

You don't pass on what you need if the additional costs last only one year and do not carry over.  But hey it's not my money.

The transformation approach is not a terrible alternative if you are a bit of a risk taker, want to save money and bring in more talent.  You trade Alvarez along with Semien for someone who will take the entire contract and you get a B player back -- maybe a good bench player.  That clears a lot of salary.  Maybe you trade Lindor as well and you pay off half his remaining contract and get top flight minor league talent or a back of the bullpen guy as well as another piece, and your financial commitments go way down -- especially if Bichette leaves as well.

More likely, the Mets may choose either to close the books on players or add new talent, but not both.  This is not acceptable as we don't want to lose momentum and we are only paying year of additional costs to do both.

Would you pay Polanco, even at his best, 20m for next year to platoon with Young or Baty at 1st base?   Of course not.  There are going to be lots of other 1 or 2yr options from the right side that can give you terrific defense and real pop against lefties (e.g. Goldschmidt or Walker). 

I am sure there are others as well, maybe Reimer. I don't know yet.

Do you think you will get more out of Semien than you will out of either Voit, Rojas or Petri?  I don't think so, and you certainly won't the year after next.  Voit, Rojas and Petri will cost you under 1m/year no matter who you choose, so in effect at worst you will have to pay no more than 1m more to get better performance and change the speed and defense of your team by bringing one of them up to play second over the next two years.  

To me that is a no brainer.  And if you can save some of that money with a trade of Semien where you pay more than half of his salary and throw in a pitcher like Wenninger, I am all for it.

Don't compound mistakes.  

Remember, if you are a start up, you are in the 'growth and scaling' phases of development.  The worst mistake you can make is behaving like a value company -- GE or Wells Fargo -- and do the equivalent of buying back your own stock.

And we can no longer underestimate the role of a sound bench.

Whether it means no Baty and/or no Mauricio is up to them.  

It's going to a special time in Mets Land.  Startups always are.

What path do you think the Mets should take?