New York Mets: Steve Cohen’s Riches Still Came Through Again In Trading Deadline
The New York Mets obviously have had a disappointing 2023 campaign. They’ve been playing under. 500 baseball for most of the season and are 7 games back of the last Wild Card spot in the National League. And that is also with the highest payroll ever in Major League Baseball history at nearly $364 million.
With the trading deadline approaching in midseason and the Mets having a bad season and seemingly in a tough position to make it back to the playoffs, the team decided to be in selloff mode. In a six-day span, the Mets traded David Robertson, Max Scherzer, Mark Canha, Justin Verlander, Tommy Pham, and Dominic Leon. In all these trades, the Mets received eight prospects in return. They also traded cash to the Los Angeles Dodgers for two pitchers as well.
With all these deals, a lot of the attention has gone to the Mets owner Steve Cohen, who basically did the opposite of what he’s mainly done as owner so far.
When he took over as the owner back in 2020, Cohen came in with a boatload of cash and riches. In fact, he immediately became the richest owner in baseball with his hedge funds. And Cohen didn’t waste much time, using his riches to try to make the team better.
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Cohen traded for shortstop Francisco Lindor from the then Cleveland Indians in the 2020 offseason and signed Lindor to a 10-year, $341 million contract. Then a year later, he signed Scherzer to a 3-year, $130 million, making Scherzer the highest-paid pitcher. Then last offseason, Cohen signed Verlander to a 2-year, $86.7 million contract. He also re-signed Brandon Nimmo and Edwin Diaz to multiple-year deals, and he also signed Japanese import Kodai Senga to a five-year, $75 million contract.
With their 2022 signings, the Mets sported the highest payroll in baseball not only this season but in the history of the game at $385 million. By the way, the Mets won over 101 games last year with one of the highest payrolls.
Unlike the previous ownership regime of the Wilpons, Cohen brought up the Mets payroll to one of the highest again with his spending. While the Mets have been considered a cheap organization under the Wilpons, for not spending as much as a big market franchise normally does, that is not the case under Cohen. Not only has Cohen made the Mets the most expendable team in baseball, he set a record for the highest payroll ever in a season.
However, the 2023 Mets have underachieved and have been a major disappointment. So Cohen has now done the opposite. He has been in selling mode during this trading deadline and trading away pieces in order to build a winning team in the future. Not only has he traded some of his players, he is also still paying some of the traded players’ salaries, in order to get a bigger prospect in return.
Steve Cohen is unlike any owner and is not afraid to do anything in order to improve the Mets as a whole. We already saw his strengths as a spender, willing to go all out on any free agent that he covets, and willing to pay the most amount to them, just like he did with Scherzer and Verlander.
But with the Mets floundering this season, Cohen has now been willing to trade even some of his signings in order to better the future. Ever since he became the Mets owner, he has strongly talked about a desire to improve the farm system and make the Mets a winning team in the long run. And he has drastically improved the Mets farm system within less than a week span.
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The way Cohen has improved the farm system, was because he is able to still pay a good amount of money to the players that he traded. Especially with Scherzer and Verlander, who Cohen will pay $35 million to each of them. With Scherzer, Cohen was able to acquire Luisangel Acuna, who is Atlanta Braves star Ronald Acuna’s younger brother. Acuna is already now the Mets’ No. 2 prospect behind catcher Kevin Parada and has been raking it in Double-A. He is expected to make it to the majors next year.
With Verlander, the Mets were able to get two of the Houston Astros’ top outfield prospects, including their No. 1 prospect in Drew Gilbert. The Mets acquired a total of eight prospects in all their midseason trades and four of them are now in the Mets top 10 among their prospects. All because Cohen was able to sacrifice more financially even while selling.
Once again, Cohen came in as the richest owner in baseball and so far, he has put his riches to good use in the Mets most of the time.
There were the spendings that he made early on, that propelled the Mets to a 101-win season last year.
And even in a disappointing stretch now, Cohen has put his riches once again to good use, to improve the future now with multiple prospects all because Cohen was willing to still pay some of the salaries for all the departed Mets players.
