Mike Anthony: Steve Cohen sets confident tone and restores hope during introduction as Mets owner
As a young boy attending Mets games with his father at the Polo Grounds in the early 1960s, or with his buddies at Shea Stadium in the years to follow, mellow Steve Cohen must have found it impossible to make his voice heard over a crowd.
Maybe he screamed at the top of his lungs when Cleon Jones caught the final out of the 1969 World Series, or when Mookie Wilson’s chopper went through Bill Buckner’s legs in 1986. But until recently, and outside of those rare moments of glory, Cohen was just a quiet voice from a deflated fan base.
How appropriate that this is the guy setting a new tone for the franchise of his childhood.
“I’m essentially doing it for the fans,” Cohen, a billionaire hedge fund manager and the Mets' new majority owner, said Tuesday during an introductory Zoom call. “I can make millions of people happy. And what an incredible opportunity. … We want to be excellent in all areas of this game. That’s going to require resources and I’m fully committed to making that happen. I’m not in this to be mediocre. That’s just not my thing. I want something great, and I know the fans want something great. So that’s my goal, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
To listen to Cohen Tuesday was to believe him, and to believe in something. One calm, confident message at a time, everything changed for Mets fans. One of their own is in charge. And he happens to be one of the wealthiest people in America.
Message matters more than volume. Cohen, who lives in Greenwich, didn’t exude cockiness or let years of frustration show or make any wild declarations. He didn’t put on a show. He just showed the imaginative joy that’s been in him since he was a little boy growing up on Long Island, and the even-keeled style of leadership on which his fortune was built.
The 34-year Wilpon Family ownership era, only occasionally sprinkled with moderate success and usually about saving a buck, is over.
New possibility, new hope, has arrived in Flushing.
Because Cohen has the most important seat at Citi Field: at the head of the boardroom table.
“I’m not going to talk about a budget today,” Cohen said. "But what I do believe is that this is a major-market team and it should have a budget commensurate with that. I can promise you we’re going to act like a major-market team. Are we going to act like drunken sailors in the marketplace? No. I want to be thoughtful. You can spend a lot of money today and tie up your team in bad contracts for the next five years. You want to make decisions not on what works for the next 60 games, but what works for the next few years.
“I’m a very motivated, very proactive type of guy. I just don’t sit back and accept mediocrity. You’ve got to set goals. We should set high goals.”
Just like that, New York has two functional baseball franchises.
Cohen, 64, grew up in Great Neck, N.Y. He is CEO and president of Stamford-based Point72 Asset Management and his estimated net worth is north of $14 billion. He paid $2.4 billion for a 95 percent ownership stake in the Mets. He had been a minority owner (8 percent) since 2012.
Under the Wilpons, there were runs to the World Series in 2000 and 2015 but the franchise was more often in line with the Jets as a second-fiddle NY JV operation with a defeatist’s mindset in a cash-strapped owner’s suite.
The Mets spent only enough — and only often enough or wisely enough — to achieve the mediocrity Cohen mentioned as what never to settle for.
“I sort of equate a minority owner to a season ticket holder,” Cohen said. "You don’t really have a lot to say. Now I am the owner. I get to be in charge myself. ... I’m not in this for a short-term fix. I’m trying to build a sustainable franchise. I don’t want to be good one year and bad three years. I want to be good every year. That’s the type of business and team I want to build. I’m very measured and very calm and try to be very thoughtful about things. I think impulsive decisions tend not to work.”
Cohen appears to be what every fan deserves in an owner: a proven businessman, passionate about the team, hellbent on winning. Pressed on how involved he’ll be in baseball operations, Cohen might have been at his best Tuesday when acknowledging that there is plenty he doesn’t know.
“I played Little League once,” he said. “That’s about it. I’m going to leave it to the professionals.”
Sandy Alderson, Mets general manager in 2010-18, has returned as team president. The GM who replaced him, Brodie Van Wagenen, and other front office members were let go. Luis Rojas is likely to return as manager, Alderson said, but that decision will be more seriously considered after the hiring of other key executives.
The Mets have a decent core of players, many of them home-grown, but plenty of holes. They have finished fourth in the NL East three of the past four years.
Does the start of the Cohen era mean George Springer and Trevor Bauer are on their way?
Not necessarily. It certainly means the Mets are going to be free agent players in a way they haven’t been.
“The Mets are a storied franchise,” Alderson said. “Some of the stories have been good. Some of them have been bad. If we want to be an iconic franchise, which I think we are capable of doing, we have to write more good stories than bad and occasionally we have to write a really epic story. That’s what excites me about these next few months and years.”
Alderson mentioned that all the impressions one makes as a person or organization add up to a reputation.
Cohen nailed his first impression. He couldn’t have struck a better tone Tuesday. He immediately rebuilt trust and optimism, even said his expectation is to win a World Series in the next 3-5 years.
The work toward that begins now. The Mets have the necessary resources, and an owner as invested emotionally as he is financially.
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