Steve Cohen barely needs to do anything at all to be a massive upgrade over the Wilpons
Around the time Steve Cohen almost bought the Mets, the first time, I was skeptical about the immediate celebration.
Viewing his vast wealth as a cure-all for the Mets is to overlook his propensity for crime, the kind of white-collar madness likely to trickle its way down to unemployment lines or 401(k) plans — even before a global pandemic devoured our economy. Also, even if he wasn’t forced to rinse his dirty hedge fund money with a baseball front, MLB’s perverse incentives may keep him from blowing away the league in a way that reflects his wealth.
But the case for Cohen, and for hope, is almost perfectly analogous to the actual roster languishing in fourth place not from a lack of overall talent, but a few singularly glaring, easily patched holes.
By upping his stake in the Mets to 95% — don’t worry, the Wilpons' 5% can’t hurt you — Cohen fills a void that’s been missing in Flushing for almost 20 years. He doesn’t need to be a “good” owner or even steer clear of, say, Department of Justice investigations. No matter what he does, he’s certain to be at least a marginal improvement, and with how the Mets are currently constructed, all the team needs to be turbocharged into a contender is above-replacement level ownership.
