Mets Owner Steve Cohen Continues To Do The Thing Owners Seldom Do
He stopped managing the message and told the media how it actually feels.
“I said I wanted to do something great for New York, I’m failing,” he told the New York Post.
I respect the honesty. This is a team that was the worst in baseball through the season’s first quarter and lost twelve in a row in April, the longest skid this franchise has had in more than two decades.
When it gets that bad, accountability from the top changes the temperature of a building. Players feel it when ownership eats the result instead of pointing down the roster.
Cohen ate it. He said he’s “getting ripped around the dinner table,” that he watches every game, that he’s “dying with the fans.”
All of that reads true, and all of it matters.
The honesty is the easy part now. The diagnosis is where I part ways with him.
Cohen’s framing of what went wrong is the tell: “What the hell happened here? You can have good process, and decisions don’t work out,” he said. “Trust me, I’m holding them accountable, and they know it.”
I’ve written some version of this all season, so I’ll say it plainly.
The process is the problem.
Keep the Architect, Abandon the Philosophy
This front office has leaned so far into probability and matchup math that it has coached the instinct out of the roster.
Good process is not a clean alibi when the same process keeps producing the same passive laissez-faire baseball.
A team of this caliber that can’t consistently put the ball in play, can’t move a runner, and can’t come back in close games does not have a bad-luck problem; it has a “feel” problem. You can’t fix a feel problem by trusting the model harder.
Stearns is Safe
The headline out of the room, though, is that nobody up top is losing a job over this. Cohen is keeping David Stearns, and he made the case that stability is its own value, that you can’t keep flipping the front office and expect any consistency.
I can surely grant the argument.
Constant regime change is how organizations stay stuck, and Stearns deserves the runway to fix what hasn’t worked. Cohen also said Stearns knows mistakes were made and expects him to learn from them, which is the right posture from an owner.
In that case, accountability has to show up as a real change in how this roster is constructed, not as a fired manager and a firmer tone. If the 2027 team looks and plays like the 2026 team, the accountability was rhetorical. There is a philosophy that desperately needs to be abandoned.
Mendoza the Mercy Shot
The Mendoza firing fits the pattern. Cohen called it a “mercy shot,” and he laid out the logic cleanly. “I think it came down to one simple question: Were we going to extend Carlos or not? And if the answer was no… give him a break, guy’s sitting in front of the cameras every day,” he said.
As a piece of reasoning, that holds. If you’re not extending the manager, you don’t leave him twisting for three more months in front of a microphone.
But firing Carlos Mendoza does not touch the actual issue.
Mendoza didn’t build a lineup that can’t capitalize with runners in scoring position. Andy Green, running the club on an interim basis, inherited the same personnel and the same organizational hitting philosophy.
The manager was never the reason this team seems to play scared. There is an air of passiveness that cannot permeate this club any longer. The longer it goes unaddressed, the more this team will struggle.
The Line to Shape the Next Month
Speaking with Joel Sherman and Jon Heyman, Cohen said he’s “not afraid” to be a seller at the deadline the way the Mets were in 2023, though he’ll let it play out.
That is the most important thing he said all day.
A seller’s deadline for a team with Juan Soto signed through the next decade means something specific – treating 2026 as tuition and moving temporary pieces for players who fit a different identity.
If I’m in that room, I’m buying starters, bat-to-ball, and speed – not another “Moneyball” stat-filler piece, and not another out-of-position project.
There is a foundation in this organization, and the pieces around it need to make contact and put pressure on defenses. Cohen made clear that neither Soto nor Francisco Lindor is being traded, which is the only sane answer.
The money is mostly spoken for, too.
Mets’ Next Manager Must Be a Baseball Guy
Next year’s payroll sits near $300 million if the options get picked up, and the real financial flexibility doesn’t arrive until 2028, with the 2027 roster built under the current rules before the new labor terms take hold.
2027 is the true pivot – and hopefully more athletic on the margins.
The manager search waits until the offseason, and Cohen isn’t worried about the pool. The Mets pay, the market is enormous, and the roster still has a superstar core. This team needs a real gutsy “baseball guy,” a non “yes-man,” and someone who can restore instinct in a clubhouse that has lost it – someone the players trust to find ways to win games.
Soto vs. Lindor Beef
Cohen also closed the book on the Soto-Lindor storyline directly.
He confirmed the two didn’t get along last season and said it’s resolved. “Frankly, I think that’s a story that was last year’s story,” he said. “With the elimination of whatever issues there were last year, I’m thrilled that they’re on the team.”
The Fan in Cohen
The most human stretch of the availability was about the fans, because Cohen is one. He talked about answering texts and emails, about feeling every loss the same way the people in the stands do.
He drew a single line, on the booing and the chanting. “Chant anything you want, but when it gets to the point where you ruin the experience, cmon,” he said.
He also admitted the obvious about his own platform. “I hope I came across as someone who cares. It’s really hard to communicate on Twitter.”
Here is Where it Stands
Cohen gave the fanbase the honesty it deserved and a diagnosis. He said his goal was sustainable winning and admitted the Mets haven’t built it. The path back runs through two decisions he already teed up. The deadline will tell whether this front office can admit the roster needs a new identity, with or without new names. And whether they still believe a spreadsheet can replace instinct.
The talent still shows in flashes of cohesive and gritty play, and the owner is engaged – that combination is worth something. Now the organization has to prove it can build a team that plays the game the way it’s supposed to be played.
That is the standard, and Cohen has set it himself.
