New York Mets owner Steve Cohen admitted that he is “extremely worried” about the future of his ball club and its farm system, in particular.
The Mets are currently 36-51, good for last place in the National League East and just two games up on the Colorado Rockies for the worst record in MLB.
Moreover, although the Mets have a decently ranked farm system, many of the team’s top prospects have already graduated to the big leagues, and some have been traded away, something which is worrying the team’s owner as it reflects on what the team may look like in the future.
Steve Cohen ‘Extremely Worried’ About Mets’ Future
Speaking to the New York Post, Cohen explained why he is “extremely worried” about his franchise.
“I’m extremely worried, Good teams develop players and have a pipeline of players. When we looked at last year we were generally feeling pretty good about our farm system. We’ve had regression in our farm system. Now I’m told that ‘development isn’t linear.’ It isn’t like some straight line where everything goes up. That doesn’t mean that some of these players will over time improve where they are today. When you’re looking at things objectively and you’re saying, ‘How are we going to get better?’” Cohen said.
Cohen admitted that the big-money contracts the team has on its roster will make it difficult for the team to add more players, as even though Cohen is rich, the Mets don’t have an unlimited player budget, which is why drafting and developing players is so important.
“Between signings where we couldn’t get the players on the field and some lack of performance from some of our younger players, it set us back. When you think about, OK, where is the help going to come from, it’s really concerning to me. But development isn’t linear. We’ll have to figure it out. (In) ‘27 looks tougher. Our budget is – depending on who opts in and who opts out, we could be close to $300 million already. It doesn’t allow us a lot of flexibility. Do we see other players coming from the farm system to sort of buttress what we already have? Maybe, maybe not,” Cohen said.
New York Mets Right Now
The Mets were blasted by the Toronto Blue Jays on July 1, losing 9-3 as they dropped two of the three games in the series to the struggling Blue Jays.
There doesn’t seem to be a lot of optimism for the team going forward, as the Mets have been a complete mess all season long, which is one of the reasons why former Mets manager Carlos Mendoza lost his job.
While Cohen has confirmed that president of baseball operations David Stearns will remain in place as the team’s top baseball executive, he can’t feel too good about his job security these days given how poorly the Mets have been playing.
We’ll see how the Mets play the rest of the year, but given their massive payroll, there is no way that Cohen can be happy with the results.
Steve Cohen ‘Extremely Worried’ About Future of New York Mets