Juan Soto got $765 million over 15 years with not a single cent deferred on Sunday night. It’s the largest contract in sports history in terms of total value owed and will be carried out until the young Dominican superstar is in his early 40s. But what’s more important than where Soto’s contract takes place – the New York Mets, whose employees woke up on Monday as excited for work as they’ll ever be – but the person who gave it to him.
Enter Steve Cohen: Mets owner, hedge-fund manager, and born New Yorker. But most importantly, a solid guy.
Throwing Money At Your Problems, Done Right
Steve Cohen is rich. $21.5 billion dollars rich according to Forbes. That’s so rich that he’s not only wealthy compared to other MLB owners but wealthy enough where expectations for him were and are unique. He purchased a minority stake in the Mets in 2012 at eight percent and became the majority owner in October of 2020.
His big portfolio brought Mets fans hope for big moves, which were delivered. Star shortstop Francisco Lindor inked a ten-year extension with the Mets after they traded for him from the then-Cleveland Indians. They followed that up with signing outfielder Starling Marte and former Cy Young winner Max Scherzer in preparation for the 2022 season. After winning over 100 games in 2022, they locked up closer Edwin Diaz to a five-year contract after putting up one of the most dominant seasons by the relief pitcher we had ever seen.
But then in 2023, the “same old Mets” reared their head winning just 75 games. The disappointments came despite adding 2022 Cy Young winner Justin Verlander to go along with Scherzer. Cohen and the Mets ended up selling the deadline by trading both Verlander and Scherzer to bolster their prospect system, effectively forfitting a disappointing season. Cohen’s spend-happy philosophy the fans knew him for seemed to be reaching a wall.
So we pivoted. In the 2023, the Mets didn’t do much in the way of signing the big names that every fan wanted their team to pursue. They were “in” on several players, but landed none. Fans were disappointed, feeling like they had lost their ways. But rather than spend money because they felt like he had to, Cohen had a plan: save the money for the bigger fish in the next free agency cycle.
“I did a complete pivot, and I think I shocked baseball,” Cohen said in an interview with CNBC. “But for me it’s just natural.”
A lot of people inferred, correctly, that “big fish” was referring to Soto.
And it paid off: the Mets offered $5 million more than the Yankees were willing to, which is all it took to go from a couple big names to one of the most perfect hitters of the past 50 years.
The Cohen Way: Baseball First, Baseball Second
Baseball is notorious for its poor culture when it comes to ownership showing passion for the game of baseball over profit. Cohen doesn’t think that way: he views his commitment to baseball as an act of service to those who invest in him as much as he invests in the team.
“I do (view the Mets as philantropic),” Cohen said. “That’s why I bought the team. That’s exactly why I bought the team.”
“I said it in my original press conference – if you can make millions of people happy, how cool is that? And so I actually view it as a civic responsibility.”
Cohen could have very easily held onto the big names that enticed so many Mets fans – they sell jerseys to hardcore fans and sell tickets to casual ones. But Cohen’s commitment to delivering a great baseball product was the most important thing.
The trades gave the Mets a slew of prospects to develop a farm system that could creates sustained success that will attract free agents. Ones like Soto. Rather than do a third round of injecting talent into the roster, they decided to actually build one out from the ground up.
It’s a refreshing, holistic approach coming from a wealthy owner of a big market team. Rather than throwing a blank check at every hole on the roster, Cohen has been and will be willing to be patience with his wallet’s losses to make sure the fans in Queens get the prolonged success they’ve wanted for so long. Even if it’s not quite in the way they intended.
Written by Anders Pryor