A deep dive into Steve Cohen's comments about David Stearns and Mets mess
Plus, the Mets have now dropped five straight series after another ugly day in Toronto...
What’s Up with the Mets? ⚾️
The Mets dropped their series in Toronto after being blown out 9-3 by the Blue Jays on Wednesday afternoon (box)
RHP Freddy Peralta was lit up on the mound, allowing five earned runs on seven hits with three walks and four strikeouts over four tough innings
Peralta now has a 4.81 ERA on the season through 18 starts
Sandwiched in-between scoreless outings from RHP Joey Gerber and LHP A.J. Minter, LHP Cionel Pérez was shelled for four earned runs on five hits with one walk and two strikeouts over 1.1 innings
The offense did nothing until the last few innings with RF Carson Benge’s two-run homer in the 8th and SS Francisco Lindor’s solo shot in the 9th proving too little too late
New York managed just seven runs and 17 hits in the series against Toronto, while going a combined 0-for-17 with RISP
The Mets have now lost 10 of their last 12 games and have also dropped five straight series
Owner Steve Cohen came out and publicly backed President of Baseball Operations David Stearns, making it clear that Stearns would see out the remainder of his five year deal (NY Post - The Show)
Mets rookie OF Ryan Clifford will participate in the 2026 All-Star Futures Game in Philadelphia (MLB.com)
Injury Updates 🏥
RHP Joey Gerber exited Wednesday’s game with a blister on his right finger
Play of the Game 🙃
The Freddy Peralta experience continues to go from bad to worse for the Mets.
After working out of a bases-loaded jam in the first inning, Peralta began to implode in the third.
It began when Ernie Clements sent an RBI double over the head of Carson Benge to push Toronto’s lead to 2-0. However, the knockout blow arrived shortly after when Sean Keys sent a fastball the opposite way for a three-run home run to blow the game wide open.
Peralta never recovered from that, and neither did the Mets.
Who’s Hot? 🥵
LHP A.J. Minter has not allowed an earned run over his last 13 outings
Over his last seven games, SS Francisco Lindor is hitting .240/.296/.560 with six hits, two home runs, five RBIs, two walks and four runs scored
Who’s Cold? 🥶
RHP Freddy Peralta has now allowed a total of 23 earned runs over his last six starts
Over his last seven games, 3B Bo Bichette is hitting just .200/.276/.240 with just one RBI and nine strikeouts
Over his last seven games, C Francisco Alvarez is hitting just .120/.154/.320 with one RBI and 12 strikeouts
Over his last seven games, INF Ronny Mauricio is hitting just .158/.158/.368 with one RBI and seven strikeouts
The Just Mets Podcast 🎙️
In the latest midweek edition of The Just Mets Podcast, Andrew Claudio and Rich MacLeod react to Steve Cohen addressing the state of the team on a new podcast appearance, Eric Chavez's curious comments, and the Mets series loss vs. the Blue Jays.
SUBSCRIBE: YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify
Down on the Farm 🌾
C Ben Rortvedt (Triple-A): 3-for-5, 2B, R
1B JT Schwartz (Double-A): 3-for-5, HR, 2B, R, 2 RBI
RHP Noah Hall (High-A): 5.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 4 BB, 8 K
LF Trace Willhoite (High-A): 2-for-5, HR, R, 5 RBI
RF Yohairo Cuevas (High-A): 2-for-3, 2 HR, 2 R, 4 RBI, 2 BB
BOX SCORES
Single-A STL | High-A BRK | Double-A BNG | Triple-A SYR
Today’s Game 🗓
The Mets are off on Thursday and will head to Atlanta ready to open up a four-game series against the Braves on Friday.
Making sense of Steve Cohen’s headline-grabbing comments ✍️
You would think that getting blown out 9-3 to lose a fifth series in a row would be the main show today.
You’d be wrong.
Such is the car crash nature of this season where the Mets dropping another clunker in Toronto is actually an afterthought today. That’s because owner Steve Cohen came out of exile on Wednesday to appear as a guest on the New York Post’s “The Show” podcast with Jon Heyman and Joel Sherman.
And boy did Cohen generate plenty of headlines.
Let’s start with the obvious. Oh, and if you want to watch the full interview, you can do so by clicking HERE.
Cohen wasted little time in jumping to the defense of his under-fire President of Baseball Operations, making it abundantly clear that David Stearns will be seeing out the remainder of his five-year contract and won’t be going anywhere. And for those who may ask, Stearns has two-and-a-half years left on his current deal which goes through the end of the 2028 season.
Naturally, Cohen’s public backing of Stearns stole the limelight and rightly so. Mets fans have been waiting to hear from their owner for a while now, and any comments about Stearns were always going to gain considerable traction. To that point, I think Cohen can be commended for trying to shut down the outside noise by making it clear that Stearns’ job is safe. That should help to close the circle a little bit. At least for the time being.
With that being said, I do think that Cohen may have taken it a step too far. Declaring that Stearns will see out the remainder of his contract is not only folly, but it now paints Cohen into a corner. If Stearns retools the roster once again this coming offseason and the team stinks (again) in 2027 — if we even have a season to look forward to — is it really feasible for Stearns to be allowed to keep the keys for yet another year?
I do understand where Cohen is coming from in relation to his comments about “burn and churn” and scaring off potential future candidates if you keep on firing people. I get the need for stability, especially where the Mets are concerned. But on the flip side, is it really prudent and a sound business decision to triple-down on what could eventually prove to be a bad hire? The Mets are currently 208-203 under Stearns’ tenure, and I just can’t see how the team can continue to stick with him if results continue to trend downwards. This is a team that is now 74-106 over their last 180 games dating back to last June, after all.
Now, I did find it interesting that Cohen alluded to doing a deeper dive behind the scenes to try and find out how the train came off the tracks so badly. It will be interesting to see if some big organizational changes could be on the way, although Cohen also stressed that he doesn’t want to be an owner that constantly interferes.
He did go on to talk about certain players struggling to adapt to playing in New York. That certainly seemed to be the case last year with certain players brought in at the trad deadline like Ryan Helsley or players signed this past offseason like Bo Bichette, who clearly struggled to adapt to a new team. Trying to identify players with the intangibles needed to thrive in a big market isn’t exactly an exact science so it will be interesting to see how Cohen and Stearns tackle that moving forward, but at least they are aware of that issue and are open to changing their approach.
I mean, could Freddy Peralta be a player Cohen is talking about? The starter hasn’t come close to living up to expectations so far in Queens and he laid yet another Godzilla-sized egg on Wednesday, giving up five earned runs to bloat his ERA to an ugly 4.81 on the season. Even if you had tempered expectations for Peralta based on his career in Milwaukee, no one could have ever predicted these results.
Cohen’s chief source of worry seemed to be the regression of the team’s farm system. Not only have we seen massive regression in the minor leagues for top prospects such as Jonah Tong and Ryan Clifford, but the stunted development of the likes of Mark Vientos, Brett Baty, Francisco Álvarez, and Ronny Mauricio at the major league level has also dramatically impacted this team in a negative manner. The lack of growth from these players in the big league is a big factor as to why the Mets haven’t become the sustained winner that Steve Cohen has hoped they would become, and this front office will need to do a deep dive as to what exactly happened with this last crop of Mets prospects who failed to meet (or even come close to) expectations. Especially because the franchise can’t afford to make the same mistakes with A.J. Ewing, Carson Benge and Nolan McLean.
One comment that really stood out to me was when Cohen said “I give a lot of rope, and now I got to pull in some rope and figure out how to improve things.” That line fascinates me because, in the context of everything we’ve outlined above, it does suggest that Cohen is willing to get a little bit more involved in order to stop things sliding off the cliff even further. What that looks like exactly remains to be seen, but it does at least paint the picture that Cohen is still very invested in building a World Series contender in Flushing. Yes, mistakes have been made, but I don’t think there is any world in which the Mets were better off before Cohen. And the fact that he spoke so openly about wanting to address and correct those many mistakes should strike a positive chord with all of us as fans.
There were a few other juicy nuggets, too. On the subject of firing Carlos Mendoza, Cohen said that it essentially came down to the franchise knowing that it wasn’t going to renew Mendoza’s contract at the end of the season. So, essentially, the now-former Mets manager was put out of his misery. Or, as Cohen put it, it was a “mercy shot.” And Cohen did make it clear that the six-error game against the Cubs seemed to be the final straw. Again, all of that makes sense. I think most of us can agree that Mendoza wasn’t the main culprit for the mess we’re currently witnessing but he certainly wasn’t blameless, either.
Elsewhere, Cohen confirmed the long-standing rumors that there was a rift between Juan Soto and Francisco Lindor last season. He didn’t go into too much detail on that, but he did stress that the duo are “getting along much better” while adding that he has no plans to trade either Soto or Lindor. Look, it was clear that there were issues in the clubhouse last year. Whether all of those issues have been totally eradicated can’t exactly be known by those of us on the outside, but if we are to take Cohen’s comments at face value, the fact that Lindor and Soto have a better relationship is a big plus. They don’t need to be best buddies, but as two of the best players on the team, a positive relationship is beneficial for everyone.
Another confirmation we got from the interview was that Cohen did step in on the Edwin Díaz negotiations. Ultimately, the reliever had his heart set on joining the Dodgers, so you can’t really fault the Mets for that. They tried, but if a player doesn’t want to play for you, what can they really do?
All in all, I think it was really important for Cohen to come out and speak, and he addressed a number of concerns while giving thoughtful, detailed answers. It’s something that no other owner in the game of baseball would be willing to do to that degree. Of course, these words ultimately need to be backed up by tangible actions and fans want to see a real response to what has been a long stretch of really bad baseball. To that point, I’m not personally sold on Cohen’s determination to stick with Stearns no matter what despite everything we’ve seen play out so far. I think that’s a mistake.
But, with that said, I think it is crystal clear that Cohen still very much cares about the Mets and is still committed to winning. I thought he came across incredibly well, and it is also very apparent that he’s just as bothered as all of us by all of this losing.
Ultimately, you have to admire the honesty, transparency and passion from Cohen, while hoping that he can finally get things right over the next couple of years and put the Mets back on course for a World Series.
Around the League 🚩
The MLBPA made several transaction proposals to MLB on Wednesday, including increases in roster sizes and reducing the number of times a player can be optioned to the minor leagues (USA Today)
A’s DH Brent Rooker will undergo knee surgery and will miss the remainder of the 2026 season (MLB.com)
Cubs SS Dansby Swanson slugged three home runs, including a grand slam, and finished with eight RBIs as Chicago destroyed the Padres, 23-3
Rays 3B Junior Caminero tied a franchise record by homering in his sixth straight game in a 4-0 win over the Royals
Tigers INF Zach McKinstry’s clutch single in extra-innings propelled the Detroit to a 6-2 win over the Yankees, and a first series sweep in the Bronx since 2008
Phillies SS Trea Turner hit a three-run home run off Pirates RHP Paul Skenes, who allowed a career-high eight runs across four innings in Pittsburgh’s 10-6 loss to the Phillies