What Mets owners Fred and Jeff Wilpon can do to make up for this offseason

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – APRIL 10: Point72 Asset Management and Gala Chair Steven A. Cohen speaks on stage the Lincoln Center Alternative Investment Gala at The Rainbow Room on April 10, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images for Lincoln Center) /

Bring Steve Cohen back to the negotiating table

Imagine being a racehorse, with a clear path to winning the Kentucky Derby. Now imagine tripping just short of the finish line and finishing in last place.

This is how best to describe how the deal for Steve Cohen to buy the Mets crashed and burned. When the deal was first announced, fans were elated that years of Wilpon mismanagement would soon be gone. However, the terms seemed to raise suspicion.

Five years of Fred Wilpon as the control man? Cohen only getting 80 percent of the team?

Then more came to light. Jeff Wilpon would need to stay in the organization in some capacity. The years of Wilpon control would double to ten. After what seemed like a couple of months of a silver lining, the deal died a horrible death.

While the Wilpons have insisted the team is for sale and are currently working with Allen and Co. and noted expert in team sales Steve Greenburg, the odds that they will find a better offer than Cohen’s deal are incredibly slim. Alex Rodriguez’s supposed interest in buying the team, while it makes sense from a certain standpoint (A-Rod being a Mets fan) doesn’t make sense from a financial standpoint since he and his wife Jennifer Lopez are significantly poorer than Cohen, and would need to build a consortium of owners to at least meet Cohen’s mark.

Fans clamoring for Jerry Seinfeld to buy the team also need to realize that Seinfeld is worth 1/12th of what Cohen is worth, and for that matter, while he is one of the biggest celebrity fans of the team, is probably not interested in buying the team.

On the other end of the wealth spectrum, Jeff Bezos’s net worth is nine times that of Cohen. He may have gotten close to building Amazon’s HQ2 in New York, and he has expressed interest in buying a sports team and supposedly has enough money to buy the entire NFL and every New York City pro sports team. However, even though a $2.3 billion dollar purchase would be a drop in the bucket for Bezos, he has not shown any interest in buying the Mets.

Cohen as of now is the best offer on the table for the Wilpons and if they want to get the money they believe the Mets are worth, they really should start talking to Cohen again.