Mets: How Steve Cohen can score a hat trick with Mets fans this offseason

1) Fire General Manager Brodie Van Wagenen and hire a new General Manager

Usually, when new ownership comes into an unstable organization many changes are made at the top, and I don’t see this scenario being any different. I could envision Cohen wanting to rebuild the front office from scratch with his own personnel and bring in a new manager as well, as Luis Rojas is currently tied to Van Wagenen and he wasn’t even his first choice.

While not all moves have been bad with Van Wagenen as the General Manager as he acquired J.D. Davis, brought Pete Alonso with the big club on Opening Day last season, and has had some really solid drafts the last couple of seasons, several moves have not sat well with Mets fans.

Unfortunately, the move that forever will be tied to Van Wagenen is the Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz trade two offseasons ago. The trade hasn’t exactly panned out in our favor to this point and the Mets lost one of the most highly regarded prospects in all of baseball in outfielder Jarred Kelenic. Also, I would hate to even bring up the Jed Lowrie robbery of a contract so we’ll move past that one.

Another black eye on Van Wagenen’s resume has been the amount of pitching depth in the Minor Leagues that have been depleted. In a season where the Mets have been starved for pitching and looking for hope in the minors aside from David Peterson, the Mets have traded away pitchers Justin Dunn, Anthony Kay, Kevin Smith, Jordan Humphreys, Simeon Woods-Richardson, and Blake Taylor all within the last two seasons. While the Mets do have highly regarded prospect Matthew Allan in the minors he is at least two to three seasons away from any kind of impact at the Major League level.

There is also the experience factor as Van Wagenen is a highly regarded baseball agent and sorely lacks front office experience compared to his peers. I believe Cohen will want to bring in somebody with a stronger background in regards to front office experience as well as baseball operations experience in general.

2) Extend Outfielder Michael Conforto

One glaring issue that will be staring the Mets in the face this upcoming offseason is star outfielder Michael Conforto will be heading into spring training under the final year of his contract. It can be argued that there may be no bigger signing this offseason for the Mets than locking up their homegrown star for future seasons to come.

The 27-year old Conforto seems to be hitting his prime with his career year at the plate this season and losing Conforto after next season would no doubt set the Mets back, as well as question the intentions of new owners who can spend big.

Whoever the Mets General Manager is this offseason would have it in their best interests to lock up Conforto before Spring Training, and you can imagine Steve Cohen will have a big part in that negotiation process. The goal for the Mets is to keep as much of this successful nucleus together while still having Jacob deGrom in his prime. Conforto is one of those key pieces the Mets can ill afford to lose moving forward.

While we don’t know what Conforto’s asking price may be, you can imagine he will want to be paid among the top outfielders in baseball. A realistic asking price from Conforto’s agent could be between $22-$25 million which would put Conforto among the top five paid outfielders in baseball.

Since Conforto’s debut with the Mets back in 2015, many around the game of baseball have always been high on his potential as being one of the best outfielders in baseball, and it seems everything has finally come together for him. Conforto’s well-deserved extension could be Cohen’s first big deep pocket move as the Mets owner this offseason.

3) Trade shortstop Amed Rosario for a position of need

In what has been a strange year around baseball this move may be one of the least likely the Mets would’ve envisioned coming into 2020. There is no question Amed Rosario has struggled this season at the plate and he has lost the momentum he had carried from the second half of the 2019 season where he looked like the Mets permanent answer at shortstop.

Rosario has gotten significantly outplayed this season by rookie top prospect Andre Gimenez and even reserve infielder Luis Guillorme. We have to remind ourselves it wasn’t that long ago that the 24-year old Rosario was floated around in potential blockbuster trades including this past offseason.

Unfortunately for Rosario, it has simply become a numbers game with the Mets as they have a glut of shortstops. Gimenez is showing promise both at the plate as well with his glove, and not to mention the top overall prospect in the Mets system is shortstop Ronny Mauricio who is also waiting in the wings. The best move Cohen can make in this scenario is to move Rosario this offseason for a need either at the Major League level or a promising young arm that the Mets sorely lack in the upper levels of the Minor Leagues.

While Rosario’s stock isn’t nearly as high as it has been in past offseasons, he will only be 25-years old at the start of next season and he won’t be a free agent until 2024. There are certainly teams that will line up to take a chance on him, and having a potentially young disgruntled player surrounded by question marks, who also lost his starting position, is probably one of the last things Cohen will want to deal with during his first Spring Training as Mets owner.

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The Mets will have to be flexible this offseason in acquiring new talent as their farm system isn’t rated among the best in the baseball community. Maximizing a position of strength and dealing Rosario could help the Mets acquire a player who could potentially help contribute in 2021 and beyond.