Mets fans will hopefully never go through what the Pirates faithful are right now

We all know it’s great to have Steve Cohen as the owner of the New York Mets. To stay grounded and appreciate what he brings to the organization even more, let’s take a trek across Pennsylvania.

If you’re looking for a team in Major League Baseball expecting to lose 100 games in 2021, look no further than the Pittsburgh Pirates. Everything must go! The team has traded away just about every player of importance making any sort of significant money and they might not be done yet.

The Pirates, a team seemingly in perpetual rebuild mode, are at it again. This time, they have the built-in excuse of the lost revenues from not having fans in the seats in 2020 and being limited to just 60 games.

Steve Cohen would never put Mets fans through this, right?

Pirates fans have probably gotten used to this by now. Other than the brief period at the earlier part of last decade when Andrew McCutchen was an MVP and the team was competitive, it has been a long journey of losing seasons.

The once delightful franchise that gave us legends like Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell, and Barry Bonds is now beyond a laughing stock. They are hardly even a major league team.

I understand all teams have to go through a rebuild at some point. We saw it with the Mets in 2017 when they sold off all of their veterans on expiring contracts. Even the New York Yankees sold in mid-2016 when they had no hopes of making the playoffs.

Under the ownership of Cohen, I’m not so sure Mets fans will experience anything close to what people in Pittsburgh are going through. At worst, we get a repeat of 2017—hopefully, with a better return in any trades the team does make.

We’re all still getting to know Cohen a little better. However, everything seems to indicate he cares about winning as much as anyone else; possibly more.

What a Mets rebuild might look like

There will, of course, come a time under Cohen’s reign when the Mets aren’t winning a World Series. They may not even make the playoffs or finish at .500. It’s inevitable. Injuries happen. Players underperform. And fans make vacation plans in October when they realize their baseball team won’t have anything to do.

Any rebuilding phase by the Mets in the near future would look a lot like what the Yankees did in 2016. It’s the best example out there of getting something back for your top players on expiring contracts.

Not only did the Yankees manage to trade Aroldis Chapman for Gleyber Torres, they also managed to re-sign Chapman again during the offseason. Less of a rebuild and more of a temporary retool, it’s exactly what we can hope to see from the Mets rather than this garbage approach they are taking in Pittsburgh.

I truly feel for the fans in Pittsburgh who are loyal to that baseball team. It’s a travesty in sports when a franchise doesn’t even field a competitive squad. Although it’s all part of a strategy to save money and hope the prospects turn into big league studs one day, it doesn’t exactly thank the fans properly for making your organization worth watching or giving money to.

Owners need to remember one thing. The game isn’t about them. It’s about the fans.

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Thank goodness Cohen can grasp this. He is, after all, one of us.