NY Mets rumors: Steve Cohen won’t give David Stearns the shovel he gave Billy Eppler

This year’s New York Mets trade deadline approach is going to be different. One of the latest rumors to come out is courtesy of Jim Duquette who has been splashing cold water all over potential Francisco Lindor trade scenarios.

One of Duquette’s latest has to do more about the team’s entire strategy over the next 2+ weeks. Unlike 2023 when Steve Cohen opened his wallet and paid a large portion of what was still owed to Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander, he doesn’t sound quite as open to it this time around.

The boldness of the 2023 Mets trade deadline had very little pay off. By picking up the salaries, the Mets added good prospects who didn’t turn into much. Luisangel Acuna was traded for Luis Robert Jr. Drew Gilbert last year to rent Tyler Rogers, and Ryan Clifford will be lucky to hit his weight in Triple-A this season.

We can’t blame Steve Cohen for refusing to give David Stearns the same shovel he gave Billy Eppler back in 2023

This will be only the second time under Cohen where the Mets were deadline sellers. They tried and failed in 2021 with Javier Baez as the biggest addition. The 2022 and 2024 attempts got them into the playoffs with the former not packing a large enough punch to get them out of the Wild Card round or even win the NL East which was theirs for the taking. In 2025, they bought again and came up well short in what was on paper a good deadline but in reality not.

The Mets aren’t a cash cow for Cohen. They lose him money. This year, once again, he’ll be in the red.

The creativity of the 2023 trade deadline netted the Mets some impressive prospects for sure, but the pay off never happened. Other prospects added, like the ones for David Robertson and Tommy Pham, are still with the organization but stuck in the lower levels and not impressing a whole lot.

It sounds like the Mets will have a more standard, inside the box type of trade deadline than they did before. Maybe that’s for the best coming from a team sometimes caught overthinking things. David Stearns is regarded as a “baseball genius” both by his fans and those who aren’t impressed but in a sarcastic tone. A more standard rental for your best offer might be best for the Mets after all. We’re certainly open for some surprises like adding a controllable player. For sure, Stearns can’t help but do something unexpected.

What he won’t be able to do is trade a guy like Bo Bichette with Cohen picking up any future salary.

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