Steve Cohen seems eerily hands-off with the NY Mets, maybe it’s for the best

If you’ve been waiting for Steve Cohen to kick open the vault door and start tossing $100 million deals like it’s a T-shirt cannon at Citi Field… surprisingly, that hasn’t been the vibe. And after a winter that’s already included Pete Alonso leaving for Baltimore, Edwin Diaz to LA, and Brandon Nimmo getting shipped to Texas in the Marcus Semien swap, Mets fans have every right to be staring at their phones and ask, “ Are we doing the part where we replace the stars?” 

Cohen being quieter doesn’t mean he’s checked out. It means the Mets are finally operating like a team with a real organizational plan — and Cohen is putting his faith in David Stearns without needing a daily headline attached.

The Mets feel strangely calm this winter, and that might be the point

Cohen basically acknowledged the panic on the timeline and preached patience, telling fans (via reporter messages) that he understands the reaction and that “there is lots of offseason left to put a playoff team on the field.”  That line is either reassuring… or the exact kind of thing you say when you know the next move won’t be the loudest move.

And honestly? This version of “hands-off” might be the healthiest thing he has done since buying the team.

Stearns isn’t building the Mets like a fantasy baseball roster. He’s building them like an actual sustainable operation, which can look painfully boring right up until it works.

That’s why the most interesting clue this week didn’t come from Cohen at all. It came from Tim Healey, who pointed out how little public buzz there’s been around Munetaka Murakami with his signing window closing Monday — and noted an AL exec’s suggestion that a shorter deal with opt-outs could make sense: prove it, then cash in. 

Now, are we saying Murakami is definitely a Met? No. The whole market around him has been weirdly quiet, and the deadline pressure is real with the posting window ending Dec. 22 (5 p.m. ET). 

But the structure of that idea — short-term, opt-outs, flexibility — screams “Stearns in a hurry.” It’s exactly the kind of sneaky, calculated play he could pull in the next few days while everyone’s begging Cohen to make a splash for the dopamine hit.

Because Cohen’s job now isn’t to cosplay as GM. It’s to be the bankroll and the backstop. The guy who signs off when Stearns says, “This is the smart risk,” not “This will win the press conference.”

If that means a less chaotic offseason and a few more moves that feel like chess instead of fireworks, Mets fans might hate the process… right up until they love the results.