3 questions we'd ask Steve Cohen about the Mets if he was given truth serum
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We gave Buck Showalter some truth serum a few weeks ago and asked a couple of questions. Now it’s time to trick New York Mets owner Steve Cohen into getting his injection. We want the truth. We can handle it.
Time is short. We need to pick carefully. There’s only time for three questions. Let’s start asking and see what he says.
1) Question for NY Mets owner Steve Cohen on truth serum: Who is on the hot seat?
It has become a big topic for the Mets and I’m not quite sure how legitimate this hot seat talk is. Buck is supposedly on it. Some have speculated about Billy Eppler needing to do more to save his job. Undoubtedly this means there are more coaches and employees in the analytics department who could be getting fired sooner than later.
I think an honest answer from Cohen may surprise us. As cutthroat as he has been as a businessman, I don’t think Cohen is one to fire people at will.
There is a George Steinbrenner factor with Cohen only in some areas. He’s much softer. He’s a man of the people. The demand for success is there. He has proven to have a human element to him in many of his thoughts.
Steinbrenner was certainly a charitable man, but a confrontational one, too. Cohen, as long as we hand in a legal-binding paper forbidding us from discussing the answers to these questions, might even answer us without the truth serum involved.
I think he’d admit he is disappointed in the results and will believe he has an understanding with Showalter, Eppler, and others how this is unacceptable. In truth, a guy like Eppler is probably shaking in his boots. On the truth serum, Cohen would say he’s going to give them the full year to figure it out with the full intention of getting rid of as many people as possible if they don’t meet his expectations.
2) Question for NY Mets owner Steve Cohen on truth serum: What are your thoughts on the Francisco Lindor contract?
We have Steve Cohen in a room. We need him to answer the hard stuff. The $341 million contract handed down to Francisco Lindor before he even played a game for the Mets is another ongoing discussion among fans. How does Cohen, the man who has to work a double shift in order to afford Lindor, feel about it?
A truly honest answer from Cohen would be that he definitely wishes they had waited. The Mets have shown they’re willing to move on from a player they traded for. They did so with Chris Bassitt. There is a line to draw and they would’ve done so if Lindor stunk in 2021 and didn’t have a deal in place.
Cohen would have had the opportunity to explore other shortstop options. Would any have been better? Corey Seager wasn’t all that great in 2022 but has reminded us of his star power this year with the Texas Rangers. The Mets could have kept Andres Gimenez and/or Amed Rosario and looked for an upgrade at another position.
If the movie True Lies is any indication of how people behave on truth serum, Cohen’s answer wouldn’t get too in-depth. It would end around the time of him pondering about those other directions the team could have gone. He can’t be happy with what Lindor has done this year or overall during his contract. The OPS numbers don’t lie.
3) Question for NY Mets owner Steve Cohen on truth serum: What’s your biggest regret since buying the team?
There are a lot of directions Cohen could go with this answer. I feel like it would be a big bummer. Something financial. Maybe not starting a charity sooner. Maybe someone sneezed in an elevator and he didn’t bless them.
We’d have to pry a little bit deeper to get something juicier. His biggest regret wouldn’t have been to keep Luis Rojas for 2021. Could it be the general manager circus in his first year? Would that be front of mind for Cohen? I’m sure it bothers him because he takes pride in a lot of what he does.
One regret of his might be his early behavior on Twitter. In case you haven’t noticed, the Mets owner has gone pretty much silent. He was a critic of the Mets in 2021 as much as anyone else. Now he’s Mr. Positive who barely makes appearances. It’s boring but also the way we’d expect an MLB owner to behave.
Cohen would have a lot of regrets to talk about here and narrowing it down to one would require a second dose of truth serum. Because of what a brilliant businessman he is, most of the conversation would be about building casinos in Flushing or not putting a roof on Citi Field.
What should Cohen’s biggest regret be since becoming majority owner? We can only hope it has something to do with the purchase of SNY. Buying that entity can only improve it.
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