Steve Cohen was right there on top this week, you better believe he was. Just not with the Mets. In a world where Cohen is his own general manager and manager at the same time, he held the top position in Bloomberg\u2019s annual ranking of the highest-paid hedge fund managers. It didn\u2019t do him any good with the Dodgers, of course, or with the Phillies in the National League East, but the guy sure did pull in an estimated $3.4 billion with Point72 Asset Management.<\/p>\n
Now we see what happens with New York Mets Asset Management in the 2026 season.<\/p>\n
Now we see if his baseball management team and his baseball players can finally put the Mets on top, first in the NL East and then in the National League and finally, if an awful lot of things break right for them, in what would be the franchise\u2019s first World Series win in 40 years, and its first appearance in the Series in a decade.<\/p>\n
Cohen is entering his sixth season as owner of the Mets. He made it clear when he bought the team that he planned to beat all those other hedge funds. It hasn\u2019t happened. Cohen\u2019s Mets have been to the postseason twice. They\u2019ve won 101 games a few years ago when Buck Showalter was the manager before blowing the division at the end and then losing in the first round to the Padres. The year before last Cohen did watch one of his teams make a run, all the way to Game 6 of the National League Championship Series against the Dodgers, who are owned by Guggengheim Partners, a financial giant. The difference between them and Cohen \u2014 at least so far \u2014 is that their team has made it to four World Series in the last nine seasons, won three of them, now won the last two.<\/p>\n
Over this past baseball winter, the Dodgers signed two free agents Cohen\u2019s Mets coveted, one of whom \u2014 Edwin Diaz \u2014 had become the most dominant closer the Mets have ever had. The other free agent was Kyle Tucker. Cohen spoke in Port St. Lucie the other day about being \u201cannoyed\u201d at losing Tucker, then added this about Bo Bichette, to whom the Mets pivoted after Tucker became a Dodger:<\/p>\n
\u201cI actually feel Bo might be a better fit for the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s one more thing we\u2019ll see about, as Mets fans will also find out what kind of replacement for Diaz that Devin Williams will be now that Diaz decided to go sit at the big kids\u2019 table at Dodger Stadium.<\/p>\n
Here is what Cohen had to say about losing Diaz:<\/p>\n
\u201cI did find that one perplexing. I\u2019m not sure exactly how Edwin arrived at that decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not long afterward, Diaz cleaned that up for his former owner in this quite respectful way from the Dodgers\u2019 spring training home in Arizona:<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the Dodgers did a great job recruiting me. At the end of the day, I chose to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n
So it was the same with Diaz as it was with Tucker: Cohen and the Mets got Guggenheim-ed. The Dodgers, against whom every other operation in the sport is measured, continue to beat Cohen and everybody else both on the field and off. Do they out-spend everybody because they can under the current system (one that will likely shut down baseball after this season)? They do. Did they figure out a way to game the system with deferred money? Absolutely they did.<\/p>\n
Cohen is the richest owner in baseball still. But for now the Guggenheim Dodgers are the best at spending their money, have the best head of baseball operations in Andrew Friedman, have the hands-down best manager in Dave Roberts. I\u2019m not sure that Cohen could have imagined, when he did buy the Mets \u2014 breaking a record for the purchase price set by Guggenheim when the company bought the Dodgers in 2012 \u2014 that somebody else\u2019s money would be better than his. But it is.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The Dodgers are] formidable,\u201d Cohen said the other day. \u201cThey have the ability to spend. So do I, by the way.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked his feelings about the Mets having not yet won the third World Series in franchise history on his watch, he said, \u201cEach year it goes by, I get more annoyed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Imagine how Mets fans feel.<\/p>\n
Mets fans want this to be the year when it turns out Cohen hasn\u2019t just out-owner-ed the Dodgers, but Hal Steinbrenner and John Middleton in Philadelphia and everybody else, and have their team be the first New York team back to the Canyon of Heroes. They want David Stearns to have done with the Mets what Friedman has done with the Dodgers since signing on with them in 2016. They want Stearns and Carlos Mendoza to turn into the kind of partnership that Friedman and Roberts have been in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
But what Cohen \u2014 a lifelong Mets fans with the very best of intentions \u2014 is finding out is that you have to have another plan other than money-whipping the competition. You have to spend smart, too, especially on pitching. Cohen\u2019s Mets tried to do that not long ago, they just tried it with AARP All-Stars like Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander.<\/p>\n
We know, just because of Bloomberg\u2019s rankings, that Steve Cohen can make making money look easy. But the business of Cohen\u2019s baseball team calls to mind the famous show business line from the actor Edmund Gwenn. When he lay dying a friend asked if dying was hard. Gwenn replied, \u201cDying is easy. Comedy is hard.\u201d Maybe Cohen has found out that baseball is much harder than he thought it would be, even knowing that there is more bad history with the Mets than good.<\/p>\n
The Mets do have a chance to be good this season, and perhaps very good, even without Pete Alonso and without Diaz and with Francisco Lindor, the team\u2019s beating heart, hurt right now. Stearns made a terrific trade for Freddy Peralta to bolster his own pitching and it may turn out that Nolan McLean is going to turn out to be a starting pitching phenom to join the line of them we have seen from the Mets all the way back to Tom Seaver. And maybe, just maybe, Bichette will turn out to be a much better fit for the Mets than Tucker would have been, and a much better player. Maybe Luis Robert, in center, is about to remind everybody why he was considered one of the bright young talents in the game not so long ago.<\/p>\n
Maybe this will be the year when the owner stops being annoyed. And his baseball team will finally be the asset he wants it to be, and put the owner\u2019s money where his mouth is.<\/p>\n
LOAD MANAGEMENT HITS THE COLLEGE GAME, CADE MAY BE MVP & REMEMBERING THAT NIGHT IN LAKE PLACID \u2026<\/p>\n
Darryn Peterson, the star Kansas guard, pulled himself out of a game the other night, early in the second half, complaining of \u201ccramps.\u201d<\/p>\n
Already this kid, as gifted as he is, is known as \u201cDNP.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before he gets to the NBA, he is already elevating load management to an almost breathtaking art form.<\/p>\n
And it makes you ask a question:<\/p>\n
How long before a star player like Peterson elects not to play in March Madness the way college football players now opt out of bowl games?<\/p>\n
Cade Cunningham is a wagon, isn\u2019t he?<\/p>\n
Jalen Brunson is the Knicks\u2019 MVP, without question.<\/p>\n
But Cunningham might turn out to be the MVP of the whole league.<\/p>\n
One of these days there are ought to be a banner raised to the Garden rafters with two things on it:<\/p>\n
Marv Albert\u2019s name.<\/p>\n
And a microphone.<\/p>\n
Speaking of the Albert family, Kenny has done an absolutely masterful job on Olympic hockey.<\/p>\n
I think I might have blacked out, but are the NBC announcers still telling us how hard the guys were playing last Sunday night?<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t care what a good guy Tony Clark was as a player.<\/p>\n
The Major League Baseball Players Association will be better off without him.<\/p>\n
We need Larry David back on television.<\/p>\n
So if Jeff Bezos continues to absorb these losses with the Washington Post, what, he\u2019ll only be able to spend $25 million on his next wedding?<\/p>\n
People continue to love to blame Karl-Anthony Towns when anything goes wrong for the Knicks.<\/p>\n
But guess what?<\/p>\n
He had a much better night against the Pistons on Thursday than his coach did.<\/p>\n
How long before Marco Rubio wants to name Yankee Stadium after his boss?<\/p>\n
Finally today: It was 46 years ago, on this date in 1980, that a bunch of hockey kids from this country beat the Soviets, 4-3, in Lake Placid.<\/p>\n
I wondered on that Friday night, after I\u2019d left the arena and after I\u2019d written my column for the Daily News, if there would ever be a sports story quite like it.<\/p>\n
And all this time later, there never has been, not for me.<\/p>\n
It was Michael Eruzione\u2019s goal with 10 minutes left \u2014 10 that felt like 10 years \u2014 and it was Jim Craig making every save he had to make.<\/p>\n
Before that, it was Mark Johnson scoring the goal with a second left in the first period to tie the game at 2-all.<\/p>\n
Later, all of us who were there would find out about Al Michaels shouting, \u201cDo you believe in miracles?\u201d<\/p>\n
And you need to know it was walking around the town long after the game was over and seeing small groups of Americans singing the National Anthem or \u201cAmerica the Beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Out of all the nights, in all the sports, this was the one.<\/p>\n
You had to be there.<\/p>\n
You had to hear\u00a0\u2014\u00a0and feel\u00a0\u2014 what that arena sounded like in those last few seconds.<\/p>\n
Oh, man.<\/p>\n
Did you ever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steve Cohen was right there on top this week, you better believe he was. Just not with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163851,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[14896,42159,78289,21996,171,173,172,75452,78290],"class_list":{"0":"post-163850","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-port-st-lucie","8":"tag-dodgers","9":"tag-mets","10":"tag-mike-lupica","11":"tag-playoffs","12":"tag-port-st-lucie","13":"tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","14":"tag-port-st-lucie-news","15":"tag-steve-cohen","16":"tag-world-series"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}