It’s been almost six years since Steve Cohen bought the Mets from Fred Wilpon. That’s definitely enough time to conclude that Cohen’s honeymoon in New York is over. The question now is: How’s the marriage going?
The answer? The franchise is no better than it was under the Wilpons.
Yes, the Mets played in the National League Championship Series to bow out to the Los Angeles Dodgers in six games in Cohen’s fourth year, and they made the playoffs in Cohen’s second year to lose in three games to the San Diego Padres in the Wild-Card round.
But Cohen has also seen miserable seasons, too. Last season is an example. The Amazin’s had an epic collapse, going 38-55 after boasting baseball’s best record at 45-24, and then missed the playoffs (you guessed it) in the final game of the season.
Now, here we are, 56 games into 2026, and the Mets are 22-33, 15 games behind division-leading Atlanta, 8 games back in the NL Wild Card race, and losers of seven of their last ten games.
Watching the Mets for ⅓ of the season, it’s easy for Mets fans to conclude there’s no hope. This team is not making the playoffs, and there’s every reason to believe the Mets will suffer a losing season, even though Fan Graphs projects an 80-82 season with a slight chance to nab a Wild Card berth.
But so much for projections…. The numbers today say this team is in last place in the NL East, and running neck-to-neck with San Francisco and Colorado for the NL’s worst record. Not even Grimace and Jose Iglesias’ OMG vibe can save this sorry mess.
On the flip side, it’s true that the team has been plagued with injuries. It’s difficult to operate offensively when the team has lost ⅓ of its starting lineup, including Francisco Lindor (strained left calf), Clay Holmes (fractured right fibula), Kodai Senga (lumbar spine inflammation), Francisco Alvarez (surgery to repair a torn right meniscus in his right knee), Jorge Polanco (bruised right wrist), Ronny Mauricio (fractured left thumb), and Luis Robert Jr. (lumbar spine disk herniation). Juan Soto did not play for the second straight game (fever).
Those players are trying to get back. Senga made a rehab start for Single-A Port St. Lucie on Friday, giving up two earned runs on four hits and a walk over 3 1/3 innings, as he threw 63 pitches. He will make another rehab start on Thursday. Lindor participated in a workout before Monday’s game, but there’s no timetable for when he’s coming back, though.
In the meantime, productivity remains a problem. The Mets went 11-for-88 in a forgettable sweep against the Miami Marlins in Miami over the weekend, including nine singles and two measly runs to show for it. They mustered only 11 hits (three on Friday, three on Saturday, and five on Sunday) against a team with a 4.18 ERA (ranked 18th in baseball), which makes Carlos Mendoza’s claim that the Mets ran against great pitching nonsensical. Then, Monday was no better, as the team struggled to do anything against Reds starter Nick Lodolo, who entered the game with a 7.20 ERA in his last three starts.
Bottom line? The Mets scored two runs or fewer in 24 of their 52 games this season.
There’s more. Recently, Mets radio announcer Howie Rose complained that the hitters were being fed too much information on how to hit rather than just seeing the ball and hitting it. What’s going on?
To answer that question, there is nowhere to turn other than in the direction of David Stearns, the Mets’ president of baseball operations. Stearns shed Brandon Nimmo, Jeff McNeil, and let Pete Alonso walk after last season, and the Mets are now an injury-prone team, not availing themselves of the reliability and durability that Nimmo, McNeil, and Alonso brought to the Mets.
The 2026 Mets have no depth, and are (in a word) “awful” offensively and defensively.
The irony here is that Cohen wanted Stearns as his guy the minute his sale was approved. He was so devoted to hiring him that he let a good baseball man, Buck Showalter, go as his manager.
I realize that Stearns is not in danger of being fired anytime soon. Cohen hired him with the idea that the Mets could become a cost-efficient team like the Tampa Bay Rays. But here’s the problem with that thinking. You can make an argument that “Cohen’s baseball guy” has no clue how to do it. The proof is that he hasn’t done it yet in NY, and he didn’t do it before in Milwaukee.
That’s why my eyes are on Cohen. He hasn’t gotten from Stearns what he thought he had hired.
If the Mets lose 100 or more games, Cohen needs to fire Stearns, and if the losses add up to a century and Cohen doesn’t change course, that tells me he doesn’t care about winning.
