PORT ST. LUCIE — Steve Cohen was “annoyed” last fall.
The Mets CEO and owner has never shied away from his goal of turning the club into a perennial World Series contender. The playoffs are the minimum expectation every year, especially with one of the largest payrolls in the game, but a World Series is the big picture. Multiple championships are the ultimate goal.
Last year marked 10 years since the Mets had last won a National League pennant, and this year the team will commemorate the 40-year anniversary of their last World Series championship, one of only two in the franchise’s less-than-illustrious history.
“That’s just too long,” Cohen said Monday at Clover Park during his annual spring training press conference. “There’s a lot of great teams out there. No matter what you do, it doesn’t mean you’re necessarily going to win the World Series. But I just want to put myself in position every year in the playoffs where we have a chance with a really good team.”
Every year this doesn’t happen, Cohen grows more aggravated.
“Yeah, I’m annoyed, I’m absolutely annoyed,” he said. “Every year goes by, I get frustrated, and I’m really committed.”
After coming two games from the World Series in 2024, the Mets took a step back in 2025. It wasn’t a planned step back or a rest — it was an obvious regression.
Meanwhile, the team that eliminated the Mets from the NLCS in 2024 went on to win another World Series. The Los Angeles Dodgers have become quite the thorn in baseball’s side. Their seemingly endless resources have helped them bring in so many stars that other teams can’t compete, and more than $1 billion in money owed through deferrals through 2047. They’ve been accused of breaking the game by playing their own, one that’s so rich most owners can’t compete.
Except for Cohen. He can play the Dodgers’ spending game, and is willing to do so as well.
“Listen, they’re formidable, right? I mean, they have the ability to spend — so do I, by the way,” Cohen said. “They built a great team, but I think we’ve built a great team, and I think we’re going to be really competitive this year. The goal is to meet them somewhere along the way in the playoffs.”
Cohen maintains a hands-off stance when it comes to baseball operations decisions. Those belong to the president of the department, David Stearns, and his front office team. In his sixth season of ownership, Cohen says he’s in a more “mature” phase.
Still, he remains very engaged. The team’s inability to come back late in games was not lost on him.
A hedge-fund billionaire who built an empire on risk and research, he values mental toughness. The Mets didn’t show nearly enough of it last year, so they went out and got players they feel possess plenty of it, like Bichette, Marcus Semien, starting pitcher Freddy Peralta and closers Luke Weaver and Devin Williams.
Cohen knows nothing is guaranteed. He learned it the hard way in his first few years of ownership, and has come to accept the randomness of a 162-game season. He’s learned how to be patient. But his patience could be challenged this season. There is a window of opportunity right now that may not last if the spending structure is significantly altered with the next collective bargaining agreement.
The league is expected to lock players out again after the current CBA expires Dec. 1. The last time the CBA was negotiated, owners were so scared of Cohen’s billions that a luxury tax tier was created just for him. Owners are expected to push hard for a salary cap, in part to counter teams with vast resources like the Dodgers and the Mets.
Cohen is not on the labor committee, nor is he interested in talking about labor at the moment.
“I don’t know how that’s going to go, but I’m focused on ’26 and we’re in spring training,” he said.
He has not made up his mind about a salary cap one way or another, but is listening to all sides. Cohen also mentioned he has often put the league’s interests ahead of his own. Losing games and the revenue that comes from them in a prolonged lockout would be more than just annoying. If the lockout is prolonged, it could be devastating for the sport.
So, right now, Cohen isn’t looking that far ahead. I
Of the many lessons he’s learned over the last five seasons, one of the most important is that anything can happen over the course of a baseball season.
“Even the Dodgers were this far away from losing the World Series,” he said, holding up his thumb and index finger with about an inch of space between them. “That’s what makes this game great and exciting: It’s unpredictable, and that’s why every season is unique.”
