Let’s be frank here. Steve Cohen’s maiden voyage as owner of the Mets has been nothing short of an incomprehensible embarrassment of errors. Considering the litany of amateur hour fiascos under Cohen’s watch, culminating last week with acting GM Zack Scott’s DUI bust just a few days after the Javy Baez/Francisco Lindor/Kevin Pillar “thumbs down to the fans” caper, it is understandable if Met fans might think Jeff Wilpon was still running this ball club.
Regardless of whether the Mets are able to make the postseason — and without Jacob deGrom, even in the weakest of all divisions, that seems highly unlikely — Cohen needs to get himself an accomplished boss of baseball operations who will restore credibility and competence to the franchise after watching two GMs in his first year as owner disgrace the club.
Even before Scott sealed his fate by allegedly winding up drunk in his car at 4 a.m. in White Plains last Tuesday — some seven hours after he reportedly had left a team fundraiser at Cohen’s home in Connecticut — there had been growing speculation that Theo Epstein, architect of both the Red Sox and Cubs epic drought-ending world championships, might be interested in taking on the Mets challenge. But while Epstein, presently working as an advisor to commissioner Rob Manfred, is the kind of universally respected exec Cohen needs to hire to head up his baseball ops, so, too, is Billy Beane.
Beane, the father of “Moneyball” who, according to sources, has finally grown weary of playing “Don Quixote” in Oakland, fielding competitive Athletics teams year after year in spite of severe payroll constrictions that perennially prevent him from retaining his best players when they near free agency. The final straw, one source surmised, was when Beane was unable to even make Bay Area native Marcus Semien, the A’s franchise shortstop who’s now having a career season with the Blue Jays, a free agent qualifying offer last winter.
Would the 59-year-old Beane — a fixture in Oakland for over 25 years who even owns a small share in the A’s after turning down a $12.5 million offer in 2002 from Red Sox owner John Henry to head up the Boston baseball operations (the job that later went to Epstein) — be willing to pick up roots now and move cross country to run the Mets? In the words of one close friend of Beane’s: Absolutely. “In so many ways,” the friend said, “this is a natural for Billy. He started his whole major league career as a Mets first round draft pick in 1980. For all his success as a GM, the one thing that has eluded him and a place in the Hall of Fame is a World Series championship. With the Mets he would finally have the resources to achieve that and come full cycle in his career. He’s always considered the Mets a part of him.”
In many ways, Beane checks the Mets boxes more than Epstein. For one thing, Mets president Sandy Alderson — who is already doing double and triple duty — is the man who groomed Beane in Oakland and the two have maintained a good relationship over the years. For another, Beane figures to come far cheaper than Epstein, who would almost certainly want to have a “point” in the team he’s running this time — which, by the Mets’ estimated $2 billion valuation, could be worth as much as $20 million. Is Cohen willing to go that far for a GM? Also, it can’t be overlooked that Scott and his Mets predecessor Jared Porter — who was fired in January after it was discovered he’d sent unsolicited texts and sexual images to a female reporter in Chicago while working in the Cubs front office — previously had worked together in the Fenway frat house after having been given their first jobs in baseball by Epstein.
In Beane’s case, money wouldn’t likely be the issue — he has plenty of it, including a part ownership in an English soccer team, and he will have even more when he sells his share in the A’s. As the friend added: “Billy wouldn’t do this for the money. He’d be doing it for the challenge and the chance to end his career where it started.”
IT’S A MADD, MADD WORLD
The first offers and counter offers in the collective bargaining talks were exchanged by MLB and the Players Association — and to no surprise flatly rejected — last week, and while the sides are at least not throwing verbal fire bombs at each other, in all likelihood there’ll be a lockout by the owners when the present agreement expires in December. And with the business of baseball shut down, that’s when a deal will be reached. In an effort to address the tanking issue, the owners proposed a salary floor of $100 million and a first luxury tax payroll threshold of $180 million. The players liked the idea of forcing a minimum payroll on the clubs, but in the end there are going to have to be some stringent penalties on clubs that don’t comply, in order to both discourage tanking and assure that clubs receiving revenue sharing are not taking advantage of the system. For example, the Tampa Bay Rays receive approximately $60 million in revenue sharing and have a payroll of $70.3 million this year. By keeping their payroll low, the Rays are able to cover almost all of their player expenses with their revenue sharing and then be able to reap a huge profit from all their other millions of TV, radio and marketing revenues. As for lowering the first payroll threshold from the present $210 million to $180 million, that was never going to fly. Only a couple teams will surpass the $210 million this year, but the last thing the players would want is for clubs trying to stay under $180 million. Presently there are seven clubs with over $180 million payrolls. …It’s doubtful if this will be an issue addressed in the collective bargaining talks, but judging by the attendances of late, baseball may have a real problem. From Aug. 1 through Sept. 2, there were 53 games in the majors in which the attendance was less than 10,000. A lot of that has to do with tanking (Arizona & Baltimore ), but then you have the Rays who have been in first place most of the summer with 10 games of under 10,000. It’ll be interesting to see if this trend continues next year when (hopefully) there will be no further COVID restrictions and fewer teams tanking.
