New York Mets
More New York Mets pages
Steve Cohen Says the Mets Took Too Much Risk. The Roster Proved Him Right.
Records current as of Aug. 26, 2026
New York is 60-72 and has been out of the race since roughly the All-Star break. That’s the second straight season that ended in disappointment at Citi Field, and this one didn’t even have the cruelty of a collapse — it was over early.
The unusual part is that the owner has said so out loud.
Cohen’s admission
Speaking before a series finale against San Diego, Steve Cohen offered an assessment that owners generally don’t: that he and David Stearns “might’ve taken too much risk” in building this roster and coaching staff.
His reasoning was about integration. Significant change takes time to absorb, and the Mets made a great deal of it in one offseason. He also acknowledged the specific difficulty of the market — that arriving in New York, with the media presence and the attention, involves an adjustment process he doesn’t know how to shortcut.
He maintained his support for Stearns.
What the offseason actually did
The 2025 Mets went 83-79 and missed the playoffs after holding the best record in baseball on June 13 and a 5.5-game division lead. Stearns responded with the most aggressive roster turnover of his tenure.
Out: Pete Alonso and Edwin Díaz departed in free agency. Brandon Nimmo was traded to Texas. Jeff McNeil was traded. Four players with deep ties to the organization, gone in one winter.
In: Bo Bichette, Jorge Polanco and Devin Williams signed as free agents. Marcus Semien, Luis Robert Jr. and Freddy Peralta arrived by trade.
Practically none of it worked.
The individual results
Jorge Polanco was signed to replace Alonso at first base. His injury-riddled season will finish around a .148 average and a .431 OPS across 37 games, worth -1.4 bWAR.
Marcus Semien is having the worst full season of his career.
Luis Robert Jr. has been underwhelming and injury-plagued — the risk that was always attached to acquiring him.
Devin Williams was serviceable before landing on the injured list.
There’s a common thread, and Cohen named it himself: the roster leaned heavily on players with injury histories, and the injuries arrived.
The stars couldn’t be healthy together
The season’s quiet tragedy is that Juan Soto and Francisco Lindor were rarely available at the same time.
Cohen lamented exactly that — the combination might have been enough to lift the team out of its slump before the slump became the season. Lindor’s return from the injured list visibly changed the club’s energy, which is the kind of observation that reads as consolation in a 60-win year and as a data point in a planning meeting.
Soto is signed through a 15-year, $765 million deal. Lindor is the emotional center of the roster. Neither is the problem.
What Cohen is signaling about the winter
He told the New York Post in July that he was concerned about 2027. He has since said he’s more optimistic — and, notably, he does not talk like someone who believes another wholesale overhaul is required.
That’s the most important thing in his comments. The 2026 lesson, as the owner has framed it, isn’t that the roster is wrong. It’s that changing this much at once created an integration problem the Mets couldn’t solve in a single season.
Whether that’s the correct read or a comfortable one is the debate that will run all winter in Queens.
What to watch in September
- Soto and Lindor on the field together. Six weeks of the intended lineup would tell the front office more than anything else available.
- Which acquisitions finish strong. Semien and Robert both have reputations that a good September wouldn’t erase but would complicate.
- Young players. A lost season’s only real currency.
- Cohen’s winter posture. He has said he wants the Mets to become the East Coast Dodgers. Two straight failed seasons is the point where that ambition either gets recommitted to or quietly reduced.
The payroll didn’t fail. The construction did — and the person who signed the checks has already said as much.
NYC Sports Wire covers Mets and Yankees news, schedules and game coverage all season. See the Mets schedule for first pitch times and broadcast info.