Cohen: Couldn’t promise Scherzer we’d be ‘all-in’
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Although the New York Mets are planning for 2025 and beyond, owner Steve Cohen doesn’t want to get “embarrassed” next season.
Cohen met with players, coaches and reporters Wednesday before the struggling Mets played in Kansas City, one day after the team capped a stunning series of trades of veteran players leading up to baseball’s deadline.
After acquiring a bevy of minor league prospects in return, New York is clearly focused on the future. Cohen, however, said he still thinks the Mets will be “highly competitive” in 2024.
“I think the expectations were really high this year and my guess is next year they’ll be a lot lower,” he explained. “I can’t speak to what’s going to happen in the offseason. I’m opportunistic. I don’t want to roll a team out that we’re going to be embarrassed about. But, we also know that spending a fortune doesn’t guarantee a trip to the playoffs. I think we’ve got to look and see what we need. Obviously we need starting pitching, and that’s the key thing.”
Cohen discussed the decision to trade star pitchers Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer and others.
“When you look at the probabilities,” he said, “what we were at, 15% (to make the postseason)? And other teams were getting better, so you have to take the odds down from that. So, if you’re going to have a 12% chance of just getting into the playoffs, those are pretty crummy odds. I’ve said before — hope is not a strategy. I wanted sustainability.”
The opportunity for a solid return in trades was enticing.
“We thought we got a great return for the people we ended up trading,” he said. “We weren’t sure that was going to happen. We weren’t just going to do deals for the sake of doing deals. I would have kept the players if it turned out it was going to be a mediocre return. It’s a moment in time when other clubs were thinking very short term and I was thinking more intermediate, long term. And so, I was able to take advantage of that.”
Cohen said he’d spoken with both Verlander and Scherzer, and related part of a conversation with Scherzer that helped clarify the difference in immediate visions between the owner and players.
“You’ve got to remember, Max and Justin, they’re at a different point in their career,” he said. “Max asked me straight: ‘Are you going to be all-in at free agency next year?’ And I couldn’t give him that promise. I couldn’t give him that assurance, and he wants to win now. If he felt like our odds were smaller than he originally thought, then he made his decision, and Justin did, too. And I respect that. They’re good guys and they’re at a different point in their career.”
The 39-year-old Scherzer waived his no-trade clause to accept a deal to Texas that was announced Sunday. The 40-year-old Verlander, a three-time Cy Young Award winner like Scherzer, accepted a trade back to Houston on Tuesday.
A lack of consistency on the field and a shortened timeframe to turn around the season played into the Mets’ decision for making big moves at the deadline.
“We have 58 games left,” Cohen said. “We have to win two-thirds of our games. We’ve shown no consistency. It would really have to take a stretch to think something would change. With 58 games, things would have to change. I saw no indication that things were changing.”
Cohen would not address specific personnel decisions. All-Star first baseman Pete Alonso can become a free agent after the 2024 season.
“We love Pete as a Met,” Cohen said. “He’s an integral part of the Mets. He’s still with us for another year. We hope we work things out.”
Cohen believes manager Buck Showalter isn’t to blame for the team’s disappointing results this year.
“I don’t put it on Buck,” he said. “I put it on the players. I think we’re hitting in some bad luck. It’s kind of unfair to put it on the manager.”
New York traded six players in the days before Tuesday’s deadline and as part of those deals agreed to pay $78,915,591 to the teams acquiring those players. If Verlander exercises his 2025 option, the Mets would send the Astros another $17.5 million.
The Mets lowered their payroll this year to the $340 million to $345 million range and their luxury tax payroll to $370 million to $375 million.
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Greg Wyshynski
After making NHL history during the regular season, Washington Capitals star Alex Ovechkin made some personal history in his team’s Game 1 win over the Montreal Canadiens on Monday.
Ovechkin scored the first playoff overtime goal of his career to propel the Capitals to a series-opening 3-2 victory at home in his 152nd career postseason game.
“A goal is a goal,” Ovechkin said after the victory. “Good things happen when you go to the net.”
Ovechkin is the all-time leader in regular-season overtime goals with 27 in 1,491 games. They’re part of his career total of 897 goals, having broken Wayne Gretzky’s NHL record of 894 goals this season.
“The guy’s the best player in the world. What else can you say?” said Capitals goaltender Logan Thompson, who made 33 saves in the win. “He comes in clutch. All game. It’s a privilege to be his teammate.”
After an icing call, Capitals forward Dylan Strome won a faceoff, with Montreal forwards Patrik Laine and Ivan Demidov failing to clear the puck. Winger Anthony Beauvillier collected the puck for a shot on goal and then tracked down his own rebound to Montreal goalie Sam Montembeault‘s right. Montreal’s Alex Newhook and Kaiden Guhle went to defend Beauvillier, who slid a pass to an open Ovechkin on the doorstep for the goal at 2:26 of overtime.
The overtime tally completed a monster night for Ovechkin.
He opened the scoring on the power play at 18:34 of the first period and then assisted on Beauvillier’s second-period goal to make it 2-0 before finishing off the pesky Canadiens in overtime. It was the 37th multipoint performance and 10th multigoal game of Ovechkin’s playoff career.
Ovechkin also had seven hits in the game to lead all skaters.
Ovechkin is the oldest skater in Stanley Cup playoff history to factor in all of his team’s goals in a game. He also became the fourth-oldest player in Cup playoff history to score an overtime goal at 39 years and 216 days. Detroit’s Igor Larionov was 41 years old when he scored a triple-overtime goal in Game 3 of the 2002 Stanley Cup Final against the Carolina Hurricanes.
With his first goal, Ovechkin passed Patrick Marleau and Esa Tikkanen (72) and tied Dino Ciccarelli (73) for the 14th-most playoff goals in NHL history. Ovechkin’s 74th career playoff goal put him in a tie with Joe Pavelski for the 13th-most career playoff goals.
The captain’s overtime heroism rescued Game 1 for the Capitals. The top seed in the Eastern Conference watched the Canadiens rally in the third period on goals by Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki 5:13 apart to send the game to overtime.
“You can see why they made the playoffs. That team doesn’t quit,” Thompson said. “In the third, they didn’t go away. We’ve got to respect them. They took it to us in the third.”
But rather than give Montreal some much-needed confidence and a series lead in its upset bid, Ovechkin shut the door in overtime.
“He played a hell of game tonight,” Beauvillier said.
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