There’s not much happening on the MLB hot stove right now, though with the Winter Meetings slated for early next month, free-agent dominos like Trevor Bauer and George Springer should start falling soon enough. Speaking of Bauer, the outspoken ace recently took to YouTube to share his thoughts on Mets owner Steve Cohen, who was officially introduced last week. The reigning NL Cy Young winner has apparently been a big fan of Cohen’s early moves, praising the 63-year-old billionaire for a “brilliant start” to his Mets tenure.
One of the more active social media presences in baseball (if not all of sports), Bauer applauded Cohen for using his Twitter platform to survey Mets fans on their preferences. “In baseball, this doesn’t happen very often. When was the last time you could think of that you had an owner on Twitter asking the fans, his customers, what they want? How can the experience be better? What can we do with the ballpark? What can we do as an ownership group to make you guys happier, to make you more involved in the Mets?” said Bauer. “That’s fantastic marketing.”
A common criticism of owners is that many don’t take the time to acknowledge their fan base. That can create an aura of resentment and distrust (how could a multibillionaire possibly understand the plight of the common fan?), but Cohen has seemingly made it a priority to bridge that gap. He’s also established a company-wide goal, vowing to bring a World Series title to Queens in the next 3-5 years. That’s big talk and sure to raise eyebrows around the Big Apple, but Bauer thought it was a stroke of genius, commending Cohen for setting expectations high.
“In baseball a lot of times, you get, ‘Well we’re trying to run an organization, we’re trying to develop people and we hope to draft well and then we can put some pieces together and we want to compete for a World Series,’” explained the former Reds and Indians hurler. “That’s all fine, those are all noble goals, but they’re not definitive and they’re not clear. You have to make a goal explicit. We WILL win a World Series in 3-5 years.”
Cohen also stated during his introductory press conference that he plans to run the Mets the same way he runs his Connecticut-based hedge fund, using extensive data analysis to inform the team’s decision-making. A staunch proponent of analytics, Bauer was predictably on board with that approach. “He also said that we’re going to get the best people in here. We’re not going to micromanage. One person isn’t going to try and do it all. We’re not just going to have baseball people. We’re going to have a lot of smart people in niche areas.”
Would Bauer’s effusive praise of Cohen suggest he has the Mets in his sights? Team president Sandy Alderson has already alluded to the team’s potential interest in Bauer, which the 29-year-old responded to on Twitter.
Bauer didn’t pick the best year (not that he had a choice) to enter free agency with teams still reeling financially from the pandemic, though someone, perhaps the deep-pocketed Cohen, is bound to meet his quota.
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