Mets owner Steve Cohen sat down to meet with reporters at Citi Field on Wednesday afternoon. Cohen was asked a wide variety of question, including the topic of manager Buck Showalter and general manager Billy Eppler’s job security.
Cohen was asked if he could definitely say that Showalter and Eppler would remain in their positions through the remainder of the season.
“Absolutely,” he responded.
At 36-43, the Mets are 16.5 games out of first place in the NL East and 8.5 games back of the third and final Wild Card spot.
Cohen said he understands that some fans want to see drastic changes made, but the Mets have a long-term goal in mind, and firing people just to shake things up doesn’t fit that plan.
“I’m a patient guy. Everybody wants a headline. Everybody says ‘Fire this person, fire that person,’ but I don’t see that as a way to operate,” Cohen said. “If you want to attract good people to this organization, the worst thing you can do is be impulsive and win the headline of the day. You’re not going to attract the best talent, because they’re not going to want to work with somebody who has a short fuse. I know fans want something to happen, I get it. But sometimes you can’t do it because you have long-term objectives. That’s the way it is.”
Cohen was also asked about who the blame falls on for a team that has disappointed through the first three months of the season. And while he put some onus on the players, he said that everyone, including himself, bears some of the burden for this team not being where they had hoped when the season began.
“There’s plenty of blame to go around. I mean, I’ll take responsibility, I’m the owner,” Cohen said. “Ultimately, for some reason we’re not as crisp as we were last year. We had a lot of players perform really well last year, and this year they’re not performing quite as well. What the reason is, I don’t know. It’s a little bit above my pay grade. It’s not my forte.
"It doesn’t mean it has to last all season, but the reality is the reality. The players know it, management knows it, I know it. Hope is not a strategy. This is what we’re faced [with]. We don’t have a ton of options, right, until we figure out where we are. … I’m a realist. It’s June 28, the trade deadline is Aug. 1, a little bit more than a month. We’ve got to get going.”