Steve Cohen won't 'broach' topic of trading Max Scherzer or Justin Verlander

Coming off a 101-win season and an offseason that saw the addition of several high-priced pitchers, expectations were high for the Mets entering 2023. But after a 36-43 start to the season and disappointing performances from pitchers and batters alike, high hopes seem from spring seem far away.

Ahead of the team's 80th game of the season, owner Steve Cohen met with reporters on Wednesday afternoon to discuss a wide variety of topics including the team's plans for the Aug. 1 MLB trade deadline, if he would consider trading veterans Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander and his frustration with the Mets' inability to develop pitching talent.

With the Mets marooned in fourth place and 16.5 games behind the first-place Atlanta Braves in the NL East, Cohen admitted that with only half a season to play they "don't have as much luxury of time" to turn things around.

Cohen said that if the isn't a turnaround it would be "pretty silly" for the team to be adding pieces at the trade deadline and if things stay the same, "I'd probably do very little."

"We still have time," he said, but with just over a month before the deadline and time is running short.

"I'm preparing my management team for all possibilities," Cohen said, "you know if we don't get better we have decisions to make at the trade deadline. And that's not my preferred end result, but I'm preparing all contingencies."

But trading the two former Cy Young Award winners on the Mets' payroll does not seem to be among those contingencies being discussed at the moment.

"These are great pitchers and we brought them in for a reason and so, I don't wanna broach that topic, I haven't gotten that far yet," Cohen said.

"Plus, they have contracts, by the way," he added, possibly referring to their no-trade clauses.

When asked about spending a lot of money this past offseason – particularly on pitching with Verlander joining a two-year, $86.7 million deal and Kodai Senga joining on a five-year, $75 million deal and Edwin Diaz re-signing on a five-year, $102 million deal – if there was any regret, the owner said you don't get the luxury of perfect foresight.

"In retrospect… let’s assume this turns out to be a poor season, yeah, in retrospect, you'd like to spend less. But you don’t have that luxury when you're trying to put together a team. That's the decision we made. Free agency's really expensive," Cohen said. "If you wanna field a good team from free agency, that's what it costs. If you wanna fill all the positions with, hopefully, quality players. And sometimes you can get it right, and sometimes things go wrong. It's a tough place to build a team."

Cohen added that this is why he has said several times that the Mets' goal is to build up the farm system "because ultimately that gives you a lot more options."

"When we look at our pitching today, we had to go out in free agency and get pitchers over the last few years," he said. "We haven't really developed many pitchers which is actually pretty shocking. We're certainly capable of doing it, we may not have had the right infrastructure in place. We just opened up our pitching lab, we'll guess what? Other teams had pitching labs six, seven, eight years ago. And so we're behind. The goal is to provide all the resources, all the infrastructure that makes us competitive with other teams."

The next step for the club is to then identify the right players and develop them and make them better, but that takes time, the owner added. 

"If you don't have 'em in the system, least we have the luxury of going out and spending the money and get players. Unfortunately, this year has not been what I had hoped it would be. But I'll say it again, the year's not over," Cohen said.

He added some bright spots with Scherzer pitching better lately, David Peterson's good start in Tuesday's win and Jose Quintana's progress coming back from injury, adding, "All is not lost yet, but it's getting late."

When asked if he had decided if continue to spend – either at the deadline in taking on money or this offseason – Cohen said, "I haven't made those decisions. I'll worry about the offseason in the offseason. Ultimately we'd like to get the payroll down because the farm system is developing players, if it can't then it's on us. What my decisions are in the future, I haven't really thought about it enough." 

And if the Mets are sellers at the deadline and can improve the farm system by dealing a high-priced player and eating most of the salary to get a better return, as they did in the Eduardo Escobar trade, the owner said he "already considers that money spent" and he is "willing to do it."

Overall, Cohen did not indicate he would make drastic changes to his spending strategy in the offseason even if the Mets fail to bounce back in the second half of the season but hinted that there are limits.

"Pitching’s really expensive, I think that’s a reason why we’re spending as much as we are," he said. "Position players, we have young players coming up, I think that's going to over time help from a payroll perspective. 

"And I don’t think it's sustainable in the long term, me just losing the type of money that I’m losing. It's a lot to ask. And frankly, we'll figure that out as we go. But I certainly have the wherewithal to do it. It's just a question of how long."

But as far as prospects, go at a turnaround before the trade deadline, Cohen put it on the players. 

“We’ll see where it goes. It’s on the players. They’re veterans, they’ve been there before,” he said. “These are players that have done it and we’ll see if they can get their act together and string together some wins. 

“I can’t pitch and I can’t hit. That’s the way it goes. We’re hoping for the best.”