The 2023 New York Mets Have Become Steve Cohen's $350M Nightmare

Optimism and excitement were at an all-time high for the New York Mets heading into the 2023 season, even if the previous year had ended in disappointment.

"We haven't won it yet and we're two years in, so time's running out," said New York Mets owner Steve Cohen with a laugh on the Mets'd Up podcast (via New York Post) before the season began.

No one is laughing now.

The league's richest owner made his expectations clear from the moment he purchased the team, and that comment was a callback to his introductory press conference.

"If I don't win a World Series in the next three to five years — I would like to make it sooner — then obviously I would consider that slightly disappointing," Cohen told reporters on Nov. 10, 2020, while addressing the media for the first time as owner.

He gets a mulligan for the first year when the Mets finished 77-85 since he inherited a flawed team coming off a losing season, and the second year was a significant step forward, as the team won 100 games for just the fourth time in franchise history.

However, the end result was even more disappointing. A three-game sweep at the hands of the Atlanta Braves in early October cost them the NL East title, and they were ousted in three games by an 89-win San Diego Padres team in the Wild Card Series.

The bitter taste of that finish was quickly washed away during another busy offseason, though, with 2022 AL Cy Young winner and future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander added to the starting rotation while a number of other would-be departures were also locked up.

The annual PECOTA win-loss projections are always a fun early barometer of where expectations stand for each team heading into the new season, and the 2023 version only further fanned the flames for the Mets.

Four months later, the vibe is completely different.

Entering play on Friday, the Mets sat in fourth place in the NL East standings with a 32-36 record, a whopping 10.5 games behind the Atlanta Braves and four games out of a wild-card spot with seven teams ahead of them.

Their PECOTA odds for the World Series have shrunk to just 4.8 percent.

If this were a normal team, the obvious move would be to sell at the deadline if things don't drastically improve in the coming weeks, but there's no way Cohen is going to admit defeat and wave the white flag.

So what went wrong?

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THE ACES HAVE NOT BEEN ACES

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Veterans Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander are the highest-paid players in baseball with matching $43.3 million salaries, and much of the team's title hopes rested on the shoulders of those two pitchers.

Verlander has a 4.40 ERA and 4.43 FIP in 45 innings, and a look at his advanced stats reveals some troubling trends. The 40-year-old has allowed significantly more hard contact, with his hard-hit rate allowed (34.8 to 46.3 percent) and average exit velocity allowed (87.8 to 91.3 mph) both shifting significantly in the wrong direction. He also has a middling 21.0 percent strikeout rate.

Scherzer has a 4.45 ERA and 4.36 FIP in 56.2 innings. His fastball velocity has fallen to a career-low 93.4 mph, and the whiff rate on his slider has plummeted from 46.4 to 30.3 percent. At 38 years old, some regression in stuff is to be expected, but the drop-off has been significant this year.

Those two are earning more than the entire Tampa Bay Rays roster this season, and while it would be a stretch to say they've been bad, this team simply can't expect to contend for a title if they more closely resemble No. 3/4 starters than the aces they were expected to be.

Rookie Kodai Senga has been solid and veteran José Quintana recently began a rehab assignment, but the starting rotation was supposed to be the strength of this team, and that will never be the case if the two co-aces are not pitching up to expectations.

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THERE IS NOWHERE TO TURN AT THE DEADLINE

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Given their caution-to-the-wind approach when it comes to the financial side of things, there's no reason to think the Mets won't be looking to add to the roster at the deadline.

The question is how?

With Francisco Álvarez and Brett Baty both moving on to the majors, the top end of the farm system has thinned considerably, and they sat in the middle of the pack at No. 13 in B/R's most recent farm system rankings.

They could build a package around Ronny Mauricio in an attempt to add another arm to the rotation or an upgrade at one of the corner outfield spots, but at this point, mortgaging future talent feels like the equivalent of trying to dig further down to get out of a hole.

And even if they wanted to sell, the roster really doesn't have any movable pieces. Verlander and Scherzer will still be owed roughly $14 million each the remainder of the season at the deadline to go along with future commitments, and their performance has simply not justified that type of investment.

Fellow veterans Starling Marte, Mark Canha, Carlos Carrasco and Adam Ottavino are all underperforming and would bring back very little of value, while guys like Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil, Francisco Lindor and Brandon Nimmo are core pieces that are not going anywhere.

The only logical move is no move, and that's not going to sit well with the fan base.

Cohen has made his bed with this roster, and now he has to lie in it.

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BUYING A TITLE SIMPLY DOESN'T WORK

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When is the last time a team actually went out and "bought" a title with a roster made up largely of recent outside additions?

The 1997 Florida Marlins? The 2009 New York Yankees?

Some might say the free-spending Los Angeles Dodgers in 2020, but they won that title with a roster that was loaded with homegrown talent that came through a developmental pipeline that has taken years to cultivate.

If things don't turn around for the Mets, Cohen won't be the first owner to make it rain and have nothing to show for it.

The Miami Marlins tried to usher in their new ballpark in 2012 by spending big on José Reyes, Mark Buehrle and Heath Bell in free agency. They actually ended up winning fewer games than they had the year before, and the following season all three of those guys were playing elsewhere.

That same winter, the Los Angeles Angels signed Albert Pujols and C.J. Wilson in free agency, and they spent big again the following offseason when they added Josh Hamilton to the mix. They would make the playoffs just once over the course of the 10-year, $240 million deal that Pujols signed.

The San Diego Padres went all-in during the 2014-15 offseason when they added James Shields, Justin Upton, Matt Kemp, Craig Kimbrel and several others, and it blew up in their faces and set the franchise back several years.

The team that wins the offseason is very rarely the team that wins the World Series, but Cohen has put himself in a position where he can't take his foot off the gas now.

The only significant contracts coming off the books this offseason are Carrasco ($14 million) and David Robertson ($10 million), and they can add another roughly $20 million to that by declining club options on Mark Canha and Eduardo Escobar.

Scherzer is not pitching well enough to justify declining a $43.3 million player option, so he will likely be back along with Verlander who has one more guaranteed season on his contract, and the team will be in a remarkably similar position to where things stand right now.

This is what a front office nightmare looks like, folks.