Steve Cohen Called Me an Idiot

It was supposed to be a chill Friday. College football was on all day, and there was no obligation to write a newsletter because it was the start of a weekend. 

Mets owner Steve Cohen changed that.

Here’s what happened: Mike Puma wrote an article in the New York Post mostly about how the Mets never made a formal offer to Pete Alonso. When he finished writing about the Polar Bear, he added a couple of nuggets of information. This was one of them:

The Mets estimate their payroll for next season to fall somewhere in the $310 million to $320 million range with multiple holes remaining.

This much seems clear: The team isn’t in a hurry to challenge the Dodgers’ payroll mark from last season of $400 million.

So, that could be interpreted one of two ways. Either Puma is saying the Mets will spend $310-320 million in 2026, or at this very moment, their payroll is between 310M and 320M. I interpreted it as the former for three reasons.

1. Fangraphs estimates the Mets’ payroll right now at $305 million. Sportac has it at around $306.8 million, with a $44 million luxury tax penalty. Cot’s contracts has it below $300 million before the tax. None of those figures is $310-320 million.

2. Puma did not use the word “currently”. You’d think if he meant currently he would have written it.

3. The next sentence that says it’s clear Cohen and the Mets aren’t going to challenge the Dodgers’ payroll.

So, I tweeted this:

I thought that was fair. I just reported exactly what Puma said. 

Well, 21 minutes later, Steve Cohen tweeted for the first time in a while:

(Last year’s payroll according to MLB was $346,670,456, with over $91 million in luxury tax penalties.)

While I wasn’t the only one on Twitter who pointed out what Puma wrote, I’m pretty sure I’m the only account that did so which Cohen follows on the hellsite. So yes, I took the insult personally, Michael Jordan style. 

In any case, clearly Cohen has been hearing the complaints that he doesn’t want to invest in the Mets anymore now that he has his casino and not caring for them. If I pushed him to set the record straight, good for me! 

Cohen followed up a few minutes later:

So he’s saying Fangraphs/Sportac/Cot’s are wrong, and the New York Post correctly factored in the Mets’ recent waiver pickups. And/or that he’s actually paying more money than we think, which is a weird thing to say when you just claimed you’re going to spend more money. 

Mike Puma oddly wrote a brief follow-up that didn’t explain what he actually meant.

It was a strange morning to say the least. 

The lesson? Twitter’s the worst, but we already knew that. Puma might want to be more clear in his writing, but I don’t see that happening. Otherwise, I don’t think there is one. I’m not going to stop being an “aggregator” when I come across information about the Mets that seems important. And I’m definitely not going to stop writing about those reported pieces of info in this newsletter.