New York Mets New Owner, Steve Cohen unveiled his philosophy to turn around perennial underachievers he promised will act ‘like a major market team’.
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On manager Luis Rojas
Cohen passed questions to Sandy Alderson about Rojas’ future as manager. Alderson said Rojas is “very likely” to stay on as skipper in 2021, but the club’s future president of baseball operations will have a say regarding who manages.
“What we’re looking for is the most accomplished baseball person we can find,” Alderson said of the search for the president of baseball ops.
On current roster
“I think we have a really good core of players already. We have a really good base,” said Cohen.
“We need to fill catching and need more pitching.
“We have the best pitcher in baseball and that helps a lot. We have a lot of good young players to build around. But results speak for themselves.”
On the club’s future
“I’m trying to build a sustainable franchise. I don’t want to be good one year and bad three years. I want to be good every year.
“We want to hold onto our farm system. Draft well, develop our players, and hold onto them.
“I don’t just want to get into the playoffs. I want to win a championship.
“I’m going to be an owner that builds a team that has continued success.”
On analytics
“That’s one of the areas we want to upgrade. I use data and analytics at my business at Point72, and the Mets do that today, but we want to build on that.
“We combine analytics with the human component. I’m not going to second guess what the Rays did. They got to the World Series. It was a heck of a team … they stuck to their game plan. I would argue it was hard to deviate from the game plan that got them to the World Series.”
On what team he’d like to emulate
“I like what the Dodgers are doing. They have a really strong farm system.”
On his role with the front office
“I played Little League once. That’s about it. I’m gonna let the professionals, Sandy, and the people we bring in, let them run baseball.
“I don’t just sit back and accept mediocrity.
“I’m not a micromanager. I hold my people accountable, but I give them a lot of rope to run.
“We don’t want to be run in an autocratic way.”
On the relationship with fans
“These are smart fans. They know what they’re talking about. And if they’re emotional, that means they care. I think it’s phenomenal.
“I’d rather have emotional fans that are passionate than fans that don’t care.”
On Mets culture
“I want professionalism. I want integrity. I want to hire the best and brightest. I want to develop a great farm system, develop our players. And let’s not forget the fans. When they interact with me, (I want their experiences) to be extraordinary.”
On the Yankees
“I’m not competing against the Yankees. This is the Mets. We’re going to create our own excitement. I’m competing against 29 other clubs.
“The Yankees have a great history. They’ve won 27 championships, 28? That’s impressive.”
On his Mets fandom
A lifelong Mets fan, Cohen was tasked with naming some of the most memorable moments from his fandom. In addition to sitting in the upper deck at Shea Stadium with friends, he listed three specific moments. In true Mets fashion, not all were positive:
- Cleon Jones’ catch to close out the 1969 World Series.
- Mookie Wilson hitting the grounder through Bill Buckner’s legs in 1986.
- Tom Seaver losing his perfect game to Jimmy Qualls with one out in the top of the ninth inning.
WHO IS STEVE COHEN
Steven A. Cohen (born June 11, 1956) is an American billionaire hedge fund manager and majority owner of the New York Mets of Major League Baseball. He is the founder of hedge fund Point72 Asset Management and now-closed S.A.C. Capital Advisors, both based in Stamford, Connecticut. He owns one of the world’s most valuable private art collections, worth over $1 billion, which includes notable artworks such as Koons’s Rabbit, Picasso’s Le Rêve, and Hirst’s The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living.
In 2013, the Cohen-founded S.A.C. Capital Advisors pleaded guilty to insider trading and agreed to pay $1.8 billion in fines ($900 million in forfeiture and $900 million in fines) in one of the biggest criminal cases against a hedge fund. Cohen was prohibited from managing outside money for two years as part of the settlement reached in the civil case over his accountability for the scandal. The hedge fund agreed to plead guilty to wire fraud and four counts of securities fraud and to close to outside investors.
Time Magazine ranked him 94th on its annual Time 100 list of most influential people in 2007. As of February 2020, he has an estimated net worth of US$14.1 billion.
Cohen grew up in a Jewish family in Great Neck, New York, where his father was a dress manufacturer in Manhattan’s garment district, and his mother was a piano teacher. He is the third of seven brothers and sisters. He took a liking to poker as a high school student, often betting his own money in tournaments, and credits the game with teaching him how “to take risks.” Cohen graduated from John L. Miller Great Neck North High School in 1974, where he played on the school’s soccer team.
Cohen received an economics degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1978. While in school, Cohen was initiated as a brother of Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity’s Theta Chapter where he served as Treasurer. While in school, a friend helped him open a brokerage account with $1,000 of his tuition money.
Investment career
1978―1992: Gruntal & Co.
In 1978, after graduating from Wharton, Cohen got a Wall Street job as a junior trader in the options arbitrage department at Gruntal & Co. His first day on the job at Gruntal & Co., he made an $8,000 profit. He would eventually go on to make the company around $100,000 a day and eventually managed a $75 million portfolio and six traders. Cohen was running his own trading group at Gruntal & Co. by 1984, and continued running it until he started his own company, SAC.
Throughout the late 1980s, the Securities and Exchange Commission became suspicious that Cohen had used inside information in December 1985 when he bet that RCA and GE would merge, ahead of the announcement. The SEC called him to testify, but he refused to answer any questions, invoking his right against self-incrimination. Then, the SEC started looking into his other investments from the same period, especially those involving Brett K. Lurie.
1992: S.A.C. Capital Advisors
In 1992, Cohen started S.A.C. Capital Advisors with $10 million of his own money and another $10 million from outside capital. The company’s name ‘SAC Capital’ derived from Steven A. Cohen’s initials.
In 2003, the New York Times wrote that “SAC is one of the biggest hedge funds and is known for frequent and rapid trading.” In 2006, the Wall Street Journal reported that while Cohen was once a rapid-fire trader who never held trading positions for extended periods of time, he now holds an increasing number of equities for longer periods of time.
As of 2009, the firm managed $14 billion in equity.
In 2016, Forbes Magazine estimated Cohen’s fortune at $13 billion, ranking him the 30th richest person in the United States. Cohen was dubbed “the hedge fund king” in a 2006 Wall Street Journal article. His 2005 compensation was reportedly $1 billion, considerably higher than his 2001 compensation of $428 million. In February 2015, Forbes listed Cohen as the highest-earning hedge fund manager in 2014. In December 2013, Cohen’s New York penthouse in the Bloomberg Tower was listed for sale for $98 million.
