Mets owner Steve Cohen reveals future free agency pitching strategy

New York Mets owner Steve Cohen sent a strong message about his team's free agency strategy with starting pitchers.

Dec 12, 2024; Flushing, NY, USA; New York Mets owner Steve Cohen speaks to the media during a Juan Soto introductory press conference at Citi Field. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-Imagn Images | Brad Penner-Imagn Images

Some in the baseball community were critical of the New York Mets for their strategy when it came to acquiring starting pitchers this past offseason.

Specifically, many thought that the Mets were making a mistake on not pursuing some of the ace-caliber starters on the market, such as Corbin Burnes, Max Fried, or Blake Snell, and instead set their fights on more mid-level starters like Frankie Montas or bullpen conversion projects like Clay Holmes.

However, this strategy has paid off tenfold and made any critics eat their words. Heading into the team's April 30 game against the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Mets’ rotation (despite their two highest-paid starters being out with injuries), MLB with a 2.27 collective ERA.

The league's second-best ERA for a starting staff is 3.07, which is held by the Texas Rangers.

The Mets hold the lowest starters' ERA in baseball by a wide margin 🔥 pic.twitter.com/p7shY9YOGo

— SNY Mets (@SNY_Mets) April 29, 2025

Nobody predicted the Mets' starters would be quite this elite. But if there's one person who isn't surprised, it's Mets owner Steve Cohen, as trusting in his franchise's ability to develop and maximize pitchers has been his strategy since taking the team over in 2021.

And during his April 28 interview in The Show: A NY Post baseball podcast with Joel Sherman & Jon Heyman, Cohen conveyed that this strategy isn't going anywhere.

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"Listen, it's an organization. And there's a lot of inputs that go into trying to make our players better," Cohen said when asked about his strategy of getting what Jon Heyman called "lesser" pitchers in free agency and then developing them. "And that was one of my things I always wanted, was our ability to improve players, because I think that gives you a competitive advantage. And we're doing that on the pitching side.

"You can find interesting opportunities if you believe you can improve players. And so we're doing that well. So that's a strategy we're going to continue to deploy," Cohen continued.

It sounds like Mets fans can expect their team to elect against pursuing bona fide aces and instead focus more on developing aces internally during future free agency periods.