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Steve Cohen isn’t fretting over Juan Soto’s slow start to his Mets tenure, saying on Monday that “I’m not worried about Juan” while praising other things the $765 million man has been doing at the plate thus far.
Soto’s lack of power through the first full month of the season has caught some people’s attention after the Mets signed him to a massive contract this past winter.
Soto, who went 2-for-4 in the 19-5 win over the Nationals on Monday, has just three home runs on the season and hadn’t knocked a ball out of the park since April 15.
But Cohen, who spoke with The Post’s Jon Heyman and Joel Sherman on the latest episode of “The Show” that was published on Monday, spoke highly of the “subtle” things that Soto has done at the plate that have helped the Mets.
“The way that he works a count, makes pitchers throw extra pitches really matters. Then he gets on base, and then Pete [Alonso] can drive him in. And so Pete’s seen better pitches,” Cohen said. “It’s very subtle how that works and you just can’t just look at it in a very narrow sense. And saying that, listen, I’m not worried about Juan.
“I mean, he is singularly focused on baseball, he’s a pure hitter and let’s have this discussion at the end of the year.”
Soto was hitting .248/.374/.396 with a .770 OPS going into Monday, but was coming off a weekend where he had a pair of hits on Sunday and Friday against the Nats and reached base four times in Sunday’s 8-7 loss.
Even with Soto’s slow start, the Mets have come out of the gate red-hot this season with an MLB-best 20-9 record and winning nine of their past 11 games. And, as of Monday, the 1986 Mets were only two games better than this year’s version of the Amazin’s at the same point of the season.
However, throughout Mets history, sustained success has been hard to come by — they have only made the postseason in consecutive years twice in franchise history — and has led to a cautious attitude from Mets fans.
Cohen understood the history that Mets fans carry with them, but in a firm tone, he said that the past was something he “couldn’t care less about.”
“It’s irrelevant to me. It means nothing, OK,” he said. “This is a new regime, a new management, new beliefs in how we operate, and I like the direction we’re going in. And a lot of great people in this organization. We still have a ways to go to continue building the infrastructure. Doesn’t happen just in a couple of years, but we’re definitely making progress and I think you’re seeing it.”
It would seem any part of sustained success for the Mets will include Alonso, who will be a free agent after this season and has started off the 2025 season as hot as the team, hitting .333/.451/.646.
Cohen told Sherman and Heyman that Alonso would explore the market at the end of the year, which he said he was “supportive of,” and that the ballclub would “see where it goes.”
“He’s a great Met, and I said this last year, if we can work it out, we’ll work it out, but he’s going to go explore his market, and you know that’s his right,” the Mets owner said. “It’s hard to know how those things work out. I know we’re happy with him. I believe he’s happy to be a Met and that’s a good place to start in any future discussions.”
