Another Day, Another Collection Of Quotes Placing Steve Cohen As The CLEAR Favorite To Buy The Mets With Someone In J-Rod's Camp Reportedly Saying "If Cohen Wants It, This Is His"
The Athletic- As the bumpy (auction) for the New York Mets enters, let’s say the seventh-inning stretch, with the second round of bids (and likely the final ones) due Aug. 31, insiders and sports financiers say the favorite, as it’s always been, is hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen. “It’s a total circus and I’ve been assuming that this is Cohen’s to lose,” said a sports financier. “I wouldn’t pay more than $1.4 billion for it. Key is the $70 (million) to $100 million in capital calls this will require annually for at least the next two years.”
Look, I don't know how many more of these Steve Cohen Is The Favorite stories are going to come out over the next 10 days and two decades worth of Benitez/Looper/Wagner/K-Rod/Famila/Diaz/Whatever Hellscape Closer I Forgot has left me fully prepared for my guts to be ripped out of my body with a rusty meathook. So I am going to bask in the glory of these reports of Uncle Stevie leading the race because I, as well as every Mets fan, deserve to feel happiness right now. Even Al Sharpton jumping into the fray out of the fucking blue isn't going to get me down right now.
The funniest part of all this, outside of the occasional Op-Eds that always seem to juuuuuuuuust happen to be in Team J-Rod's favor, is that Derek Jeter may be the 2nd biggest obstacle blocking Alex Rodriguez from getting the Mets behind only the BILLIONS of dollars Steve Cohen has in the bank.
Although former star Alex Rodriguez and his entertainer and business mogul fiancée, Jennifer Lopez, have put together an impressive group, and are surely appealing to a sport with a glaring lack of minority owners, the team bleeds tens of millions of dollars annually and does not come with its money machine, regional sports channel and team broadcaster SportsNet New York. MLB three years ago allowed another famous former infielder, Derek Jeter, to cobble together an ownership group, and his Miami Marlins, burdened with steep acquisition debt costs, slashed payroll.
MLB isn’t “too keen on another Jeter/Marlins where they had to scrape their last nickel to pay the purchase price,” said one source close to MLB. “Especially for a major market club that already has such large operating losses. Cohen’s checkbook is even more valuable in a COVID and post-COVID environment.”
First Jeter banished A-Rod to third base in the Bronx despite A-Rod being the best shortstop in the universe and now he may have banished him from ever owning a team in Queens. All that's missing is a gift basket full of Jeter memorabilia after a thorough fucking like that. #YeahJeets
Even people close to A-Rod sound like they have bent a knee to the real life Bobby Axelrod.
A source close to Rodriguez said his group had plenty of capital, but conceded, “If Cohen wants it, this is his.” And another source added, “Baseball is in a position today where the No. 2 team in the largest market is going to get sold. It’s losing, depending on who you talk to, $30 (million), $50 million a year (in a normal year). It doesn’t include its broadcaster, interest in its broadcast for at least another eight or 10 years. And you’re in a post COVID world with tremendous financial uncertainty. These are the kinds of situations where you go with the guy with the biggest checkbook.”
Again, if this was any franchise other than the Mets, I would say we could put this in the books. But since this is the Mets and those assholes I mentioned earlier taught us over and over that closing things out is the hardest thing to do in baseball not to mention owners that could fuck up a wet dream, I am going to be cautiously optimistic about this.
You guys want another quote to make you feel a little better? Good, me too!
Fuck it, we are playing the greatest video ever created and believing our dicks off to end the work day!!!
For Uncle Stevie's eyes only:
(I swear to God I'm not a weirdo, Mr. Cohen. Just a really big Mets fan. Okay, that makes me sound weirder, but I stand by the meme).