Steve Cohen fumes on Twitter over Steven Matz’s Mets snub
Steven Matz isn’t coming back to the Mets — and Steve Cohen isn’t happy about it.
The Mets owner told The Post’s Joel Sherman he was angered by the fact Matz and his agents were the driving forces behind a potential reunion in Queens — only to not give the Mets a chance to make a final offer before the left-hander agreed to a deal with the Cardinals late Tuesday night.
“Most relationships I have had with agents have been wonderful,’’ Cohen said. “The conversations have been good, they really have been. But here, this was different. This was something so over the line. I can’t imagine what the agent was thinking in the context of how they reached out to us and the reasons they wanted to come back. I have never had an agent do that to me.”
According to sources, Cohen, as well as new general manager Billy Eppler, believed they would get a chance to match any deal before Matz signed elsewhere, but were not given a final call by Matz’s agents after he agreed to the four-year, $44 million deal — which could grow to $48 million with incentives — to go to St. Louis after a strong season with Toronto.
Matz’s agent, Rob Martin, responded in a statement to The Post.
“We are aware of Mr. Cohen’s tweet. It’s unfortunate that he chose to take his frustrations to Twitter,” Martin said. “I will not do the same, and instead will take the high road which is consistent with both my character and the character of our client. Steven Matz grew up a Mets fan, loved his time there, and continues to invest in the New York Community through his efforts supporting NY’s First Responders.
“As a result of all that, there was a strong pull to return to the Mets. But ultimately he made the decision he felt was best for him and his family. Steven is and always will be grateful to the Mets and Mets fans, but he now looks forward to his next chapter with the tremendous franchise in St. Louis.”
The Mets had extended an offer to Matz, who spent the first six seasons of his major league career with the organization. The 30-year-old lefty is said to have received offers from at least eight teams.
He went 14-7 with a 3.82 ERA in 29 starts for the Blue Jays last season, bouncing back from a rough 2020. The Mets traded the Long Island native to Toronto last winter in a deal that netted minor leaguers Sean Reid-Foley, Yennsy Diaz and Josh Winckowski.
The deal was pending a physical as of Wednesday morning.
The controversy began when Cohen wrote on Twitter on Wednesday, “I’m not happy this morning. I’ve never seen such unprofessional behavior exhibited by a player’s agent.I guess words and promises don’t matter.”
Cohen’s tweet came less than a week after the owner said he wasn’t sure how much he would use Twitter in the future.
“I’ll continue to tweet, probably not as much as I did previously,” Cohen said during a Zoom press conference to introduce Eppler as the team’s new general manager last week. “Especially during the [GM] search, I wanted to respect the candidacies of the people we were talking to and didn’t want to make it a public search… I didn’t want to turn this into a game. Now that [the search is over] I’ll probably get back on and see how it goes. We’ll see. I think people like it, so why not keep doing it?”
Cohen said it was an attempt “to connect with the fans and think I was pretty successful with that, just getting feedback from people from the ballpark.”
But as Cohen also noted that while fans enjoyed communicating with the owner of the team: “Twitter is a tough place to do it in general because it tends to be combative… You know what the comments are. It’s a tough place to get your message across. We’ll see. I am a busy guy.”
