Steve Cohen Net Worth: How wealthy is the free-spending Mets owner?

Steve Cohen and the New York Mets have had an offseason for the ages. The team has spent over $800 million in this free agency, either retaining their own players or landing some of the biggest names on the open market.

This historic offseason has seen New York add Justin Verlander, Carlos Correa, Jose Quintana, Kodai Senga, Omar Narvaez, Jose Peraza, and David Robertson. They also re-signed Edwin Diaz, Brandon Nimmo, and Adam Ottavino.

The Mets are now set to have a league-leading payroll of $384 million. However, with such an exorbitant level of money owed to his players, owner Steve Cohen will have a 2023 luxury tax bill of an estimated $111 million. This pushes the Mets' 2023 payroll total to roughly $495 million.

"The Mets are gonna have a $500 million payroll, while also contributing to other teams’ payrolls, too. Uncle Stevie don’t give a f***ck" - Jared Carrabis

The owner of the New York Mets, Steve Cohen, has made his commitment to winning clear by spending more than any team in MLB history. This coming season, the Mets will pay more than $100 million more than the second most expensive team, the New York Yankees.

According to Forbes, Cohen has a current estimated worth of $17.5 billion thanks to his history as a hedge-fund manager. He is the founder of hedge fund Point72 Asset Management, as well as the now-closed S.A.C. Capital Advisors.

Point72 does the majority of its investments in various industries such as fintech, machine learning, artificial intelligence, cyber-security, and core-enterprise companies.

"Legit.....this is how easy it is for Steve Cohen to make money. In Q3, Point72 Management picked up 1.22M shares of Biogen. They have since increased in price by about $90/share. That's almost $110M in profit if he sold it right now...." - Christopher Soto

The spending spree has raised questions about parity in the MLB. However, Cohen's willingness to pay an elevated tax bill could be duplicated by almost every owner across the league.

If the Mets can win the World Series this year, it may encourage other owners to spend some more of their personal wealth. However, if this spending spree backfires, it will go down in history as one of the sport's most expensive failures.

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Steve Cohen's background as a billionaire

Cohen received an economics degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1978. Upon his graduation, he worked as a junior trader in the options arbitrage department at Gruntal & Co.

In 1992, Cohen started S.A.C. Capital Advisors, which he was a part of until 2016. In 2013, S.A.C. Capital Advisors pleaded guilty to insider trading and were required to pay $1.8 billion in penalties, as well as being required to stop handling investments for outsiders.

In 2014, Cohen founded his current company Point72 Ventures.