What follows is a column started awhile back, a half-decent idea but not particularly well-executed. Fortunately, Charlie published that day and there was no need to push forward. Cleaning up my desktop last night and came across it and couldn’t quite delete it. Maybe that’s what it deserved. Still, it’s a glimpse of how things start and perhaps you can imagine it with some editing and better analogies and even a good close.
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No one wants to be the one that says the party’s over, especially if there’s still beer, pizza and pretty girls in the vicinity. But sometimes you have to recognize the beer is flat, the only pizza left is the one with extra onions and olives and the pretty girls have all called for an Uber. Unfortunately, we’ve reached that point with the 2025 season for the Mets. The incense has burned away and the stench is all that’s left.
Sure, sure – there’s still 14 games left, the Mets still are in the playoffs and the teams behind them all have a ton of flaws. That’s all true. Yet sometimes you’ve got to read the room. And if you believe the team that’s gone 31-48 in its last 79 games is going to start winning more games than it’ll lose – then you probably think those pretty girls are going to Uber back to your house for a private party.
So, where did it all go wrong? Lots of people will blame David Stearns. Others will point the finger at Carlos Mendoza. Some will direct their wrath at the players. And all of those targets are guilty. So, let’s play a game. And the rules of this game are pretty simple. You’re stuck with the Opening Day roster that happened in real life. But you know everything we know now. What would you do differently? And you can’t say not to play this guy on this date because he went 0-4 or not to pitch this guy on a certain date because that’s when he got hurt.
Here are mine, in no particular order.
Preach every single day and twice on Sundays to Pete Alonso the importance of having more walks than strikeouts. Also, have him take extra practice making throws to first base and instill in him the idea to take the ball to the bag whenever possible.
Not give a single PA to Luisangel Acuna after his 3-hit game on May 4. Since that time, he has a .165/.208/.176 line.
Put Francisco Lindor on the IL when he broke his toe. In his first 46 games after that happened, Lindor had a .202/.252/.351 line in 202 PA. Ronny Mauricio was called up a few days before then – install him as the everyday shortstop. Mauricio had an .802 OPS in the span where Lindor should have been sidelined. He might have done even better with consistent playing time at his natural position.
Be more aggressive with minor league promotions for top prospects. Perhaps if Carson Benge and Jett Williams were moved to Triple-A earlier, they would have been viewed as options for CF. And perhaps an earlier call-up to the majors for Nolan McLean and Brandon Sproat would have been good, too.
Take more control of the Kodai Senga injury rehab. He missed a month, made one rehab start and he’s back in the majors? It’s hard to believe that was handled in the best way.
Have a tighter leash on how many starts given to Sean Manaea and Senga before they were moved to the pen.
Instead of trading for Ryan Helsley and Cedric Mullins, trade for a starter. Perhaps two starters and maybe even three.
Make a sacrificial firing during the first losing streak. Maybe it’s the backup bullpen catcher or maybe it’s the main hitting coach. Scapegoat somebody and give the team a wake-up call. It seems there’s never any consequences for bad things. The only time there are consequences is when a reliever goes multiple innings. And his reward for that is to be cut. It just seems backwards.
Have Mendoza or Stearns pick a fight with someone. Doesn’t matter who, doesn’t matter if it’s justified or not. Have the rest of the team rally around the player unfairly maligned. Get them out of their own heads and unite against a common enemy.
Look to win games with starting pitchers, rather than relievers, whenever possible. There haven’t been a ton of those opportunities this year. But there have still been pulls of starting pitchers which had us shaking our heads.
That was a fun read and echos many of our similar thoughts. It’s hard to believe where they are right now when at one time they were more than 20 games over 500 and we were thinking about running away with the division. Six games to make the playoffs, and although we are all being pretty pessimistic right now, they could still make the playoffs. Of course our next thought is that well. They’ll get eliminated pretty quickly. But anything can happen once you get into the playoffs maybe even Mullins would get a hit. If God forbid they put him in the lineup so keep the faith. Brian, it will be interesting to see how you would have ended this unedited article if you finish it after the season.
It's unfortunately straightforward: The Mets were completely undermined by one of the worst performances by a GM/POBO in the game's history----and that is not an exaggeration. Even Cashman knew to bring up Cam Schlittler on July 9th when the Yankee rotation was in trouble, but Stearns waited until August 16th to bring up a literal ACE in Nolan McLean even though his rotation collapsed around him two months prior.
Stearns did nothing when Montas went out for months as of February 17th.
Stearns did nothing when Manaea went out for months as of February 24th, even though a number of decent pitchers were available in FA and even more were available in trade.
Stearns did nothing when the rest of his depth was gone with Blackburn's injuries.
What the he!! did Stearns think he was doing??
Stearns did nothing when Senga went out thanks to Alonso's ineptitude, on June 12th.
Stearns did nothing when Megill went out thanks to the abuse by Mendoza, on June 14th.
Stearns did nothing when Canning went out for the year on June 26th.
What the he!! did Stearns think he was doing? He had 3 bullpen games in 6 days!
Merrill Kelly and Zack Littell were among the starting pitchers dealt at the Deadline and Stearns, despite dealing away ELEVEN prospects, added no starting pitchers.
THEN, incredibly, with the starting pitching having completely collapsed Stearns waited until August 16th to bring up ACE Nolan McLean.
Stearns waited until August 29th to bring up Jonah Tong, then he waited until September 7th to bring up Brandon Sproat. Simply unbelievable.
-----Add to that Stearns' bad offseason despite a $327 million payroll and his inept, misguided Deadline and you have a list of blunders that you would not have believed possible as of November 2024. You would have laughed and said, "don't be ridiculous." But it happened. Incredibly, it happened.
And the joke is on us.