Wednesday catch-all thread (3/4/26)

Please use this thread all week to discuss any Mets-specific topic you wish.

It used to be that there were more MLB teams that trained in Florida than Arizona. Now, it’s an even 15-15 split. And while having fewer teams in the Grapefruit League isn’t necessarily a big problem, what’s been a concern for several years now is how few teams are located on the East Coast, where the Mets are.

There are only five teams on the Treasure Coast. In addition to the Mets, there are the Astros, Cardinals, Marlins and Nationals. With teams trying to reduce travel as much as possible, 23 of the Mets’ 27 games in the Grapefruit League come against these four teams. They play five games this year against the Nationals and six against the other three squads.

The other four games are home-and-home series with the Yankees and Blue Jays.

It may not seem like a big deal. Yet having 11 games against division rivals is probably not how you’d draw it up if you had your druthers. No doubt the players are happy about having fewer long bus rides. But the end result is having pitchers appear in intra-squad or minor league games rather than facing a division rival too often during the Spring. And that seems like less than an ideal way to prepare for the season.

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The Mets are 5-3-1 in Grapefruit League play and are 1-0 versus WBC squads after defeating Nicaragua on Tuesday. They square off against Israel later today.

There’s almost no correlation between Spring wins and regular season ones. The one possible exception is that you don’t want to finish last. This is best illustrated by the 2022 season. In Florida, the Nationals went 4-11 and finished last in Grapefruit League play. During the regular season, the Nats went 55-107. In Arizona, the Athletics went 5-10 in Cactus League play and went 60-102 in the regular season. There were fewer games that Spring due to the late ending of the owners’ lockout.

It doesn’t always work that tidy. In 2025, the Marlins finished last in Florida and went 79-83. But the Mariners finished last in Arizona and won 90 games. Still, as long as they’re keeping score, we should root for the Mets not to finish last.