Ode to the New York Mets…. The more things change, the more things stay the same. More disappointments. More collapses.
When Mets owner Steve Cohen purchased the team for $2.4 billion in 2020, one of the first things he said was that he wanted to win a championship in three to five years. Five years in, and Mets fans are still waiting. In his fifth year as the Mets owner, he saw his team miss the playoffs on the 162nd game of the season after a listless 4-0 loss to the Miami Marlins on Sunday afternoon at loanDepot Park.
The Mets experienced a collapse after holding the best record in baseball through 69 games, from June 12 to July 1. They went 38-55 after that to finish the season with a record of 83-79.
How can it be a collapse when the team stunk the rest of the way? Well, they had three wild-card spots as a safety net, which is something the 2007 and 2008 Mets teams couldn’t say. They had opportunities to seal the last wild-card spot. They didn’t get it done. That’s why this is the worst collapse in franchise history.
For all the criticism the Brewers received for tanking the first two games against the Cincinnati Reds, they actually showed more guts than the Mets did on Sunday. The Brewers won 4-2, giving the Mets hope, but it was all for naught in the end when the Amazins couldn’t get the big hit against the Marlins.
The fantastic Mets play-by-play radio announcer, Howie Rose, second-guessed Marlins manager Clayton McCullough for not taking Edward Cabrera out when he noticed the Marlins starter looked fatigued. This happened after Francisco Lindor and Juan Soto were walked to load the bases in the fifth inning with two outs, and the Marlins held a 4-0 lead.
All of this took place as the Brewers took a 4-2 lead over the Reds in the fourth inning at Miller Park. This was their chance. Instead, Alonso lined out to end the inning, and that was it for the Mets.
In the end, McCullough knew what he was doing. He trusted Cabrera to get out of it, and he knew the Mets would find a way to implode, which they have done a lot of this season.
There’s a lesson to be learned here. There’s something about knowing the heartbeat of his players, knowing what they are made of, instead of being a slave to analytics. In this situation, McCullough relied on his instincts, and it worked out beautifully.
Maybe one day, Mets manager Carlos Mendoza can do that. Mendoza managed to do what his boss, David Stearns, told him to do by using people in certain situations. He also punted plenty of games this year by taking his starters out early and not using his best relievers for the big picture of winning games in September.
Here’s another lesson that the Mets learned: There’s something to be said about understanding the clubhouse dynamic. I am not sure whether or not Stearns understood that this season.
There may have been some players who resented Stearns for not appreciating them enough for what they offer to a team, which may explain why something seemed off with the Mets this year. It seems the president of baseball operations thought everyone was replaceable. Remember, he was more than okay to let Pete Alonso walk. It was Cohen who brought the Mets star back out of fans’ urging, and it was he who was all in on Juan Soto.
Stearns can now fulfill his wish to let Alonso and Edwin Diaz walk, pointing out that those players are getting older and the team needs to get younger. He will likely employ his snake-oil salesman approach to convince Cohen.
You can bet there will be changes with the Mets this offseason. It likely means there will be roster movement, and core players will be gone. Brandon Nimmo and Jeff McNeil are likely trade bait. Stearns is definitely going to want to change things up for sure, as he builds a roster of his own image.
In a way, Stearns gets what he wants from the team’s collapse. Now he can really do his job.
But it’s hard to trust him when he never addressed the starting rotation in the offseason and at the trade deadline. His idea for improving the rotation was signing castoffs such as Griffin Canning, Clay Holmes, and Frankie Montas, as he believed his acclaimed pitching lab would refine them, just as it had for Sean Manaea and Luis Severino. That blew up on him.
Sure, we are second-guessing him now, but to expect this to work out again is not sustainable. Stearns should have found a way to acquire Garrett Crochet or sign Nathan Evoladi during the past offseason, rather than hoping a castoff can overachieve.
Perhaps all of this is moot if the starters had done their job. It didn’t happen. Sean Manaea stunk since coming back from the injured list, and it’s fair to wonder if he ever was healthy. Kodai Senga is fragile, and when he came back from the injured list, he stunk. David Peterson was so bad for two months that he did not even start the final game of the season.
However, it’s simplistic to say that the starters are the reason the Mets collapsed. There were numerous factors at play that the average fan is unaware of.
Here’s something Cohen learned the hard way: $340 million does not buy guts and grits. It also does not mean the culture has changed. It’s still the #LOLMets that we have grown to hate. The Mets owner has come to find out that changing the culture is easier said than done.
Cohen has been a mixed bag as the Mets’ owner. He went to the playoffs a couple of times, including last year’s NL Championship Series appearance, yet he endured disappointments with his team missing the playoffs. In other words, he’s no better than the Wilpons.
Another year of wasting a star’s career in Francisco Lindor, Juan Soto, Alonso, and being denied the opportunity to watch Nolan McLean in the postseason.
