MIAMI – This transitional season, the Mets gave their fans a gift by refusing to fold.
You have to respect it.
Remember, this team was looking to make it last year, but by late June it had closed most of its trades, leading to a massive selloff near the trade deadline.
The most notable trade was Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander for promising players, and we’re beginning to learn (mostly through Scherzer’s candid comments) that team owner Steve Cohen views 2024 as a year of payroll reset and testing opportunity for young players.
But a funny thing happened to the Mets on their way to a second straight summer of irrelevance: They started winning.
Regardless of their woes in the relief bullpen, the Mets have generated as much excitement as any other team in baseball over the past six weeks.
The playoff odds, once hovering in the single digits, are now a coin flip. The Mets will begin their post-All-Star break on Friday with another team chasing a National League berth.
It’s the product of a 27-13-loss streak, in which players like Francisco Lindor, Brandon Nimmo and Jose Iglesias have been a collective force at Citi Field.
There have been others – whether it’s Francisco Alvarez, Mark Vientos or Harrison Bader (and perhaps not as much Pete Alonso as you’d expect during such a surge). The starting lineup has become respectable, and the reserve cage, well, it’s a problem.
The Mets will need their heavy weapons if they want to continue this wild ride, but there are two other people with a lot of responsibility: President of Baseball Operations David Stearns and his manager-elect Carlos Mendoza.
Stearns was signed in the offseason to build a team that could compete for the future. But suddenly the Mets are living in the present, where they have a real chance to win.
Stearns made a deal before the All-Star break to help the relief bullpen, acquiring Phil Maton from the Rays. Stearns still has a lot of work to do. Other reinforcements are needed as the team looks to overcome a wave of injuries and poor performances from veterans like Jake Diekman and Adam Ottavino.
Stearns will be working with the huge advantage of Cohen’s checkbook. Believe me when I say that Cohen is pleased with how this season has turned out and wants to experience fall glory with this group, but that is as long as the Mets don’t go into free fall over the next 10 days, and even then they won’t bet too much of the future on improving performance.
But the Maton deal, in which the Mets absorbed the remaining $2.75 million on his contract — plus a player to be named later or cash considerations — should serve as a model for the kind of deals Stearns could still orchestrate. And who knows, there might be a deal in the works for the Mets even after the final two months of this season.
As for Mendoza, the rookie coach may have come into his role as someone tasked with developing young players like Alvarez and Vientos, but his real-time moves will now be more analytical than ever. There have been frustrating moments, particularly with Mendoza managing a flaky relief bullpen, but he also deserves credit for a move that helped jump-start the Mets’ season.
It happened here in South Florida on May 18 when Mendoza moved Lindor to first and moved Nimmo to third. Since then, Nimmo has settled comfortably into second and went into the All-Star break as the team leader in runs scored.
Mendoza showed his courage when he gave Iglesias the opportunity to play in place of Jeff McNeil, allowing the Mets to expand their lineup. If McNeil doesn’t recover quickly, you’ll wonder when he’ll be forgotten.
The goal is to get to the playoffs and then do your best. It doesn’t matter how you got there.
But over the past six weeks, the Mets have looked like a team playing for something greater than just sneaking into an October and November championship. And now the so-called reset year has a chance to become something much better than just waiting until 2025.