The longer it went on, the more it felt like a telling statistic: The Mets went 0-70 in games in which they trailed after eight innings – the only team in the majors that didn’t pull off such a comeback win this season.
Especially considering the 'OMG' Mets of 2024 were largely defined by their late-inning comebacks, it’s hard not to see relevance in the 2025 Mets’ failure to have one of those steal-a-win type games that create chemistry and good vibes on a ballclub.
They had one last chance to do it, down 4-0 on Sunday in Miami against the Marlins. And by the time the Mets came to bat in the ninth inning, they knew the Cincinnati Reds had lost in Milwaukee, putting their postseason fate back in their hands one last time.
A winning rally at that point would have been the mother of all comebacks, sending the Mets to Los Angeles for a wild-card series with the Dodgers. Instead, despite getting their seventh walk of the game to start the ninth, they went quietly, with Francisco Lindorgrounding into a season-ending 4-6-3 double play.
It’s not a surprise they’re out, as poorly as they’ve played for months, and yet it’s still kind of hard to believe, considering the payroll and the level of talent.
To be sure, there are bigger reasons than intangibles as to why the Mets played 17 games under .500 starting June 13, a date so infamous by now that it practically rivals June 15, 1977, the day they traded Tom Seaver.
The biggest reason of all was front-and-center on this do-or-die day: Carlos Mendoza didn’t have a starting pitcher he felt he could trust. On a day when he used eight pitchers, David Peterson didn’t even see the mound, a reflection of his 9.28 ERA in September.
And Sean Manaea was used as more of an opener than a starter, getting pulled in the second inning after a couple of walks. That too was a reflection of how poorly he’s pitched for, really, his entire season, which was delayed until July by an oblique injury, and perhaps also the loose bodies in his elbow.
Finally, Kodai Sengacouldn’t even pitch his way back onto the roster after his ineffective starts that led to a minor-league demotion. In that sense, perhaps the turning point of the season was that day before June 13, when Pete Alonso’s high throw almost certainly caused Senga to pull his hamstring, at a time when he had a 1.47 ERA.
Senga, Manaea, and Peterson, after all, were supposed to be the No. 1-2-3 starters in the rotation this season, and their combined ineffectiveness largely doomed the Mets, especially with so much at stake late in the season.
But even that doesn’t explain why this team didn’t hit with runners in scoring position, save for the month of August, or why they played such dreadful baseball at times, especially in September, making both mental and physical mistakes that cost them games.
Throw in the lack of depth in the bullpen, which David Stearns, thought he addressed at the trade deadline, and those were the on-the-field issues that added up to all that losing baseball for more than three months.
And yet for all that, it’s still hard to ignore the intangibles that are more difficult to define but perhaps too often taken for granted.
Were J.D. Martinez and Jose Iglesias together the secret sauce to the 2024 season, Martinez providing veteran wisdom even when he stopped hitting down the stretch, and Iglesias driving the intensity higher on a daily basis with the way he grinded at the plate and hustled his way to more infield hits than you could count?
Martinez was done after last season, and certainly from a big-picture standpoint, it made sense to make room for young, home-grown players like Luisangel Acuña and Ronny Mauricio, in addition to Brett Baty and Mark Vientos, rather than bring back Iglesias.
But I thought it was a mistake at the time, not valuing what Iglesias did for the ballclub. And though he didn’t have nearly the season in San Diego that he did with the Mets, it’s still hard not to wonder if his presence would have added some of the intensity that seemed to be missing at times this season.
Put it this way, with Iglesias around, I have to believe they would have won at least one of those games in which they were trailing after eight innings. And if so, they’d likely be in the postseason.
That’s perhaps too simplistic, but it helps make a larger point.
That is, it seems relevant to note that Stearns, in some ways made a similar decision as Milwaukee Brewers’ GM, failing to anticipate the impact on his team’s clubhouse when he traded closer Josh Hader at the 2022 trade deadline, after which the Brewers fell out of contention.
A couple of years later, Stearns said he regretted that trade, implying reasons tangible and intangible, yet moving on from Iglesias felt a little bit like the Hader decision.
All in all, I don’t put as much blame on Stearns as I see fans doing on social media. Those pitching injuries/underperformance cut the legs out from these Mets, but that also leads to my biggest issue with the Prez of BB Ops: his refusal to bring up Nolan McLean at least a month earlier than he did, when he was instead using career minor leaguers to fill in for an injury-riddled starting rotation in July.
Even a handful of more starts from McLean might have assured the Mets of holding onto a wild-card spot.
That’s not necessarily about intangibles, but it is about having a feel for what the ballclub needs, and for not recognizing the obvious poise and competitiveness in McLean, in addition to his elite stuff, that made him major league-ready.
Stearns values analytics; we know that, but does he appreciate everything else that goes into building a winner?
It sure looked that way in 2024 when the Mets surprised everyone by going to the NLCS, but it’s a fair question now. Not only because this season goes down as an all-time failure, but because significant changes need to be made with this roster.
Only it’s not obvious how to make them. Alonso proved his worth and unless the Mets are signing Kyle Schwarber, which feels unlikely, Stearns needs to lock him up. However, between Alonso, Juan Soto, Lindor, and to some extent, Brandon Nimmo, whose contract would be difficult to trade, the Mets don’t have a lot of room for maneuvering.
The Mets now have a foundation of young pitching, as we’ve seen, and in top prospect Carson Benge they may have a difference-maker with the bat who can play center field, perhaps as early as sometime next season.
But Stearns can’t count on that. Nor can he fall back on his formula of signing undervalued pitchers, which worked in ’24 but not for the long run in ’25. He’s going to have to bring in at least one high-priced pitcher from a group that includes Michael King, Dylan Cease, Ranger Suarez, and Framber Valdez.
And he’s going to have to improve the offense by trade or free agency as well. Of course, no amount of money can necessarily assure a team of having OMG magic, if you will, but finding a glue guy or two ought to assure that your team won’t go 0-70 when trailing after eight innings.
Which is what now seems fitting as an epitaph for the ’25 Mets.
Read the full article here