Manager Steve Cohen dodged questions last weekend about the trade deadline and the possibility of the Mets being dismantled for a second straight year, arguing against the possibility of dismantling a team that was, at best, barely good enough to make the postseason.
“We want to build a winning culture, and a lot of that is trying to get into the playoffs,” Cohen said.
The Mets began Friday on a winning streak not seen since mid-April, having won six of their last eight games. At the time, the Mets had won six straight games, including a series victory at Dodger Stadium, and there was optimism they could at least remain competitive.
But May was a disaster, with the team missing catcher Francisco Alvarez rehabbing from thumb surgery and Edwin Diaz reverting to his far from automatic 2019 form. Elsewhere, the lineup fizzled.
A faction of fans have already given up on this season and would like nothing more than for president of baseball operations David Stearns to trade most of the veteran players for prospects.
Last year under the previous regime, Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, David Robertson, Mark Cagna, Tommy Pham and Dominic Leone were traded, and this year potential trade targets include Pete Alonso, J.D. Martinez, Harrison Bader, Starling Marte, Jeff McNeil, Luis Severino and Sean Manaea.
A more cautious approach, which Cohen preached in London on Sunday, is to wait before making any decisions. The Mets have at least a month to think it through. But what if there are still gray areas in late July?
“If we find ourselves in the situation we are in now at the end of July, [around .500]”If we’re sitting in that zone and we collapse, that’s unacceptable,” Brandon Nimmo said. “I’m always willing to roll the dice and see what happens because you never know what’s going to happen when you get to the playoffs. We’ve seen two years in a row where a wild-card team made it to the World Series.”
Those two teams are the Phillies and the Diamondbacks. In 2022, the Phillies were eight games under .500 at the beginning of June. The Diamondbacks started strong last season, but fell two games under .500 in early August before rallying back. The Mets were seven games under .500 at the start of their series against the Padres at Citi Field on Friday. But in a weakened National League, the Mets were just three games back in the race for the final wild card spot.
Much of the intrigue surrounds Alonso, who is a free agent after this season and could be traded before then, and Nimmo acknowledged that the idea that saying goodbye to Alonso became a real one when the Mets began their downward slide last month.
“We had a rough start in May, but we had some good periods,” Nimmo said. “You start to think, ‘We need to get better, or Pete’s just gone,’ and that became reality about a month ago. But we quickly turned it around, got better and have been playing good baseball the last few weeks.”
Cohen has consistently maintained that the organization’s focus is long-term and that building a sustainable agricultural system is a top priority, but New York is not Houston, and losing a season in the name of growth will not be easily tolerated.
“I know they’re trying to build a team for next year and get some value out of their players,” Nimmo said. “I understand what baseball is all about, but I’m always in the position that if we have a good chance of making the playoffs, we’re going to do everything we can.”
Maybe the Mets’ situation will become clearer in another month, or maybe not.
But as Cohen noted, if the Mets can build a winning culture and remain relevant past the trade deadline, there’s a chance they could keep most of their team intact.
