A year ago, there wasn’t a Mets fan who couldn’t wait for this week. There was a brief period of mourning in the days and weeks after Josh Hader took a weak grounder off Starling Marte’s bat to give the Padres a 6-0 victory in Game 3 of the 2022 Wild Card Round. . play off.
A proper squeeze when a 101-win season was in jeopardy as the Mets sent just two of their worst batters to the plate against San Diego, shaved off just one hit and a walk, quietly collapsed, and quietly failed. was there.
But as time went on, no fan base anywhere counted down the days until a pitcher’s or catcher’s game as loudly and enthusiastically as Mets fans. Steve Cohen threw another few buckets of cash at Justin Verlander, another Hall of Famer. He made a big play on Carlos Correa before Correa’s medical staff started ringing the bell.
It was the Mets era. That much was clear.
And now… well…
It’s hard to know exactly what to feel and think. A year later, Buck Showalter, a veteran manager with more than 30 years of experience, was replaced by first-time captain Carlos Mendoza, who spent the last several years as bench coach under Aaron Boone. A new front office boss has been installed in David Stearns, and Billy Eppler has stepped down. Until now, Mr. Cohen has kept his safe locked.
More importantly, things couldn’t get any worse for the Braves.
Or the Phillies.
Or the Marlins.
Or even the Nationals, who lost to the Mets in just four games last season.
And what about the Mets?
Now, bookend Hall of Famers Verlander and Max Scherzer are long gone. Although the roster looks different, it is a cost-effective method. There are still a lot of good players here, including Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil, Francisco Lindor, and Brandon Nimmo. Edwin Diaz hadn’t pitched an inning in 2023, while Marte returned after only eight at-bats since July 16. Luis Severino used to be good. Harrison Bader had his moments.
Children? Francisco Alvarez could be a star someday. Brett Batty and Mark Vientos are interesting. The Mets themselves insist they won’t send out emails this season. Despite selling a lot at the deadline last year, he was mostly quiet heading into this year’s spring training.
“One of the things that was really interesting in my first few weeks was talking to a lot of players and they were trying to convince me how good they were,” Stearns said last week on stream. He spoke on the program “Foul Territory”. “And I was like, ‘No way, I get it.’ We’ve got a talented group here and we’re going to build on this and be a good team next year.”
Of course, it’s not just the players who need convincing. But it starts there. There are no guarantees in baseball. The Mets have spent the past two years reinforcing that age-old truth. The 2022 group was supposed to enjoy an innocent rise under Coach Showalter, but instead they outperformed expectations by 10 to 12 games and spent most of the year in first place.
When Diaz injured his knee in the World Baseball Classic last year, things started to go south before the first pitch of the first game. Losing a closer isn’t enough to guarantee the devastation that followed, but as the foreshadowing suggests, it was certainly one hell of an event. Then the game started, and the hitting, pitching, bullpen, and health were never good enough.
The Mets are like a car that won’t start at all, with a 75-87 result and some inconsistency from the owner and former general manager who hinted the Mets could punt in 2024 before turning around. There was a report.
The Mets are pandemic-free heading into 2024, but they also haven’t raised any bold slogans for the postseason yet. And, as we saw last season, baseball is a fun game. Unless you were one of the 17 or so people who watched the Rangers-Diamondbacks World Series last March. This team reports to Port St. Lucie, so there’s a lot of wait and see, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. After all, the Mets have always looked more comfortable as underdogs than champions.
Part of the reason is that they’ve had a lot of practice with it. And as we prepare to dive headfirst into his 2024 fray. Every year, there are teams that never fail to surprise us. The Mets were happy to take on that role for him in 2022. We could have used an encore.
