ARLINGTON, Texas — Throughout an anxiety-filled first half, both the Yankees and Mets confounded critics, overcame glaring weaknesses and ultimately crafted mostly positive narratives.
Things have looked dicey at times (and dire in the Mets’ case), but the smart take is that both teams will continue to play into October.
While there’s a lot being said about the Yankees being a two-man team, their starting rotation suddenly falling apart and manager Aaron Boone having no idea how to pull the team out of an eight-game losing streak, our up-and-down core team is sitting one game behind the top of the best division in baseball going into the break.
The Mets story is the real shocker of the first half. For a long time, the Mets were considered a losing team by most people, but somehow they made the playoffs. While the Yankees lived up to the expectation of being a championship contender almost every year, the upstart Mets (only the Mets, with the highest payroll in sports, could be considered underdogs!) rose to prominence with astonishing speed.
Special thanks to two top stars who are worthy of being All-Stars (Francisco Lindor and Brandon Nimmo) and the indisputable, intangible assists from fun characters (dazed fast-food villain Grimace and singing second baseman Candelita). They all team up to energize Queens. OMG, they’re the best!
The resurgent Yankees are united by a disappointing new cleanup man in Ivy Leaguer Ben Rice, but their core players are more typical of an organization known for its generational hitters. Future Hall of Famer Juan Soto and the incomparable Aaron Judge did their best to anchor an otherwise largely disappointing lineup. The Soto-Judge duo lived up to Yankee brass’ expectations and became their most dangerous player. The only negative is Soto’s contract situation, which leaves the team at the end of the year. (Soto is said to be enjoying his time in pinstripes, but the Yankees already know the expected in-season negotiations will not happen.)
Soto lives up to his hype as a hitter (and even better defensively) thanks to a rare batting instinct. It’s hard to believe that Soto is still leading the MLB in walks, as he always has been, with Judge batting behind him. (It’s also hard to believe that his competition is still pitching to Judge, who has walked seven fewer batters than Soto, yet the Yankees have a below-average cleanup hitter behind Judge.)
Judge will be voted the MVP of this first half of the season, along with all four other players, and while some are leaning towards the more consistent Soto and versatile shortstops Gunnar Henderson and Bobby Witt Jr., Judge is once again threatening the AL home run record, this time for himself. His 34 homers are the most ever hit by a Yankee in a first half of the season.
We’ve seen this Yankees-Judge storyline before, and in some ways this season looks like a mirror image of Judge’s record-breaking 2022 season. But for months, few expected anything good to come from the Queens team, which once sat 11 games below .500 and lagged behind everyone except the uncompetitive Marlins and Rockies, has recently outperformed everyone except the National League’s best team, the Phillies.
Suddenly, there’s a joyous celebration in Flushing. Fans are praising Grimas, whose first pitch has heralded an unexpected run of success. Now, the unlikely hero is star infielder and inspirational player Jose Iglesias, known by his stage name Candelita. Iglesias has written a catchy new song, “OMG,” that has become the team’s slogan, surprising doubters.
Just a month ago, the team seemed certain to be heading for a sale, but that situation has been the opposite: With starting pitchers on short-term deals in Luis Severino and Sean Manaea, and popular slugger Pete Alonso, who has hit more home runs than anyone since entering the league in 2019 but is on the same expiring contract as Soto, they could have engineered a pretty good sale.
At this point, the Mets should be buyers, as they’re in the playoff picture and, thanks to the generosity of owner Steve Cohen, have more personal resources than any other team. While they don’t have a player worthy of competing for an MVP award and only have at least one All-Star (Alonso), they do have an unusually large number of capable starting pitchers and a lineup deeper than almost anyone else’s. So, I say it again: the Mets have a chance.
Relief remains an issue for both teams, but the Mets in particular have a reliever force that is overworked, underperforming, underperforming or all three, and both teams are now focused on acquiring talented relievers at unreasonably high prices.
Our teams had decent first half games and the Mets have some magic, but there are enough flaws to be concerned, and both teams seem to need some relief reinforcement late in games to give themselves a real chance to win an even better second half than the first.
