In November of 2020, Steve Cohen finalized a deal to purchase the Mets from the Wilpon family in a deal that marked the end of an era, one that Mets fans hoped would take the team from punch lines to championships. It didn't happen immediately. Luis Rojas presided over a 77 win season in 2021 before "Uncle Steve" got his man.
Make no mistake about it. No matter who was running the Mets at the moment (Sandy?), Buck Showalter was a Steve Cohen hire and who could oppose him when Buck ingeniously turned the team into a 101 win one, second best in the history of the Mets. However, it still wasn't enough to win the NL East. The team flopped in a three game series in Atlanta, relegating themselves to a wild card series against the Padres, where they similarly flopped, but they were the only wild card loser to not be swept in a three game series until this year.
Buck Showalter lost a lot of intelligence over that winter because the Mets won just 75 games in 2023, the ghost Wilpon still haunting the team. Buck was fired for his sudden incompetence when Uncle Steve once again got his man, former Brewers' President of Operations David Stearns, a life long Mets fan, who wanted to bring in his own guys. One of those guys, just happened to be another ex-Yankee player/coach to take the managerial reigns of the Mets after Torre, Berra, Randolph.
Carlos Mendoza was a rookie manager this year, who didn't win his first game until his sixth and 2024 looked very much like the "retooling" year it was supposed to be for the Mets. After the Senga injury in spring training, they didn't even have a pitcher who would crack the top three in many rotations.
It went on like this until the end of May until a random purple McDonalds mascot threw out the first pitch of a game after which the Mets reeled off a 61 - 36 record. The offensive talent was always there, but Lindor and Nimmo really took off, though neither made an All Star team. They were helped by a Mark Vientos breakout, a Jose Iglesias resurgence and guys like Alonso and Martinez not hurting them at least. Some of it was luck (Iglesias's .382 BABIP, .315 career), especially on the pitching end (Peterson 78.4 LOB%, Quintana 78.2%). Some were real improvements (Severino 20.3 K-BB% last 10 starts, Manaea arm angle change and 22.3 K-BB% over his last 12).
They went on to change the narrative in Atlanta, miraculously clinching a playoff spot the day after the rest of the league ended it's season in the first game of a double header. Then they miraculously defeated the Brewers and one of the top closers in the league in the wild card round before dispatching the Phillies, who really peaked early in the season, a bit more easily.
I always felt the real test would be whoever came out of the San Diego/Los Angeles series and that proved to be the case. I felt a bit better about the Dodgers actually, because of the state of their starting pitching (all injured), but those injuries and some of that good luck caught up to the Mets too.
Look, there's absolutely no shame in being taken out by the Dodgers. Getting blown out in all four losses (thought he last game was slightly close at times) was not ideal, but the Mets gave it right back with two blowouts of their own and at least didn't get swept on their home turf. That's probably the only thing that really would have made it difficult to accept.
Quintana's stuff was never going to work with an extremely well-disciplined lineup like the Dodgers. Manaea had a strong start in Game Two, but hit a wall and just seemed worn down by the career high 200 innings (including post-season). Severino threw the same amount and hadn't eclipsed 102 innings since 2018.
On the offensive side, Lindor, Nimmo and Winker were all literally the walking wounded, giving the team everything they had left. Could Mendoza have made some better lineup decisions earlier on? Sure. It was clear Martinez wasn't going to be helpful, though Iglesias remained a good base runner and fielder at least. He made some questionable decisions considering pitcher splits, though teams have proprietary information that goes beyond L/R splits. It's difficult to critique when you don't exactly know what the team is thinking. Unless Mendoza was playing BvP, in which case, well, I probably shouldn't publicly state what I think the punishment for that should be in a public forum.
Sticking with his guys too long was a fault of Mendoza's all season long, one that usually worked out well for him and one I was concerned would mean the team's doom in the post-season. That did not manifest itself the same way. It wasn't that Mendoza was sticking with starting pitchers too long at all. He did appear to recognize the significance of these moments and properly act on them, though it was the guys he put his trust in coming out of the bullpen that was the problem.
I'll be the first to say that the man did not have many trustable options, but there were particular pitchers who proved that they could not be trusted early on and Mendoza just kept on plugging them into important situations.
The Mets played 13 post-season games and four relievers pitched at least eight innings without reaching nine (Diaz, Peterson, Garrett and Stanek). Perhaps they should have because less than two innings behind them were Butto and Maton. Did Butto get a bad break with a 15.6 K-BB%, 55.6 LOB% and both of his barrels leaving the park? Maybe. Stanek had the same K-BB% with an average strand rate and even allowed a third barrel with only one leaving the yard. I'll give Mendoza a break on Butto, but there was absolutely no reason to keep using Maton after he allowed three home runs to the first 29 batters he faced. He was the first man in after Manaea left Game Six, when the game might have been salvageable. Until Maton almost immediately allowed his fourth post-season run to put two more runs on the board. It's not like any of this was fluky with a 54.5 HardHit% and 6.1 K-BB% either.
With nearly 40% of the post-season roster (10 players) headed towards free agency, including three of the five starters they used, what will this team look like next year. With a solid core in place, strong minor league system ready to graduate a few players and over $100m off the books, fans should be optimistic about the future of this club.
Be back with some World Series content later in the week.
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