Things I never want to see again

[Centerfield]

If there’s a silver lining to this **** season ending Sunday, I’m glad I’ll never have to see Mendoza pull a starter early and put in Soto to let all the runners score and light the game on fire. And then watch him do it again ma few days later.

Wishful thinking is that Mendoza will be gone. But just not seeing Soto anymore will be something.

Edited September 27, 2025 by Centerfield

[Centerfield]

In fact this whole bullpen besides Raley and Diaz can go.

No more Stanek. Or Brazoban. Reed Garrett is getting TJ surgery so he’s gone anyway. Helsley. I’m glad you figured it out. Too bad you sucked when we actually needed you to be good.

Rogers I guess was ok. But he coughed up a few games early when we could have stopped this bleeding. Plus he’s goofy as **** and throws weird. Get him outta here too.

[Centerfield]

I never want to see Cedric Mullins again.

[Gwreck]

In fact this whole bullpen besides Raley and Diaz can go.

 

That’s fine, and mostly likely anyway, but reliable relief pitching does not grow on trees. The Mets declined to pay the giant prospect cost for a Duran or Miller, and they’re going to have to pay a significant amount of cash to retain Diaz this offseason.

The Mets will assuredly exercise their 2026 option for Raley, probably will exercise it for Drew Smith, and AJ Minter will probably exercise his player option.

Brazoban is arbitration-eligible for the first time and threw 62 innings (more than any reliever other than Diaz) to a 109 ERA+. He’s not going anywhere, nor should he.

[Centerfield]

Diaz is 31. While the back of that contract may not look great, you figure he has 2-3 years left of his prime.

Between Diaz, Raley, and Minter, you have the building blocks for a decent pen.

Brazoban (didn’t realize he wasn’t a FA) and Smith are ok low leverage guys. But they’ll need to do a lot better. Maybe the kid Ross can be something. Though I hear he’s wild.

I get that good relievers are hard to find but for now I’d be happy with different faces.

[Frayed Knot]

Middle relief is almost always a parade of new faces from year to year with only a couple of holdovers.

And the one consistent truth is that most of the fans will wind up hating most of the guys on their team.

And while I'm not saying any are 'must haves', I would have no problem living with Soto, Brazoban, Rogers, or Raley going forward.

Edited September 27, 2025 by Frayed Knot

[Edgy MD]

I could go without seeing the Five Boroughs Race again.

And the bumper with giant John Cena on the giant scoreboard calling on me to root for my team would be a nice thing to misplace over the winter. Really, even less noxious personalities in those things feel synthetic.

And I'd sure like to to never see the DH again. It's not bloody likely, but as long as I am practicing wishcraft, I might as well.

[Centerfield]

I never want to hear about the ******** pitching lab again. Wow was that a ****ing fraud. ERA 18th in baseball. 24th in the second half.

We knew the pitching was a question mark coming in. It ended up being so much worse than we could have imagined.

How can you have that many guys perform below expectations. The entire protected rotation. Manaea. Peterson. Senga. Montas. Montas came in with low expectations and managed to somehow do even worse. How do you end up with your top 3 being unpitchable by September.

Holmes is the only one that was ok. And even he has a 4+ ERA in the second half.

All of the deadline relievers pitched worse here than they did for their old teams. Absolute ****ing disaster.

[Centerfield]

But mainly I never want to see Carlos Mendoza again.

****** uninspired baseball for 4 months. They somehow played tight and sloppy.

Bad in game decisions. Never ever give me another post game interview about how they’re too talented and have to grind it out.

[Lefty Specialist]

Things I never want to see again:

1) Cedric Mullins

2) Gary Cohen talking about how great somebody has been just before they **** the bed. ("Reed Garrett has had a 1.07 ERA over his last 13 appearances")

3) Yes, the 5-boro race.

4) Cedric Mullins.

5) Ads for a suite at Citifield. They start at like $15,000.

6) Kevin James screaming on the scoreboard. I have nightmares.

7) 47 pitchers appearing in a season. There's a reason it's never been done before (it doesn't work)

8) Mendoza bad pitching decisions. He always seems to pull people too early or too late.

9) Gelbs talking about in-game parlays or somesuch nonsense.

10) Cedric Mullins. Not even in street clothes. Not even 20 years from now at a card-signing table.

[Benjamin Grimm]

It seems you have mixed feelings about Cedric Mullins.

[Chad ochoseis]

But mainly I never want to see Carlos Mendoza again.

****** uninspired baseball for 4 months. They somehow played tight and sloppy.

Bad in game decisions. Never ever give me another post game interview about how they’re too talented and have to grind it out.

 

This time last year, we were talking about him as Manager of the Year. He didn't suddenly get stupid over the winter.

There were some decisions I didn't agree with, but that's going to happen with any manager. The pitching choices would have looked a lot better if we'd had better pitchers. But I don't think firing Mendoza is going to help the team any more than firing Showalter, Rojas, Calloway, or Collins did. I think the managerial revolving door may be the problem. It's hard to make good decisions with an axe hanging over your head.

But I agree this team is a lot dumber than last year's team was. Success aside, last year's team was fun to root for because it looked like the LOLMets era had ended. They got out-talented by the Dodgers, but they didn't get out-thought by anyone. This year, the entire club's baseball IQ seems to have dropped.

I haven't had a chance to watch much. It's been a busy spring and summer. But I've been asking myself just how good of a pickup Soto was. He's put up offensive numbers exactly as expected, maybe even better. But he's awful in right field, and it hurt that when Taylor was hurt or benched we didn't have a great center fielder to pick him up. He doesn't say much to the press so it's hard to gauge his personality, but he got pouty when he got off to a slow start. And I don't recall Gary or Ron ever saying "Wow, what a smart move by Soto!"

And, yeah, pitching. We didn't get hit too hard by injuries this year, but losing Senga (followed by watching him stink up the joint) was a tough blow.

[Lefty Specialist]

Yeah, pitching. Much of Mendoza's weird decision-making resulted from a pitching staff he couldn't trust or didn't have.

Peterson and Holmes burned out in the second half. I have to believe Senga wasn't ready to come back and got out of synch. Montas was a head-scratcher from the jump. Manaea, I dunno, but we're stuck with him for two more years.

Hindsight being 20/20, they probably jumped the gun on Tong. Sproat and McLean will probably be okay getting their feet wet this year.

One thing the pitching lab needs to do is to teach these guys to pitch to contact. 8 strikeouts are cool, but only lasting 4 2/3 innings is not cool. And there was just too much of that this year.

And we haven't even gotten to the bullpen yet. Don't know what Stearns' plans are for next year, but golly, this year didn't work at all.

[MFS62]

Mendoza.

He was given a Maserati, but there were times he looked like he was driving it in first gear or even fell asleep at the wheel.

Later

[stevejrogers]

.

OE: Didn’t realize Cena actually has been a “rally cheer inducer” for the Mets this season, off of Soto using his hand gesture taunt

[Edgy MD]

• Titanic;
• President Trump behind a presidential seal;


• Harvey Keitel's shlong;


• Jimmy Buffett in concert (probably pretty safe);


• The View;


• That video where Gal Gadot led two dozen celebrities in singing "Imagine" to comfort and unite us during the Covid lockdown;


• Any social media posts that says, "I know 90% of my friends will ignore this, but my real friends will copy this and make it their status";


• Any social media posts that says, "SHARE if u LOVE Jesus! ❤️✟!!";


• Any social media posts that is clearly AI imagery and/or AI writing posted by somebody who I thought had a brain and a soul, but somehow thinks this abomination is cool;


• That episode of Little House on the Prairie where the Olesons have taken in a foster child and he is behaving incorrigibly, and Nels is about to smack the **** out of him, and Harriet is telling Nels to Unhand that child! because she is all spare-the-rod-and-spoil the child and Nels is all 'HARRIET, GO INSIDE AND LET ME HANDLE THIS!' because Nels is all bring-down-the-rod-and-save-the-child, and even though Charles ****ing Ingalls saves the ****ing day, by being all 'Nels, maybe I can take the kid to help me on the farm," God help me, I end up rooting for Harriet ****ing Oleson, and thinking Nels may privately be the real dick in that utterly dysfunctional family.

[MFS62]

Every time I see Karoline Leavitt I think that in a prior life she was Nellie Oleson.

Add Karoline to my list.

Later

[roger_that]

• President Trump behind a presidential seal.
  
• Harvey Keitel's shlong.

 

Redundant?

[kcmets]

I don't know who Harvey Keitel is and I'm not googling it.

Saturday Night Fever (clips, the whole movie, or any references.)

[stevejrogers]

I don't know who Harvey Keitel is and I'm not googling it.

 

Very good character actor from the 1970s through the 1990s. Usually tough guy archetypes.

He’s the Cleaner, Winston Wolf in Pulp Fiction, and low level bank robber Mr. White in Reservoir Dogs.

The movie with him going the full monty that Edgy is talking about is Bad Lieutenant from 1992.

[Edgy MD]

While your description is otherwise very accurate, I was not thinking Bad Lieutenant.

But I guess that makes at least three full-frontal films for The Harve.

Yeesh, that kind of puts me off shlongs for life.

[Centerfield]

I never want to see Carlos Mendoza put in some ******** reliever in a winnable game, then watch him struggle, then run him out there for a second inning effectively punting the game. The Zach Pop Phenomenon.

There are lots of games you can look back on this year. But one that may be forgotten is the July 18 game against the Reds. The first one out of the break.

Manaea goes 4 IP, 1 run. Mets leading 2-1. With a completely rested pen, Mendoza goes to Alex Carillo. Who immediately gives up the lead. HBP. HR.

Trailing 3-2, Mendoza then gives him a second inning effectively punting. Where he proceeds to give up another HR. Then a walk. Then a wild pitch. Then yet another HR. Finally pulling him when it’s 6-2. An inning and a third. Three HR. 5 runs.

Then he goes to Brandon Waddell, who gives up another 2 runs. Again, this is the first game out of the break with a completely rested pen. The Mets closed to 8-4. But it was too little too late.

I get that it’s on the players. And it definitely is. But it’s also hard to overcome a manager that is effectively saying “eh, we’ll get ‘em tomorrow” in a one run game in the 6th.

In this case, they didn’t get ‘em tomorrow. They lost to the Reds the next day too. And now the Reds are tied with us in game 162 with the tiebreaker.

For too long the players played, and Mendoza managed, like the post season was a given. And now we’re paying the price.

[MFS62]

But I guess that makes at least three full-frontal films for The Harve.

 

Bad Lieutenant

The Piano

and ?

Later

[Frayed Knot]

Sports betting commercials running on any and all sports programming (like that's ever going to happen).

Those ads aren't openly dishonest but they creep right up to the line while implying it's merely a matter of how often you cash in, never if.

[ashie62]

In Bad Lieutenant Keitel has a huge bet on the Mets to win the 1988 NL series vs the Dodgers

He's coming out of a stupor to hear Strawberry homer and gets all excited

The voice says "that makes the score 10-2 Dodgers"

[metirish]

The whole coaching staff

[metirish]

[TWEET]

[/TWEET]

 

Well, there goes that

[Centerfield]

Mendy coming back suggests to me a complete lack of accountability. The same attitude that allowed this mess to fester for four months.

[Edgy MD]

Well, "beyond that it gets interesting" suggests something is coming around.

[Centerfield]

I’m guessing they’ll fire coaches. But honestly how can they not. The offense, while featuring some good individual seasons, underperformed collectively.

The pitching was a question mark coming in. But how they performed was so much worse than anyone could imagine.

If you can’t fire these coaches you can’t fire anyone.

But beyond that, this team played such bad baseball you almost have to fire the manager. Bringing him back is a tacit acceptance of the terrible play.

Baty getting picked off twice. Mullins not running. The errors. The inability to work with Pete on his throwing. The team playing tight. All the intangibles were a mess.

And then. The decisions themselves. How many games that were punted by Mendoza. For most of the freefall, he managed like he’d be able to turn things around tomorrow. And changed nothing even as he ran out of tomorrows.