Centerfield

Peralta against some scrub. Like it matters anyway.

If someone told me before the season that the Mets are going to crash and burn but your friend seawolf is pitching the sixth inning on April 30 maybe that’s worth it?

It’s shocking to be relying on those guys with this huge payroll. David Stearns is going to set a record for contracts eaten. I mean, we are already paying for Nimmo and McNeil to play for other teams. We are paying Frankie Montas to not play at all. Manaea is certainly an “eat the contract” candidate. As is Senga. Semien’s contract is the worst of them. It will be a test of how long we can tolerate the pain before cutting losses. Polanco’s contract looks bad. So does Devin Williams. Minter has been a waste of money. Luis Robert looks bad. We’ll need to buy him out at $2M next year. Bichette also gets an opt out bonus $5M. All of this while wasting a year of Juan Soto’s prime. Inexcusable.

Not watching this game. But I think a fair second guess is bringing Manaea in with men on versus a clean inning.

All three are garbage.

The way I look at it. Regardless of what David Stearns has done or not done. If you look at the talent assembled for the 2025 team and had to guess the range of outcomes, 83 wins and missing the playoffs would be at the bottom of this projections. Or potentially below them. If you look at the talent assembled for the 2026 team and had to guess the range of outcomes, 9-19 would be well below any realistic projection. An underperforming team is on the manager. He has to go. And a team unwilling to acknowledge and make that move is one that is more concerned with being right than being good.

I can’t believe they didn’t fire him. The Mets are not serious.

I mean. How can anyone legitimately argue against this.

Sure. Sure. A .603 OPS doesn’t seem like much. Until you realize the guys he’s replacing was .071. Upgrade!

Of course. Lindor and Soto are no brainers, and the type of players a big market team should be signing. Of all the moves Stearns made this offseason, Bichette was the best of them (or the least worst of them), but even that had issues. He gave a 1 year opt out to a player attached to a QO. The AAV was insane, and once you factor in the opt-out bonus, he costs us $47M this year. Keep in mind this was exactly the structure Cohen had a problem with in the Alonso negotiations a year ago. To now just grant that, and lose the QO compensation is evidence of panic. I agree that the issue with the lineup was the hitters behind our top 3, but part of the reason we are left with that is because Stearns paid elite level money to a good, not elite player. The much bigger issue, of course, is Polanco. Paying to bring in an over 30, oft-injured player, coming off an outlier year and asking him to repeat that outlier year is how you end up in trouble. And relying on Bichette and Polanco, not to improve the team, but to make up for lost production from two very good, reliable hitters, is why were in this mess. I think we ended up 9th in runs scored last year. Everyone agreed we needed to get better. Our plan to get better was: 1. FIrst, get worse, by losing Alonso/Nimmo/McNeil. 2. Sign Polanco and Bichette to make up for Alonso/Nimmo/McNeil and hope that you've covered the difference. 3. Rely on the upside of Luis Robert 4. Rely on the upside of Baty/Vientos/Alvarez. 5. Rely on the upside of Carson Benge. 6. Hope that all of this was enough to make up for the inevitable offensive downgrade Marcus Semien was going to provide. In hindsight, I think it's pretty clear to me that David Stearns felt that he was going to get Kyle Tucker, and if he didn't get Tucker, the market would be soft enough that he could cobble together some Polanco-type moves. I think he never thought the FA markets would stay hot all through the off-season. A huge miscalculation on his part.

I’ve said it before. Getting the most of the talent you have on your roster is a big part of the managers job. Whether it’s getting guys to believe in themselves or whether it’s finding a way to motivate/play loose. Most managers are net neutral. They’re just there. And the team is what it is. A select few managers get more. Dusty, Bruce Bochy, Terry Francona. They win wherever they go. They’re outliers that get the most from their guys. Then there are the net negatives. Unfortunately at this point it’s clear Mendoza has no clue how to get anything from his teams. Even his miracle run was an 89 win season where they won the third WC by tiebreaker. You can’t let him steer the ship any longer.

You have to fire Mendoza if they’re swept by the Rockies at home.

Well I’m glad I tuned in for that. im out. Not going to let this shitty team ruin my day. everyone needs to be fired.

1-1. Somehow I feel fortunate that we have 1.

It seems to me that Stearns is so averse to bad long term contracts that he’s ended up with worse ones. He hated the Nimmo contract. Ended up with Semien. And also paying $6M to Nimmo. Didn’t want to hand out a long term contract to older starting pitchers. Ended up with Frankie Montas and Sean Manaea. Didn’t want to hand out a long contract to a big bat. Ended up with Bichette and Polanco. Neither look likely to give you the return he was hoping for. Didn’t want McNeil. Ate nearly $6M. Took a flyer on Luis Robert that he’d hit better than the last two years. He hasn’t. And the defense hasn’t been as advertised. It is truly astonishing how crappy this roster is given the payroll. And if this season is going to be saved, it’s going to come down to the kids stepping up for the underperforming highly paid veterans.