Centerfield

Awful.

You guys are mathin at a level that makes my head hurt. Simpler math. 0-0, through 3.

The West divisions in this proposal here are across three time zones (and in most every other proposal, to be fair). It’s part of why we know Manfred is full of it when he talks about travel. There aren’t enough teams in the Pacific/Mountain time zones, so there are always going to be theee-time-zone divisions. Maybe if they award expansion franchises to both Portland and Salt Lake City that changes the balance enough, but as Ben Grimm flagged, it seems likely that Raleigh/Charlotte/Nashville gets one of the new teams. So yes, sloppy wording. All WC and DS are played as close to your time zone as possible, and against teams within your division. My proposal is designed to: (a) satisfy Manfred's gripes about a Dodgers-Mets Wild Card Series ( maintain the leagues and traditional rivalries © restore meaning to division titles Manfred can certainly scrap the AL/NL and go completely geographically. But the only round of playoffs that would affect is the LCS. And you figure the LCS is important enough that fans would watch anyway. That small bump in viewership hardly seems worth it to scrap 150 years of tradition. But what the hell do I know.

I’ve been unimpressed with Siri overall, but it’s only been 36 plate appearances, and he’s shown elite speed and plays good defense. Seems hasty to determine that he needs to go. He is gone.

I see the problem. I just misnumbered. Tigers have been reinstated!

Wait. I did something wrong. There's 30 teams right? I must have listed a team twice.

If we have to do realignment, my proposal. NL East 1. Mets 2. Phillies 3. Nationals 4. Pirates 5. Marlins 6. Braves 7. Reds 8. Cubs NL West 1. Giants 2. Dodgers 3. Arizona 4. Colorado 5. St Louis 6. Milwaukee 7. Padres AL East 1. Yankees 2. Red Sox 3. Orioles 4. Tampa 5. Blue Jays 6. Tigers 7. Guardians 8. White Sox AL West 1. Mariners 2. Athletics 3. Angels 4. Twins 5. Rangers 6. Astros 7. Royals Four Division winners. 8 Wild cards. Wild Cards play a three game series against your own division. NLDS/ALDS. Division winner takes on the WC from within your division. LCS and World Series continues as is. All WC and DS series are played within your own time zone. There are no cross-country flights until the LCS.

Paul Skenes vs. Hunter Greene. A matchup of two aces. Skenes was roughed up in his last outing against the Cubs. 3 ER in 3.2 IP. Had been pretty solid before that. Pitched 6 scoreless in his last start against the Reds in August. Hunter Greene was roughed up in Sacramento two starts ago (2.1 IP, 5ER). But has otherwise been lights out in September. 2 ER in 22.1 IP. Coin flip as far as pitching, but the Reds are at home, and the Pirates are last in runs scored in all of baseball. (that one weekend against the Mets notwithstanding)

I was kinda wondering about the Hefner philosophy on pitching specifically, rather than the small market/big market decisions. I get the feeling Hefner stresses two things: 1. Throwing your most effective pitches, and abandoning or reducing your usage of your lesser effective pitches. 2. Starting your pitches in the zone to entice hitters to chase. I don't actually know if this is his philosophy, but this is what I deduce from the results on the field. Throwing your most effective pitches sounds like a good philosophy. But it makes you predictable, and maybe that pitch mix is what made the effective pitches effective in the first place. As for chasing, I feel like Peterson's words were telling yesterday. "I threw some good pitches, they didn't chase". I think the book is out on Mets pitchers. Lay off the borderline pitches early, and they will fall behind. It's happened to Peterson, Senga, and was happening to Canning before he got hurt. It's happened to a lesser extent, to Holmes. And that's why his pitch counts run high. I think Holmes has been saved by having actually better stuff that he can throw in the strikezone to get outs.

Can you be more specific? I have my own thoughts about the Hefner philosophy. But curious to hear yours.

Small victories? That was huge!

I'm guessing we'll have a lot to say about this. And obviously the pitching was atrocious. But some intangibles from this year that are just maddening. **The Mets are 0-67 when trailing after 8 innings this year. They are the only team in MLB without a 9th inning comeback. League average is 3.35 wins. In 2024, they had 8 such wins. On the flip side, the Mets have lost 3 games in 2025 when leading after 8 innings. **The Mets are 2-13 in their last 15 one run games. They are 5-13 in one run games in the second half. **On three separate occasions, the Mets were batting with the bases loaded, one out, chance to walkoff the win. On May 23 against LA, Luis Torrens grounded into a DP. On Aug. 4 against Cleveland, Pete Alonso struck out. On September 21 against Washington, Brandon Nimmo struck out. The Mets lost all three of those games. **There have been 27 losing streaks in 2025 of 7 games or more. Other than the Mets, the only teams over .500 on this list are the Guardians, Rangers and Dodgers, who each appear one time. The Mets are on this list three times, with losing streaks of 7, 7 and 8 games. The bad part. I don't know how you fix any of these things.

So what do you do if you're David Stearns? On the one hand, the offense was highly inconsistent. 11th overall in runs scored for 2025 is obviously disappointing. I think we were all hoping for a top 5 offense. They've come up small down the stretch (12 in runs scored in September), and mustered out only 5 runs this weekend against two of the worst pitchers in baseball. As documented many times, they're the only team in MLB to not have a 9th inning come from behind win. On the plus side, the Mets were 6th overall in OPS. They're second in all of MLB in hard hit rate, and third in barrel percentage. They're first by a wide margin in balls hit 95 MPH. 5th overall in HRs, despite playing at Citifield. https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/statcast?type=batter-team&year=2025&position=&team=&min=q&sort=barrels_per_bip&sortDir=desc So maybe they were just unlucky? The Mets had two players in the top 10 in OPS (Soto and Alonso). Arizona was the only other team with 2 in the top ten. Three players (Soto, Alonso, Lindor) posted an .800+ OPS. Seven players posted a .750+ OPS. Baty was close with .743, and Vientos had a hot second half. If they re-sign Pete, the Mets could realistically have 8 players in their lineup post a .750+ OPS (Soto, Alonso, Lindor, Nimmo, Vientos, Baty, Alvarez, McNeil). Age might be a factor. McNeil will be 34, Alonso will be 31, Lindor is 32, Nimmo will be 33. Jett and Benge, you expect will be ready in 2026. Maybe Ryan Clifford too.

Yeah, I get that they didn't want to move Nimmo back to CF for the full season, but it's the last week, and we gotta do what we gotta do. Nimmo in CF. Baty and McNeil play every day. Mix in Marte and Mauricio. Taylor in for defense. I never want to see Mullins or Siri again.

Let's recap this homestand. 1. Friday, Sept. 12. Tong gives up 6 runs in the 1st. Can't escape the first inning. Mets lose to Rangers. 2. Saturday, Sept. 13. Baty gets picked off for the second time in a week in an obvious bunt situation. Catcher's interference leads to the tie. Lindor misses a soft line drive that leads to the loss. 3. Wednesday, Sept. 17. The Machado grand slam given up by an obviously ineffective David Peterson. 4. Friday, Sept. 19. Siri drops a fly ball, leads to two runs. Takes a bad route on another ball and turns a single into a triple. Comes up in a bunt situation, and has a pitch clock violation. Fouls off the next pitch, then strikes out. The Mets do manage to win this game. 5. Saturday, Sept. 20. The Soto error. The Alonso error. The McLean wild pitch, where everyone fell down. Nimmo strikes out with one out and the bases loaded. Acuna fails to advance the runner. Alvarez isn't bunting and grounds into a double play. Mullins isn't in "no doubles" and allows a fly ball to go over his head for an IPHR. 6. Sunday, Sept. 21. Juan Soto picked off. Another Lindor error, another Alonso error. The Mullins baserunning play. The Mets won the Siri game. The Tong outing happens. The grand slam sucks, but what can you do. The other three losses are inexcusable. Boneheaded mistakes. Bad fundamental baseball. And they came into this homestand having lost 6 in a row. I don't see how the coaching staff can survive.

Antoan Richardson is an interesting call. I agree he's done a great job with the stolen bases, but his actual base coaching has been atrocious. I don't know what he was doing on the Cedric Mullins play. If he wasn't imploring Mullins to keep running than he's just as guilty as Mullins. He did that a few times this year. The one I can remember was Soto getting doubled off in Atlanta with no guidance from Richardson. I still can't comprehend the Mullins baserunning. That might have been the stupidest play I've ever seen in my life. And this is coming in a weekend filled with incomprehensibly stupid baseball.

As for 2026 and beyond, this team has played so poorly for so long, I don't see how you can just run it back. Gwreck is right. There are a lot of individuals on this team that are talented, and still performed fairly well. If the Mets had made the playoffs and just fallen short in the post-season, it would have been fine to run the core of this team back there and call up Benge and Jett to fill out the roster. Ronny will hopefully continue to develop. But given the year they just had, and given that they're 11th overall in runs scored, I don't know what Stearns will do with this team. I don't see them adding Kyle Tucker. Maybe this is the year they have a shakeup trade. On the other hand, they were 6th overall in OPS. So maybe this was just bad luck? The big problem with this team was obviously the pitching. 17th in team ERA, and 24th in MLB after the AS Break. And that's with the infusion of McLean, Sproat and Tong. I think the comment about dead weight could refer to Manaea and Senga. Both terrible beyond any reasonable expectations this year. So bad that you wonder what you'll get out of them next year. Maybe to a lesser extent Peterson too. I guess the good news is that there is a clear, identifiable problem area that needs to be improved. The problem is there are no easy answers out there. The free agent options are all question marks. Cease has been terrible, Framber Valdez is a headcase, and Michael King has a thoracic nerve issue. One thing that is clear is that this coaching staff cannot return. Anyone responsible for getting this little production out of this group of players doesn't deserve to be back. Factor in the poor defense, the mental mistakes, and just lack of fundamental baseball. This team was not well prepared and never was it more evident than this weekend.

I still can't believe they lost the last two games. That's what I get for actually getting my hopes up. I really thought after the Tong win against the Padres that this team was set to go on a mini run to lock up the playoffs. One thing the 2025 Mets have taught us is that you should never, ever believe in this team. And I don't. The collapse is now complete. They're out of the playoffs. It's unthinkable that this team, with this much talent, can miss the playoffs with this format where everyone makes the post season. And I know it's not over yet. I know they only need to play one game better than Cincy, but not one part of me believes they will do that. I think there's a better chance they'll be out of it by the weekend.

They’re really gonna miss the playoffs aren’t they

I’m not sure we agree on the definition of “fraud.” The Mets got better than expected results out of Canning this year before a freak/non-pitching injury. Senga was excellent before getting hurt with, again, a freak/non-pitching injury. He’s been awful since and maybe there’s no connection but the timing is surprisingly coincidental if not. Holmes has had diminishing results as his inning count goes up. Big shock, we all saw this coming. Why he hasn’t been transitioned to a reliever already is a failure of strategy but overall he was a serviceable back-of-rotation starter. Manaea is the worrisome one. Was his excellent half season the outlier? Is he just not healthy? Griffin Canning was a big part of the pitching lab success. He finished April with a 2.61 ERA. Then posted an ERA over 4 in 5 starts in May. Then posted an ERA over 5 during 5 starts in June. We have no idea what might have happened had he kept pitching. But one month of success isn’t enough to warrant praise. Similarly, Megill was a big part of the early season story line. Then he, like Canning, started to fade. Then like Canning, got hurt. Montas was hurt, then a disaster, then hurt again. Manaea is unpitchable. Is he hurt? Let’s hope so. Cuz if he’s healthy it’s going to be a long three years. And Senga is so bad he’s in the minors. I get that you can’t control injuries, but Senga and Manaea are supposedly healthy and this pitching lab can’t do a thing to help them. Peterson has taken a step back, and has an ERA in the mid 6’s for August and September. Clay Holmes is predictably fading, as you mentioned. Gregory Soto, Tyler Rogers and Ryan Helsley have all pitched worse for the Mets than they did for their prior teams. Granted Rogers has been pretty good still, but the freefall from Helsley is baffling. If the pitching lab were real, you wouldn’t have the 24th ranked ERA in the second half, and 17th ranked ERA for the year.

The Mets are 17th in team ERA. So if you’re looking for reasons why they won’t make the playoffs, you can start there. Their 1.34 WHIP is even worse. 24th overall. So if you feel like the other team has baserunners all the time, you’re not wrong. Post All Star is even worse. 24th overall in ERA. 25th in WHIP. The Mets pitching lab has been exposed as a fraud.

Regarding Mendoza. The Baty play is on him. I get it. Sometimes players fall asleep. It sucks but these guys are human. But it should absolutely not happen twice in a week. That means that Carlos didn’t adequately address it the first time. If he had, Baty would be ****ing alert every time he’s on base the rest of the year. And especially in that situation where the other team thinks you might be bunting, you have to tell the baserunners to be alert for the throw. That’s on Mendoza. You don’t have to rip into him in front of the cameras, but you better rip into him somewhere.

And they complete the 0 for 4. Can’t even steal one game. It’s a lot to ask of the rookie pitchers, but the Mets now have two winnable games before another pitching mismatch on Tuesday. No words for how bad this is.

0-3. Three quarters of the way to fulfilling the saddest, easiest prediction of all time.

Back to the original question, I have no idea what you say to Major Leaguers to get them to play better. I'm not sure there is a right answer, and if there is, I don't see how a fan could ever know. I do know this. Mendoza's answers are infuriating to fans. Much like Pete's. The "we have to play better, we have to execute, we're too good" schtick gets old really quick. It's aggravating to hear the same thing, with no answers again and again. That's why so many people have re-written the Terry Collins story. Terry wasn't a great manager. I think there's plenty of evidence of that. But Terry had fire, and sometimes that came out at press conferences, and it made us feel better. Fans see losses. They feel angry. If a manager comes out angry, then fans relate to that. But was Terry a better motivator of the players than Mendoza? I have no idea. I guess if I were thrown into Mendoza's situation, the one thing I would tell the team is to try to win every inning. And immediately after that inning is over, forget about it and win the next inning. And maybe if you can get them to think in small chunks, they won't play like they feel the weight of the world on their shoulders. Cuz it certainly seems like they're playing with that weight every day.