Centerfield

Harris with a foolish challenge. Now his closer won’t have one in the bottom of the ninth.

We’d be tied right now if not for that send.

Just a terrible send. I think we have the worst 3B coach I’ve ever seen.

Put it this way. 16 Mets have 45+ ABs this year. Of those 16: 2 are rookies. No past performance to measure against. 4 are backups/role players. Luis Torrens, Tyrone Taylor, MJ Melendez, Jared Young. They are performing like backups. 1 regular position player is performing at expectations (lofty ones at that). Juan Soto. 9 position players who were expected to have meaningful roles on this team are underperforming. (Bichette, Semien, Baty, Vientos, Alvarez, Lindor, Robert, Polanco, Mauricio)

Relievers are incredibly inconsistent. I don't know that I have a lot of faith in Weaver keeping up his performance through the end of 2026, much less 2027. If someone is willing to offer a good prospect package, I say you pull the trigger. But I mean like real prospects. Not the ones we talk ourselves into believing in.

To clarify, what I meant by "the Mets are doing something to these hitters" is that somehow the Mets seem to be finding a way to get the worst possible result from the talent they've assembled. And say what you want about roster construction, if the one constant is that everyone plays to the bottom of their outcome range, the Mets are going to be bad indefinitely. Bo Bichette, Francisco Lindor, Jorge Polanco, Luis Robert Jr, Francisco Alvarez, Brett Baty, Mark Vientos, Ronny Mauricio and Marcus Semien are all underperforming expectations. Some of these guys have been injured, so their sample size is small, but collectively, the sample size is pretty damning. For guys like Semien, Baty, Vientos, Mauricio, the expectations were fairly modest to begin with, but still they've found a way to fall short. The only regular performing at or above expectation is Juan Soto. (Benge and Ewing are rookies, so there really isn't a standard for them to meet or exceed). Role players Torrens and Taylor are performing at around expectations, but the expectations were very low. There is not a single hitter, Soto included, who is outperforming expectations. There's something that's not right here.

That’s great. I love that our announcers understand our history.

Did Gary quote Murph today?

The Mets best hitter outside of Soto is Alvarez. He has a .734 OPS. The Mets are doing something to these hitters.

This team manages to embarrass itself every night.

I just saw the replay of the Taylor non error. Holy crap. Anyway. They should be playing Ewing every day. This season is lost.

We keep looking for rock bottom. Something tells me we are not there yet.

Those names in the first post tell you how thin this lineup was from day 1. A poorly constructed roster and a front office that manages to get the least out of whatever talent they have is what’s led to this mess.

9-16

Pulled Clay Holmes early in that June 13 game. And maybe that was predetermined as Clay complained of some discomfort in his prior start, but I don’t see why you pull a starter that is cruising. And then he turned to Paul Blackburn. Just mind boggling. That being said, I don’t think he was terrible with the in game decisions. What made him stand out was the inability to right the ship when things were going bad. Few got so little out of so much the way Mendy did. I liked him though. Seemed a real good dude. Falls into the good guy, bad manager pool. Like Terry Collins and Jerry Manuel. I couldn’t be happier he’s no longer the manager.

Too little too late. Mendoza should have been fired after 2025. Keeping him was an indictment on Stearns. Letting 2026 spiral into this is more of an indictment. Carlos Mendoza will be the symbol of Stearns refusing to admit mistakes and doubling down on his process. And it’s gotten us here.

I think other teams find ways to get prospects to become serviceable major leaguers. I get that very few become stars, but it’s amazing how we can’t even develop league average players.

He had TJ surgery so he lost time. I don’t know much about him but I’m sure the Mets will ruin whatever ability he has.

The team is an embarrassment. What do you do? Stearns will do nothing. He won’t fire anyone. He won’t change his philosophy. No adjustments will be made. I’ve excused Steve Cohen until now. He did his part. He funded a huge payroll. Hired smart people and got out of the way. But now this is malpractice. You can’t just let this keep happening. You have to step in. It boggles my mind that the answer to this is nothing. They’ll do fucking nothing.

In this never ending search for rock bottom, we are at our low point again. With the potential to fall further.

Wait. Really? I can’t figure this guy out. It looks like he was cruising.

Stearns press conference basically reinforces what I’ve been saying is his biggest flaw. His answers, more or less, were that we have good players and ultimately they have to perform. When asked about his coaches he says he’s pleased with their performance. He completely dismisses the idea that poor performance this widespread suggests a flaw in the organizational philosophy. It couldn’t be him. Couldn’t be his coaches. He just needs more time. If he showed any ability to learn from mistakes I’d be open to keeping him. But he doesn’t. I don’t think we can begin to recover until he is gone.

Soto hurt? Ridiculous.

I do.

Continuing the discussion from the IGT. Both Benge and Ewing have a .722 OPS today. That’s promising for such young players, but they’ll need to improve on this if they want to meet expectations. Christian Scott has been good since his return from the IL. And McLean, if he’s now gotten through his control issues, is also a very promising player. I would say we have four wins, or potential wins, in the player development department. On the flip side, all of the original “Baby Mets” have been disappointing. Alvarez, Baty and Vientos have all failed to develop as we hoped. Mauricio too. Guys like Gilbert and Acuna never got there either. Ryan Clifford is striking out 30% of the time in AAA and Reimer has taken a step back. That great selloff in 2023 got us zero useful players. Tong is lost. Wenninger and Watson don’t look like they’re headed in the right direction. Not a single relief prospect is anywhere close. Zach Thornton doesn’t look to have enough talent. Tobias Myers is lost. Manaea, Senga and Peterson hardly resemble what they once looked like. Peralta is having a down year. Bichette is still having a bad year. Polanco and Robert weren’t around for long, but struggled while they were playing. I would say the Mets biggest problem is player development. How they manage to get the absolute bottom outcome of the players they have.