Centerfield

I can’t believe I have to root for Cedric Mullins again.

I have a theory. Unproven, but a theory. Stearns is a smart guy. He has an idea of what will make players successful. And if you let him draft, develop, he will churn out guys that are successful under his approach. He will miss, like anyone else, but with enough time, the Mets will become successful at developing talent. something similar to the Brewers. But for established players, or players that don’t fit the Stearns mold (whatever that may be), Stearns has no idea how to get the most out of them. In fact, his principles can be detrimental. In other words, he has a great philosophy, and if you learn it young, or it happens to work for you, you’ll be successful. But if it doesn’t work, Stearns has no ability to adjust to the individual player, and he will be detrimental to a player’s performance. Kinda like a batting coach that teaches everyone the same exact swing. If his intelligence is his greatest strength, and I believe he’s smart, then his stubbornness, I believe, is his biggest flaw. He gets so entrenched in his own mind that he can’t see obvious pitfalls. anyway. We’ll see how he does in 2027. I think he knows he’s safe for next year, but knows he’s gone if they miss the playoffs again. And I think his pride will ensure that he puts a good team on the field.

You know. I look at these post-season games and it’s the same teams every year. Dodgers. Padres. Phillies. Braves. Yankees. Red Sox. Astros. Brewers. We’re not even asking the Mets to be great. Or elite. We’re just asking them to be kinda good. And that shouldn’t be hard when you have more money than everyone else and a third of the teams aren’t even trying. David Stearns really is something. If someone put a gun to my head and said build a $350M team, but you have to finish last and you can’t make it look like you’re tanking I don’t think I could build a team that was this bad

Glad to hear the prognosis is good. But you just never know with these things.

They’re going to win the fucking WS. Fuck 2026.

1-0 bad guys. I feel like Boston might be the best chance to knock them off until the WS.

Kudos to metmarathon. He had Lavender as his pick. None of our other predictions did enough to warrant consideration.

Some good choices this year. Zac Thornton was 5-6. 1.7 WAR. 3.42 ERA Nate Lavender was 1-0. 0.9 WAR. 1.66 ERA Jared Young had 1.7 WAR. .759 OPS. 9 HR. JCL mentioned AJ Ewing. Ewing was the #4 prospect coming into the season. Not DH eligible. I think none of the other guys made a significant enough impact but feel free to vote otherwise!

I think we have a few options. Poll tomorrow.

For all the talk of Bo being better after settling in, he had a .739 OPS in the second half.

Honestly I’m fine with Lowe, or any other assortment of hitters that will improve this offense. What I want the Mets to understand is that a 26th ranked OPS is not going to cut it, and is not anywhere close to where they need to be. So I don’t want to hear things like “well Bichette is now adjusted, and if Soto and Lindor stay healthy, plus even more improvement from Benge and Ewing….” nope. We need better players (multiple), better coaching, better health, better player development, etc. We need all these things in order to be good next year.

AJ Ewing did eventually break out of his slump. After having as bad a month as I can remember anyone having, Ewing finished strong in September. August: .463 OPS September: .862 OPS finishes with a .700 OPS overall, 11 HR, 25 SB and a WAR of 3.1 in 120 games. You can’t assume improvement, but to do this having just turned 22 is impressive. Let’s hope August was an aberration.

Have we all picked a postseason mistress? I’ll be rooting for the Red Sox this week, but that’s because of their opponent. In the NL I’ll be rooting for whoever plays the Braves.

Since I created this thread, Benge raised his July OPS to .801. He followed with .882 in August and .874 in September. His final numbers .776 OPS, 20/20, 4.3 WAR. That will work.

Yeah. Totally fair. I think my proposal works for a few reasons. Sato has played some OF as well as 3B. So the hope is that he can learn 1B. The scouts seem to think he would be passable at 1B too. And not that one player translates to another, but Murakami made the transition and he was a bigger question mark than Sato. In any case, if he’s a disaster, you can still move Soto to 1B and move Arozarena back to OF. Let Sato rotate in with Bichette, if he’s still here with the other being DH. So effectively my backup plan is your plan A.

They ended up 24th in OPS. 20th in runs scored. They need significant offensive upgrades to compete in 2027. Pitching not great either.

You’re not kidding when you say 2025 lingers. And that Reds game coming out of the ASB sticks out as much as any game that year. The Mets were coming out of the break and facing the Reds at Citi. It was a big series, even if we didn’t appreciate how important it was at the time. The Mets started Sean Manaea. And they were winning 2-1 after 4. That’s when they pulled Manaea. Pulling him early was understandable. He had been hurt and was just building back up. But with the entire ASB to prepare, and a series against a fellow WC contender, why would you willingly start the guy on a pitch count? The next series was against the Angels. A much softer landing spot for a rehabbing pitcher. But that wasn’t the only curious move. That was the decision to go with Alex Carillo in a one run game against a rival. A fully rested pen coming out of the break. As you might guess, Carillo struggled and gave up the lead on a 2 run HR. But it gets worse. After Carillo gave up the blast, the Mets were only down 1. But Mendoza ran him out there for the sixth. Where he promptly gave up another HR. Now we’re down 2. You have to pull him now right? Nope. How about after he walks the next guy? Nope. How about after a wild pitch. Nope. Leave him in to give up another 2 run HR. Now we’re down 6-2 and the game is basically over. Losing that series to the Reds meant losing the tiebreaker. That was huge down the stretch. I often think about how this happened. How do you start a pitcher on a pitch count. How do you go with Carillo as your first call. And how do you stick with him long enough to give up 3 HR, 5 runs and let the game get out of reach? Hubris. Thinking you are smarter than conventional wisdom. Believing in whatever data you saw that convinced you that Alex Carillo was the right choice, even as the results are crumbling around you. Doubling down on him until all hope is gone and the game is out of reach. At the end of the day, David Stearns never thought his team would fail. He never seriously considered the possibility that he was wrong. That’s how you start a rehabbing pitcher against your strongest WC rival. That’s why you pitch Alex Carillo. That’s how you leave Nolan McLean in the minors a month after every was clamoring for him to get the call. We saw this again in 2026. Stearns never believed that the pitching wasn’t good enough. Despite the results telling you otherwise, he doubled down on Senga, Manaea, and Peterson, much like he did with Carillo. He doubled down on Mendoza long after it was even remotely defensible. Doubled down until the season was out of reach, even as the results were telling you that something different had to be done. It will be interesting to see if the guy has finally been humbled. If he’s actually willing to admit he’s not smarter than everyone else. To acknowledge that it’s possible he’s wrong. I think this offseason will tell us a lot.

Saw the highlights of Tong. Looked good. The Benge catch makes his line better than it could have been, but the pitches seemed to be working.

X-rays negative on Soto.

Julio Franco.

He should have been up at least a month ago. Inexcusable to give those ABs to Semien.

Was a real mistake not getting ABs for Mauricio this second half. All that time wasted on Semien.

Baty has what could be described as a seeing eye single except it was hit at 3 fielders and went through all of them.

Just tuned in. Nunez looks nasty.

Todd Frazier.