seawolf17

Five teams within two games of the second-half International League title going into the final weekend, too.

One side effect of this roster churn is that we have had so many forgettable guys. Adding Cameron Weston to my list, Google Sheets tried to auto-fill it with "Cameron Maybin," and I was like "Maybin's never been a Met." Sure enough, 2021. And he got more ABs than Johneshwy Fargas, Khalil Lee, Wilfredo Tovar, Chance Sicso, and Jake Hager, all of whom I *do* remember as Mets. Weird.

Toronto fans would like Vlad Junior to borrow whatever Tatis Junior is taking, although at least he *finally* hit his first home run in Toronto last weekend.

So we now have *two* potential new Mets on the roster (Weston and Cairo). If they both get into games, that will make 2026 the third-most newMetliest season ever. 1962: 45 new Mets (obviously) 2021: 42 1967: 35 2025: 35 2023: 34 2024: 34 2026: 34 I'd be very curious to see if other MLB clubs have a similar situation, where they've used more *new* players in the last few years than ever before.

Right? You want to figure Lindor and Soto will be Lindor and Soto (providing they stay healthy), and I'll take another .230/.305/.710 season from Alvarez and Torrens with 24 home runs behind the plate. But everyone else is a crapshoot. Ewing and Benge could be on the PCA track, or they could be Lastings Milledge. We have no first baseman. Semien has been our worst everyday player. Bichette will be fine if he stays, but why would he?

It's one of my favorite things about him. You *have* to throw him strikes, but he's also likely to hit those strikes to the moon.

We're going to lose these four games by a combined score of like 82-6.

Pete coming back and wrecking us is so Mets. This fuckin' team, man. You don't want us to cheer? Then sign the guys we want to cheer for. 1-0 Alonsos.

Since this is now concluded, I'm still weirded out by the old "projected" seasons on this list. I mean, I get what those lines are saying, but they're not real and that bothers me as a stats nerd. Ewing and Benge are real - they're projected to be where they are. But it feels janky to "project" something that is an actual impossibility in the context of a definitive statistical ranking.

If I told you "Pete Alonso is going to hit his 300th home run as a game-tying homer in the ninth at Citi Field and the place is going to go bananas" exactly a year ago, you'd probably be like "yeah, that sounds logical."

I've wondered about Topps' checklist choices for a while now. Williams was in Chrome, so I'm not surprised to see him here, but so was Weaver and they somehow left him off. Raley was in 2023 Update but hasn't shown up anywhere since. Seems likely that they locked in the checklist in early May, which means it would catch Ibanez but not Ewing. Ewing will definitely be in 2027 S1. Thornton probably too. With that logic, though, I'm surprised Kimbrel isn't in here. Tong is something of a surprise, because he was in S1. But yeah. Topps makes weird checklist decisions.

It is *infuriating* that the Red Wings have had the best record in the league over the full season - by 9 full games as of this morning - but is still in a dogfight for the postseason because of the first half/second half thing. Three more against Scranton this weekend (took two of the first three), then six against 31-33 Buffalo next week.

Had 'em all the way.

So I clicked through the rest of the season on https://playoffpredictors.com/, and there DOES exist a scenario where we're as high as the four seed. Does it require a LOT of things to go right, including us going 18-0, the AL winning every interleague game (except ours), and the Phillies finishing their season 0-18, among other improbable things? Well, of course. But ya gotta believe and all that.