The Mets Fall From Grace Wasn’t Sudden

The New York Mets are out of the playoffs as the San Diego Padres one-hit them and the rest was history. They lost two out of three games, and those 101 wins are as hollow as a one-hundred-year-old tree trunk. And like that tree that must come down, the Mets need to identify their core players and change the group once again.

September Set Up This Failure

When some were talking about the Mets’ number of wins, I kept talking about not going into the Braves series less than three games up. That was my edict but clearly, that wasn’t the Mets manager, Buck Showalter’s game plan. His stubbornness, and the way he can overthink situations took over once again, and believing in his guys only got him so far. 

When Your Season is On the Line

You check Joe Musgrove’s ears and hat and almost everything else. Six umps were there because Buck started checking baseballs earlier in the game and he finally asked for a formal check. This was an act of desperation from a guy that was out of answers. When that didn’t work the air was out of the Mets’ balloon. It was over and the fans knew it.

The Mets Have Talent

Mets GM Billy Eppler was allowed to add money to the Mets payroll and that made making trades easy. Once the Mets spent their allotted money, the underwhelming (as I called them at the time) moves at the deadline were the test of his ability with Sandy Alderson working just down the hallway.  Do better or face the same results. 

A Manager Must Have a Balance

For every pat on the fanny and overwhelmingly positive comments a manager can give players in public, there has to be a lot of constructive criticism that follows behind closed doors. Baseball is fun when you’re winning but when a team is imploding? it’s not fun. And you wonder how did they get there? Daniel Vogelbach was hitless in the playoffs. Were there no better options? Try Luis Guillorme who is a lefty. He only had one at-bat and at times could scratch out hits. I would have accepted that.

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Let’s Hope The Mets Remember This Failure

The Mets can be happy they made the playoffs. But after that wore off they should have a bad taste in their mouths on how this went down. How it ended. The exit interviews should be straight, honest talk. Not everybody can excel in New York and management must identify players who can. Stop looking for bargains. Pay attention to analytics but don’t live and die by them. Steven Cohen wants to win. He will spend to win. His management has to make good on that. They are the experts.

A Long Winter Ahead

Met fans know what a long, cold winter feels like. They will now wonder which players will resign and who will go to free agency. The team can’t keep everybody and will want to add some new blood. This fanbase can be forgiving. They’re always hopeful when March rolls around but this one will sting as much as their recent playoff failures, maybe more since they were led to believe the 1-2 punch of Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer would get them to the promised land. The one thing that didn’t happen was the bats went dead for long stretches and when that happens, it doesn’t matter how good your pitching is.