“The impetus of existing plans is always stronger than the impulse to change.”
— “The Guns of August,” Barbara Tuchman
It’s time. It’s beyond time, actually, with the New York Mets waking up May 11, still, with the worst record in baseball at 15-25.
David Stearns needs to add something right now.
It’s not easy to add something right now; there’s little that’s truly available, and you’ll overpay for what is. But patience has its price, too, and it’s getting awfully expensive for the Mets to run out the sport’s weakest lineup day in and day out.
Through 40 games, New York’s offense has scored 139 runs. It’s easy enough to do the math and know that’s less than 3.5 per game. A Mets team hasn’t done that over a full season since 1981, and that’s being kind enough to call 1981 a full season. (Otherwise, it’s 1972.)
On Opening Day, the Mets made reigning Cy Young Award winner Paul Skenes look ordinary. In the 39 games since, they’ve made every ordinary pitcher look like a reigning Cy Young Award winner.
Discount Skenes’ Opening Day line — two-thirds of an inning and five earned runs, though Oneil Cruz’s defense should add an eye roll to “earned” — and starting pitchers against the Mets this season own a collective ERA of 3.13 and a WHIP of 1.18. Freddy Peralta, for the Mets this season, owns a 3.12 ERA and WHIP of 1.20. (Those opposing starters, to their credit, have completed six innings 45 percent of the time since Skenes’ Opening Day dud.)
It was reasonable to think that, given time, the lineup would heal itself to some degree. Bo Bichette would perform to his track record. Marcus Semien would halt what now appears to be a three-year decline. Brett Baty would build off his 2025 season. The Mets could weather the turmoil until Jorge Polanco and Luis Robert and Francisco Lindor returned.
But a quarter of the way through the season, Bichette has been worth 0.0 WAR. Semien and Baty (and Polanco, for that matter) are in negative territory. There are no timelines yet on Robert, Polanco or Lindor. Sure, these players should all be better, but the timing and magnitude of that improvement feels a lot sketchier than it needs to be for a team built to contend this season. Remember, it’s not necessarily about finding it in time to right your numbers by Game 162. You’ve got to give the front office a reason to go for it by Game 113 and the Aug. 3 trade deadline.
Stearns has been in this place before. His 2021 Milwaukee Brewers were 21-22 when he decided Luis Urías couldn’t cut it as the everyday shortstop and traded for Willy Adames from the Tampa Bay Rays. It’s as significant a May trade as there’s been this century, and it’s time for Stearns to try running it back.
The options tend toward the unglamorous — players with unwanted contracts such as the Houston Astros’ Christian Walker or the Baltimore Orioles’ Tyler O’Neill. Mike Trout and Byron Buxton are probably too complex to acquire right now. But some players had been trade candidates over the winter who didn’t move, such as the Arizona Diamondbacks’ Ketel Marte, the Boston Red Sox’s Jarren Duran, the Colorado Rockies’ Mickey Moniak and the Washington Nationals’ CJ Abrams. And teams like Houston, Boston and the San Francisco Giants are in similar spots looking to shake up rosters that haven’t worked yet this season. Nothing represents a perfect fit, but any good bat represents a necessary fit.
Standing pat is its own decision, and it’s one digging the Mets a deeper hole by the day.
The exposition
The Mets lost three of the last four games to subvert what had been a solid trip. After dropping a series to the Diamondbacks over the weekend, New York finished the trip 5-4 and is 15-25 on the season.
The Detroit Tigers snapped a five-game losing streak with a win in Kansas City on Sunday night. Detroit is 19-22, still just 1 1/2 games out of first in the AL Central.
The New York Yankees were cooled off by a sweep in Milwaukee that halted a 16-3 stretch. That’s cost them first place in the AL East, as their 26-15 record is a game behind the Rays. The Yankees will visit Baltimore before finishing their three-city trip in Queens.
The pitching possibles
vs. Detroit
RHP Freddy Peralta (2-3, 3.12 ERA) vs. RHP Jack Flaherty (0-3, 5.56 ERA)
RHP Christian Scott (0-0, 3.27) vs. LHP Framber Valdez (2-2, 4.57)
RHP Nolan McLean (1-2, 2.78) vs. RHP Keider Montero (2-2, 3.18)
v. New York, AL
RHP Clay Holmes (4-3, 1.86) vs. RHP Cam Schlittler (5-1, 1.35)
LHP David Peterson (1-4, 5.49) vs. LHP Carlos Rodón (0-0, 6.23)
RHP Freddy Peralta vs. LHP Ryan Weathers (2-2, 3.03)
Following up
One comment I’ve seen throughout the season — and that I imagine some might have regarding the argument above — is that Stearns and the Mets have embarked on a kind of “stealth” rebuild season. The premise is that the Mets had to let go of the former core to get their books in better order down the line and were thus willing to punt on 2026 competitively to do so. And the “stealth” component is that the Mets never outright said they were taking a competitive step back, the way they did at the 2023 trade deadline, for instance.
I do not believe this was the course the Mets planned for 2026. I don’t believe it because the Mets structured their contract with Bo Bichette to potentially spend $98.7 million on him for just this one season. They traded two top 100 prospects for an impending free agent in Freddy Peralta.
It’s fair to say trading Brandon Nimmo for Semien and permitting Pete Alonso to sign elsewhere were decisions the Mets made understanding they would set the team back in 2026. But the intent wasn’t for the collection of moves the front office made to set the team back. That’s just what’s happened so far.
Injury updates
Mets’ injured list
Player
Injury
Elig.
ETA
Lumbar spine disk herniation
Now
May
Left lat surgery
Now
June
Left meniscus tear
Now
June
Right wrist contusion
Now
June
Lumbar spine inflammation
May 12
June
Fractured left thumb
May 13
June
Rib fracture
May 24
June
Left meniscus tear
Now
June
Left calf strain
Now
July
Tommy John surgery
May 24
2027
Tommy John surgery
May 24
2027
Tommy John surgery
May 24
2027
Red = 60-day IL
Orange = 15-day IL
Blue = 10-day IL
Gray = Minor-league IL of note
• It was a bit surprising earlier this week to hear Carlos Mendoza say Jorge Polanco is not close to a rehab assignment. Polanco had previously been considered week to week, but he’d been doing (and has continued doing) baseball activities for a little while now. The Mets have never set a timeline on Polanco’s return from wrist and heel ailments.
• J. Minter was taken off his rehab assignment, just as it approached its 30-day terminus, because of discomfort in his left hip — the same one he’d had surgically repaired entering the 2025 season. Minter threw a bullpen over the weekend but will need a couple more of those before returning to minor-league game action for a restarted rehab assignment.
• Kodai Senga has restarted a throwing program, but no timeline has been established for a rehab assignment or for his return yet.
• After several commenters wondered what was up with Mike Tauchman, I’ve added him here from the minor-league IL. Unfortunately, the update isn’t super promising: Tauchman is still rehabbing in Florida after knee surgery and, as of the middle of the week, had yet to start baseball activities.
Minor-league schedule
Triple-A: Syracuse at Scranton/Wilkes-Barre (New York, AL)
Double-A: Binghamton at Somerset (New York, AL)
High-A: Brooklyn at Rome (Atlanta)
Low-A: St. Lucie vs. Jupiter (Miami)
A note on the epigraph
I attempted to fend off middle-aged male stereotypes by deciding to get into World War I before inevitably getting into World War II. (I’ve been reading a book about the Pacific theater for about two months now.) That’s when I read “The Guns of August,” which is my favorite nonfiction book about WWI.
Trivia time
The Mets have had three leadoff home runs this season by three players: Francisco Lindor, Bo Bichette and Juan Soto. In 2012, the Mets finished the season with three leadoff homers by three players. None of the three was a longtime starter for the Mets, yet all three have pretty memorable individual moments with the franchise — one of them in that 2012 season, the two others for things that happened in 2015.
Who were they?
(I’ll reply to the correct answer in the comments.)