Hello and welcome to the latest edition of The Athletic’s weekly mailbag. I have been away for the past few months on parental leave. What did I miss?
Let’s see … Shohei Ohtani has still got it. Kyle Schwarber is still swinging for the fences. Jacob Misiorowski still throws quite hard.
As for the rest of the sport? Well, looks like I have some catching up to do. To wade back into the 2026 season, I’ve got some questions from readers. Let’s get to it.
The questions have been edited for clarity.
How have the Mets fallen this far down? — Daren M.
I was not completely off the grid during my parental leave. I still own a phone. I can still receive text messages. I can still read stories. I was aware that the Mets’ season had been disastrous. But it is still somewhat shocking to open the standings on the final day of June and see the team at 15 games under .500 and on pace for a 67-win season.
For a team with an estimated payroll of $365 million, that translates to $5.4 million per victory. Not exactly what owner Steve Cohen had in mind when he lured David Stearns out of his advisory role with the Brewers and into the top baseball operations gig in Queens. I picked the Mets to win the National League East. Instead, they will be contemplating yet another roster overhaul — and Cohen will consider overhauling the front office, too.
To answer your question, the “How” is relatively straightforward. It is the other questions — like what could have been done differently, or what comes next — that offer more intrigue. Let’s lay out the problem first. Much of this has been written already, so we’ll try to be brief.
In the wake of a disappointing 83-win season in 2025, Stearns broke up the club’s underachieving but well-liked core of homegrown players, aiming to improve the team’s defense and avoid complacency. He assembled a roster of well-regarded but injury-prone players, many of them playing new positions. It has not gone well. Jorge Polanco and Luis Robert Jr. are on the shelf. So is Marcus Semien, who has struggled at the plate and in the field. The defense still looks slapstick. Pete Alonso has hit a lot of homers for Baltimore; the Mets entered Tuesday ranked 28th in the majors in slugging percentage.
To add to the clutter, Stearns changed up much of the coaching staff, which meant little carry-on continuity from previous seasons.
The team’s two best players, Francisco Lindor and Juan Soto, have both spent time on the injured list.
The two highest-profile additions, Bo Bichette and Freddy Peralta, have underperformed. Bichette has struggled to adjust to third base, and looks lost at the plate. Readers familiar with our Aces Project know that Peralta profiles closer to a No. 3 starter than anything else, but he was sold to Mets fans as an ace. Instead, he has posted a 4.53 ERA in his first 17 starts.
Neither Brett Baty nor Mark Vientos looks like they belong in the majors.
Amid all these setbacks, the team operated with a leadership void, as our Will Sammon laid out last week. Manager Carlos Mendoza paid for all the losing with his job.
Do you want me to keep going? Kodai Senga has given up 33 runs in 32 2/3 innings. A wicked liner broke Clay Holmes’ leg. Ronny Mauricio accidentally whacked Francisco Alvarez with a bat in the on-deck circle. There is a long list of problems. All of this is well-trod territory.
With Mendoza out and Andy Green at the helm until the end of the season, the heat has transferred directly onto Stearns. It will remain warm underneath his seat for a while, because there is no easy way out of this mess.
The great Ken Rosenthal wrote last week that letting Alonso leave “might go down as the signature mistake of the Stearns Era.” It certainly looks that way. In hindsight, yeah, duh, they should have just re-upped with Alonso. Or hung around the market for Munetaka Murikami rather than diving into a two-year, $40 million deal with Jorge Polanco. Or out-bid the Yankees for Cody Bellinger. Or done . . . a variety of things different than the things they did. I think Stearns made a reasonable, defensible decision to move on from Alonso, who is putting together another solid season to start his five-year, $155 million contract with Baltimore. Where Stearns erred, clearly, was how he decided to replace him.
Look at it this way: Alonso is a quarter. You know his value. You know he can slug. You know he is limited as a defender and as a runner. Stearns tried to cobble together a collection of loose change — Baty, Vientos, Polanco — that might have added up to a quarter. Some vending machines don’t take coins worth less than a quarter. Sometimes, the big leagues are a vending machine.
(Is that a dumb analogy? Whatever, man. I’ve been hanging out with an infant for the past few months. My brain is fried.)
What I’m trying to say is that Stearns took Alonso, a flawed but known commodity, and tried to offset his departure by gambling on a collection of less reliable players. Polanco had not played first base and tends to get hurt. He got hurt. Vientos looked like a star in 2024 and a minor-leaguer in 2025. He looks like a Syracuse Met again. Baty was a 3.0-bWAR player in 2025 after putting together -0.7 bWAR the previous three seasons. He is back in the red in 2026.
To make another loose change analogy: Stearns flipped a bunch of coins and called them wrong. The question is why a team with Cohen’s resources is reduced to flipping coins in the first place.
There is not an easy way out of this mess. Semien is under contract through 2028. Polanco is owed another $23 million next year. Bichette could pick up his $42 million option rather than test the market heading into the lockout. And the uncertainty about the next collective bargaining agreement may dissuade Cohen from making more costly additions this winter. Stearns earned a reputation as a resourceful leader during his time with the Brewers. Reviving the Mets will require some of that skill. And his first forays into creative solutions were not encouraging.
Following up on three bold MLB predictions
Andy McCullough
Will we see an injury-free season, or dare to dream, a return-to-MVP-form from Ronald Acuña Jr.? — Christopher V.
Excellent question. This is not breaking news, but Acuña’s career trajectory has been derailed twice by traumatic injury. Here is a visual cue, excluding the 60-game 2020 season, outlining his participation over the years:
Ronald Acuña Jr., games played by year
YearGames played
2018
111
2019
156
2021
82
2022
119
2023
159
2024
49
2025
95
He suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee in 2021, worked all the way back and won the National League MVP in 2023, and then tore the ACL in his left knee in 2024. He has been in the process of returning from that ever since. Acuña won the National League Comeback Player of the Year award in 2025, hitting 21 homers with a .935 OPS in 95 games. But his electricity on the bases had dimmed. He swiped 73 bags in 2023, but only nine last season.
This season figured it could be a litmus test for whether Acuña could, as you said, return to that MVP form. He has already stolen 15 bases in 2026, but his production at the plate has slipped. A 124 OPS+ is quite good, but not close to the 171 he put up in 2023. More troubling is a recurring hamstring issue, which currently has him on the injured list for the second time this season. Even as Atlanta’s lead in the National League East dwindles, the team will be cautious not to rush him back.
Acuña will turn 29 in December. He has been one of the best players in baseball for the duration of his 20s, even after the two major knee injuries. This year may be a hinge for him, as he tries to prevent the dreaded transition to becoming a Guy Who Gets Hurt. I’m not sure he will ever be the player he was back in 2023, but then again, who is?
If Acuña can hit like he did last year — .290/.417/.518 — across a full season, no one will complain. That may require him to run less often. That may require more scheduled days off. That may require Acuña to make the sort of adjustments that elite players are required to make as they approach their 30s. He certainly has the talent to be one of the greats, and the drive to remain one. Otherwise, those two knee injuries would have wiped him out already.
The Yankees have played pretty well while Aaron Judge is on the injured list. What personnel changes will they make when he returns? — James P.
I’m not sure I’m as optimistic about the current Yankees product as you are, James. The team suffered a four-game sweep at the hands of the Red Sox last weekend. The starting pitching has taken its lumps. And the offense, of course, misses Judge, who likely won’t be back until August, at the earliest. Cody Bellinger and Ben Rice have cooled off. Jazz Chisholm Jr. still hasn’t heated up.
A lot can happen between now and whenever Judge returns. Specifically, a lot of other injuries can happen. But Jasson Domínguez has not hit well since replacing Judge in right field. If he does not catch fire, the team could just option him back to the minors.
What has mattered: my Rockies are no longer the (by far) worst team in MLB. We now have competition! — SevenSeven55Zero
This will sound like damning with faint praise, but it is true. The Colorado Rockies are not flirting with historic futility in 2026. They still might be the worst team in the baseball, but they are not much worse than the Royals and the Angels and, yes, the Mets. For the first year of Paul DePodesta’s reign, this must be considered progress.
DePodesta and his crew of lieutenants, including longtime former Dodgers executive Josh Byrnes, did not completely overhaul the Rockies infrastructure. But they made a few changes that have paid dividends, like flipping reliever Angel Chivilli for first baseman TJ Rumfield. With the Yankees, Rumfield was blocked at first base by Ben Rice. Given a chance in Colorado, he has emerged as one of the team’s most productive hitters. Another offseason pickup, outfielder Jake McCarthy, has been taking advantage of Coors Field to boost his numbers. Willi Castro has been adequate as a utility guy.
The pitching, though, is still a mess.
During the winter, Michael Lorenzen’s agent told him “You’re absolutely insane” for wanting to join the Rockies, and thus far that looks like excellent representation; Lorenzen has posted a 6.83 ERA in his first 18 appearances. Fellow new guy Tomoyuki Sugano has been better, because a 4.80 ERA grades out as passable on the Rockies curve, but the altitude in Colorado is still the altitude.
The most intriguing test for DePodesta will come as the trade deadline approaches.
In previous years, the club was reticent to deal homegrown players despite clear interest from rival clubs. That started to change last summer, when outgoing executive Bill Schmidt finally traded third baseman Ryan McMahon. Colorado is expected to move pitcher Antonio Senzatela, who has hit his stride as a reliever after many seasons as an unsuccessful starter. I doubt DePodesta takes all that seriously any offers for All-Star catcher Hunter Goodman, the team’s most valuable player, but he probably should at least listen.
What might MLB learn from World Cup fanbases? — Ed H.
Easy. Instead of expanding to Nashville and Salt Lake City, MLB should put its next franchises in Edinburgh and Oslo.
One of the more delightful outcomes of this World Cup has been the swarms of international fans visiting baseball stadiums in between the soccer. It would be tough to regularly replicate the zaniness of the Tartan Army, but I do think MLB could consider trying to harness the energy of visiting fans on a regular basis. Most stadiums in Nippon Professional Baseball provide a cheering section for the visiting fans. MLB could try to do something like that, which might encourage fan groups to travel more for road trips.
But in some ways, you are asking what an apple can learn from an orange. The thrill of the World Cup derives from its scarcity. The tournament only comes around every four years. Some players only get one crack at it. Almost every game carries the weight of history. The baseball season just isn’t like that. Its pleasure derives from its abundance. There is so much of it, nine innings again and again, day after day after day, through the spring and the summer and the first moments of fall. The sport rewards patience from its participants and its viewers alike. If you tried to pack the tension and the terror of the World Cup into a 162-game season, you would burn everyone out.
All that said: MLB should encourage fans to link up and take a trip to watch their favorite team on the road. It’s a great big world out there.
Did you name your son Clayton? — Steve E.
I did not. But thank you for asking.
Sung to the tune of “We Didn’t Start the Fire”:
Munetaka Murakami slamming more than other rookies,
Now he’s out with injury, next up Antonacci.
Mets pay tons but no luck, Red Sox somehow also suck,
DBacks losing A.J. Puk, Phillies fire Robby T.
Jo Adell, Brandon Lowe, PCA is better now.
Buxton wants to stay a Twin, Giant hats are seen as sin,
Skubal comes back very fast, Miz’s Maddux throwing gas,
Sanchez flirts with Orel’s past, Marilyn Monroe.
— MA S.
This was beautiful. Thank you. It is good to be back.