New York Mets<\/a> tarp covered the mound, another one encircled home plate. No possibility of any October baseball coming to Citi Field this year.<\/p>\nYa Gotta Believe? More like hard to believe.<\/p>\n
After building the best record in the majors at 45-24 through June 12 with baseball’s most expensive opening-day roster, Juan Soto and the Mets finished 83-79 and\u00a0missed the playoffs\u00a0entirely when they\u00a0lost 4-0 in their season finale\u00a0Sunday at Miami.<\/p>\n
It was a gradual and yet stunning second-half collapse for a star-studded team that began the season with seemingly legitimate World Series aspirations and drew 3,182,057 fans to Citi Field \u2014 most in the ballpark’s 17-year history.<\/p>\n
So on Monday, before digging into what in the name of Tom Seaver and Keith Hernandez happened out there, the only thing for leadership to do was answer for a colossal failure.<\/p>\n
\u201cMets fans everywhere. I owe you an apology,” owner Steve Cohen\u00a0posted on social media\u00a0after spending $429 million in payroll and projected luxury tax for an also-ran. “You did your part by showing up and supporting the team. We didn\u2019t do our part. We will do a post-mortem and figure out the obvious and less obvious reasons why the team didn\u2019t perform up to your and my expectations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are all feeling raw emotions today. I know how much time and effort you have put into this team. The result was unacceptable. Your emotions tell me how much you care and continues to motivate the organization to do better.\u201d<\/p>\n
President of Baseball Operations David Stearns immediately took the blame at a Citi Field news conference for a club he said \u201cunderachieved greatly,\u201d acknowledging New York’s pitching and defence were especially problematic as the Mets went 38-55 over their last 93 games.<\/p>\n
The players acquired leading up to the July 31 trade deadline were mostly major flops in New York, namely\u00a0Cedric Mullins,\u00a0Ryan Helsley\u00a0and\u00a0Gregory Soto, and Stearns lamented, \u201cWe didn\u2019t do a good enough job of fortifying our team when we had injuries midseason.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTremendously disappointing season. Not nearly good enough. I think we all know that,\u201d he said at the outset of a question-and-answer session that lasted 31 minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m the architect of the team, I\u2019m responsible for it. I understand how frustrated our fan base is. I understand how frustrated everyone in this building is today, everyone associated with the Mets. We\u2019ve got to be better. And I\u2019m committed to moving us forward and doing better.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the first order of business, Stearns said manager Carlos Mendoza is definitely coming back next season \u2014 although anything else would have been a surprise. Mendoza was a huge hit last year in his debut and remains under contract through 2026 with a club option for 2027.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe Carlos has all the same traits and assets that I believed in when we hired him two years ago, and I think over the course of his tenure here he has demonstrated that,\u201d Stearns said. \u201cWe are all disappointed, we are all frustrated \u2014 Mendy as much or more than anyone else. But I still believe he’s a very good manager, and I think he’s going to demonstrate that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stearns said the whole coaching staff, however, will be reviewed over the next couple of weeks.<\/p>\n
Young catcher Francisco Alvarez will have surgery in the coming days to repair an injured ligament in his right thumb.<\/p>\n
Power-hitting first baseman Pete Alonso, a longtime fan favourite and the franchise leader with 264 career home runs, already said\u00a0he’ll opt out of his contract\u00a0this fall and test free agency again following a terrific season.<\/p>\n
All-Star closer Edwin D\u00edaz is expected to do the same, and the entire bullpen needs another rebuild.<\/p>\n
So there’s much work to do if the Mets are going to quickly rekindle their rousing success of 2024, when they made an unexpected run to the National League Championship Series.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now I think everyone’s pretty damn motivated to get going and ensure that we can do better,\u201d Stearns said.<\/p>\n
That probably begins on the mound, where Framber Valdez, Dylan Cease, Ranger Su\u00e1rez, Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly are among the likely free agents who could augment the rotation.<\/p>\n
Stearns indicated the Mets might also consider making changes to their core group of position players in order to improve their run prevention.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we have to be open to everything,” said Stearns, adding he could be more proactive than previously. \u201cWe need more innings out of our starting staff.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014 As several ballparks around the majors buzzed with playoff preparations Monday, from Yankee Stadium to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-178932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}