“Only the places remain, in the end, in the very end, this is what she thinks to herself, on the verge of tears, only the places continue, as ruins, as moss, they go on, a tarpaulin that smacks against a metal pole, empty rooms that open behind scaffolding, a slab of concrete split open by grasses.”
—“Painting Time,” Maylis de Kerangal

Perhaps the pendulum is swinging again around June 12.

That date has been the fulcrum of the last two Mets seasons: the day the club’s Grimace Era started in 2024’s magical comeback, and the day Kodai Senga’s injury snowballed into a months-long collapse in 2025. You know the way these things have played out, but it’s still worth elucidating the chasm in team and individual performance over the last two years for these Mets.

From June 12, 2024, through June 12, 2025, no team in baseball was better than the Mets. In fact, no team was all that close. New York’s 106-60 regular-season record in that span is seven games better than second-place Detroit. (It was 7 1/2 games better than the Dodgers, 15 games better than the Yankees and 17 games better than the Phillies.)

From June 13, 2025, through June 12, 2026 (this past Friday), just four teams were worse than the Mets. New York played an even 162 games in those 365 days, going 69-93 — an unfathomable 35-game plummet from the prior year’s pace. The only teams behind them during that span were the Giants, Angels, Twins and Rockies.

How did this happen? Yes, president of baseball operations David Stearns deserves a lot of the blame: His moves to shore up the Mets’ rotation entering 2025 worked for a time but not long enough. His moves to shore up the bullpen at the deadline flopped. He failed multiple times to acquire an everyday center fielder. And his replacements for departing members of the team’s core have been injured and/or underperformed.

There has also been a fair amount of internal regression. And sure, you probably didn’t expect Francisco Lindor to be precisely that good for a longer stretch of time or for Sean Manaea to actually be Chris Sale in perpetuity. But the magnitude of statistical falls across the roster has been eye-opening.

Let’s look at seven of the biggest and try our best not to grimace.

(All stats, including the WAR, courtesy of FanGraphs.)

Francisco Lindor
June 12, 2024 to June 12, 2025: .294/.366/.533, 37 HR, 98 RBI, 8.7 WAR
June 13, 2025 to June 12, 2026: .252/.337/.436, 19 HR, 53 RBI, 4.0 WAR

This is the biggest drop-off for anyone who’s been on the Mets for the full two years, and it’s because Lindor played at such a fantastic height from the middle of 2024 through the middle of 2025. It’s actually pretty impressive that he has four wins above replacement in the last year, given the time he’s missed this season. But the drop from an MVP-caliber player to a mere All-Star is still a significant one, and it’s exacerbated, of course, by others on this list.

Mark Vientos
June 12, 2024 to June 12, 2025: .246/.304/.457, 28 HR, 77 RBI, 2.0 WAR
June 13, 2025 to June 12, 2026: .225/.266/.406, 18 HR, 66 RBI, -0.6 WAR

This specific chronological bookend is kinder to Vientos than more arbitrary ones could be. He was worse early in 2025 than he was late. Still, over the last year-plus, he’s moved from a cornerstone piece in the middle of New York’s order — his excellence in the 2024 postseason really felt like an early answer to worries about a sophomore slump — to a fringe player, and one who has been given ample opportunity this season to play regularly.

Tyrone Taylor
June 12, 2024 to June 12, 2025: .249/.316/.390, 6 HR, 30 RBI, 1.9 WAR
June 13, 2025 to June 12, 2026: .195/.228/.305, 4 HR, 30 RBI, -0.7 WAR

This is the kind of fall that sneaks up on you, as Taylor has morphed from an average bat with plus defense in a premier position to an untenable bat whose defense is closer to average (as he’s being played at that premier position in center less often).

David Peterson
June 12, 2024 to June 12, 2025: 189 IP, 14-5, 2.71 ERA, 3.7 WAR
June 13, 2025 to June 12, 2026: 150 IP, 7-9, 5.76 ERA, 2.1 WAR

Peterson’s statistical fall is softened by using FanGraphs’ version of WAR, which evaluates pitchers’ fielding-independent numbers more than their ERAs. (Peterson’s FIP over the last year is 3.70, or more than two runs lower than his ERA). But it has been a perplexing disaster on the mound for Peterson, who this time last year had established himself as one of the better starters in the National League. It felt like the offseason hip surgery he’d had heading into 2024 would be a pivotal point in his career, as his return late that May was one of the catalysts for New York’s turnaround.

Sean Manaea
June 12, 2024 to June 12, 2025: 121 IP, 9-3, 3.05 ERA, 1.9 WAR
June 13, 2025 to June 12, 2026: 103 2/3 IP, 3-5, 5.38 ERA, 0.7 WAR

The numbers don’t necessarily reflect it, but what Lindor meant to the Mets’ offense down the stretch of 2024, Manaea meant to their rotation. His mid-season transformation into a front-line starter significantly raised the ceiling on what the Mets could do in October — as evidenced by a few excellent starts that month before he hit a wall in the NLCS finale. But since then, Manaea has battled through oblique and elbow injuries while serving as a traditional starter, tandem starter, long reliever and mop-up man. Perhaps his start over the weekend, back as a traditional starter, signals a much-needed turnaround.

Kodai Senga
June 12, 2024 to June 12, 2025: 79 IP, 8-3, 1.59 ERA, 1.8 WAR
June 13, 2025 to June 12, 2026: 59 2/3 IP, 0-7, 6.94 ERA, -0.4 WAR

There weren’t many who bought all the way in on Senga’s results early last season; even the pitcher played down that sparkling ERA because of concerns about his mechanics. But the thought then certainly wasn’t that the right-hander would become unpitchable at the big-league level — that he’d be sent down in the middle of a pennant race in favor of prospects and that his return to a big-league rotation from his current injury would not be guaranteed. Those mechanics felt right this past spring training — but only for a couple of starts.

Tylor Megill
June 12, 2024 to June 12, 2025: 117 IP, 8-6, 4.00 ERA, 2.2 WAR
June 13, 2025 to June 12, 2026: 3 2/3 IP, 0-1, 7.36 ERA, -0.1 WAR

Bet you didn’t expect to see this name on the list. (I sure didn’t.) Among Mets’ pitchers, only Peterson was worth more by wins above replacement from June 12, 2024, to June 12, 2025; it’s easy to overlook how New York won all six of Megill’s late-season starts in 2024, when he filled in for Paul Blackburn. (And the Mets needed every last one of them.) And when thinking about the injuries that doomed the 2025 Mets, I know I’ve focused more on what happened to Senga and Manaea than the fact that Megill hasn’t pitched in the majors since June 14 of last year thanks to Tommy John surgery.

The exposition

The Mets took a series from first-place Atlanta to even out their homestand at 3-3. New York is 32-39, still 14 behind in the division and 5 1/2 out of the postseason.

The Reds dropped two of three to the Diamondbacks. They’re 4-11 since winning a series in Queens around Memorial Day. For the season, Cincinnati is 33-37 and in last place in the NL Central.

The Phillies lost two of three in Milwaukee (after taking two of three in Toronto). They’ve rebounded all the way to 38-33, which right now is good enough for the second wild card in the National League. Philadelphia hosts the Marlins for three this week before the Mets arrive in town.

The pitching possibles

at Cincinnati

RHP Tobias Myers (0-1, 4.05 ERA) v. RHP Chase Burns (7-1, 2.14 ERA)
RHP Christian Scott (2-0, 3.10) v. RHP Brady Singer (2-6, 5.61)
RHP Nolan McLean (3-4, 4.01) v. LHP Nick Lodolo (2-1, 5.21)

at Philadelphia

LHP Sean Manaea (1-2, 4.78) v. RHP Aaron Nola (3-4, 5.86)
RHP Freddy Peralta (5-5, 3.90) v. LHP Cristopher Sánchez (8-3, 1.82)
RHP Tobias Myers v. RHP Zack Wheeler (5-1, 2.22)

Injury updates

Mets’ injured list

Player

  

Injury

  

Elig.

  

ETA

  

Right hip flexor strain

Now

June

Lumbar spine inflammation

Now

June

Left calf strain

Now

June

Right wrist contusion

Now

July

Lumbar spine disc herniation

June 26

July

Left meniscus tear

Now

July

Fractured left thumb

Now

July

Rib fracture

Now

July

Fractured right fibula

July 25

August

Tommy John surgery

Now

2027

Tommy John surgery

Now

2027

Tommy John surgery

Now

2027

Red = 60-day IL
Orange = 15-day IL
Blue = 10-day IL
Gray = minor-league IL of note

Stearns said Lindor is indeed expected back by the end of June, as the New York Post first reported last week.
After experiencing some nerve irritation earlier in the week, Senga submitted his best rehab start on Thursday for Double-A Binghamton. He’ll make at least one more this week before a potential activation. His rehab clock expires on Sunday, meaning the Mets would have to recall him early next week.
Jorge Polanco is putting away his glove and focusing solely on DHing. That was the club’s decision after his latest bout of soreness, this time in his ankle. That has cleared up, and he should be back playing rehab games this week.
Luis Robert Jr. has started baseball activities. There’s still no timeline for his return.
Same goes for Ronny Mauricio.
Minor-league schedule

Triple A: Syracuse v. Norfolk (Baltimore)
Double A: Binghamton v. New Hampshire (Toronto)
High A: Brooklyn at Wilmington (Washington)
Low A: St. Lucie v. Daytona (Cincinnati)

A note on the epigraph

Nobody writes about work — about the things that animate one’s work, large and small — the way De Kerangal does. I’d previously read “Birth of a Bridge” (epigraphed here) and found the more recent “Painting Time,” about the development and evolution of an artist working in trompe l’oeil, enthralling.

Late in the novel, you realize it shifts from a thorough examination of what drives an artist — and in this case, one whose work is explicitly replicating things that already exist — to one on how we construct and narrativize our relationship to work and to art. One late scene, about the discovery of the Lascaux Cave, is a real standout.

There’s a handful of authors whose books I know to buy rather than take them out of the library. De Kerangal is there now.

Trivia time

Thirteen Mets still with the organization played in the majors for them before June 12, 2024. Only four of those 13 posted a better WAR in the past 365 days than in the prior 365 days. And three of them were either on the IL or in Triple A for a significant period of time.

So, who is the one Met who has been in the major leagues with them the entire last two years, who was better from June 2025 to June 2026 than he was from June 2024 to June 2025?

Bonus points if you get the other three as well.

(I’ll reply to the correct answer in the comments.)