The Audacity of Hope

The Hope Diamond

Mets fans should be disappointed but not surprised by the outcome of the 2025 season. This was a flawed team essentially put together with spit and baling wire whose success depended on too many questionable decisions going right for the entire season,

               As we have been told repeatedly, over the course of 162 games, everything evens out and, to draw on the cliché, everyone ends up playing to the back of the baseball card. And there are only so many reclamation projects you can take on before the law of averages catches up with you.

               Which is exactly what happened to David Stearns, who hasn’t seemed to learn that this is New York, not Milwaukee, and, with this owner, he can shop at Bloomingdale’s or Saks and not keep on trying to accumulate Kohl’s cash.

               Flaws? We’ll get to the pitching staff later, because it was the most obvious one. But expecting Tyrone Taylor, at age 32, to suddenly become a consistent hitter was unreasonable. And the other half of a so-called platoon? Jose Siri was perhaps the only player who, by comparison, made Taylor look like Mickey Mantle. Question: Whatever happened with the plan to try Luisangel Acuna in center field? Or, perhaps, moving Brandion Nimmo there and putting Jeff McNeil in left?

               Third base? Another question mark. I was never a Mark Vientos fan, despite all the home runs he hit in 2024. I thought he was too streaky, swung at too many pitches out of the strike zone and played third base so badly that his defensive shortcomings outweighed what his offense brought. Yes, it took Brett Baty a trip to Syracuse to figure it out, but I think he is the better choice at the hot corner, both offensively and defensively. Ronny Mauricio? The biggest disappointment. For someone who has been playing professional baseball since he was 12, he shows no baseball sense and even less understanding of the strike zone.  

               Perhaps the designated hitter platoon would have worked had Jesse Winker not gotten hurt. Starling Marte is a professional hitter (although not able to play the outfield like he used to), and Winker’s lefthanded bat and energy would have been a nice complement.

               The pitching staff? It was all based on hope. Hope that Kodai Senga would emerge as the ace of the staff – despite his injury history that puts him in  the  Jacob DeGrom China doll category. Frankie Montas? Another “find” from Filene’s Basement with an injury history. Hope he would make it though the year? Hope again.

               Hope that Sean Manaea wasn’t a pitching version of Mark Vientos: One nice season but then revert to form. Hope that David Peterson and/or Tylor Megill could put together consistent full seasons and not parts, as their track records suggested they were unable to do.

               Griffin Canning? Maybe bad luck that he tore his Achilles, or maybe, again, a pitcher with some serious injuries in his past. Clay Holmes was perhaps the best signing, not just because the experiment moving him from the bullpen worked but because he was durable enough to make it through the season.

               We won’t even get to the bullpen, because bullpens have a way of sorting themselves out over the course of a season (except for this season).

               Okay, for a while……It worked. The pitching performed well in the short run, but in retrospect it was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. So when the injuries started to pile up, all of the flaws became the more obvious.

               The team started pushing panic buttons in June, rotating pitchers between Syracuse and the Citi Field bullpen so quickly they didn’t have time to pick up their laundry from the three-hour wash-and-fold. A model that was not, understandably, sustainable, to use a favorite Stearns word. (By the way, did Richard Lovelady set a record for most times DFA’d after pitching to three batters? Or was that Kevin Herget?)

               Still…..there was hope that corrections could be made at the trade deadline. Was Stearns unlucky in that Ryan Helsley did not regain his 2024 form? Or was it unreasonable to expect that Jeremy Hefner could do for Helsley what Rick Peterson, in years past, claimed he could do for Victor Zambrano? Cedric Mullins? There were warnings that his skills had deteriorated. More importantly, in a season where the rotation was the root cause of the problems, why not bring in a starter (only not Paul Blackburn. Please.)

               Nevertheless, there was hope. Hope that the top four, or five, sports in the lineup could carry the team offensively. Hope that three rookie pitchers would all have the talent, and the mettle, to rescue a desperate rotation.

               To me, the biggest disappointment was the sloppy play over the past three weeks, a virus that affected the entire team and made them unwatchable. I place some of that blame on the manager, but only some.

               In retrospect, the best decisions about the 2025 roster were made by the owner, not the president of baseball operations: signing Juan Soto and Pete Alonso.  The president of baseball operations had an off-year.

               He has the entire offseason to make the necessary corrections.

               One can only hope.