No Offense: The New-Look Mets Are in Quite a Skid
The Mets’ 2026 season began with such promise. With a remade roster after last year’s disappointing 83-79 finish — new looks in the infield and outfield, a new Opening Day starter to lead their staff, and infusions of youth both in the lineup and in the rotation — they kicked things off by beating up reigning NL Cy Young winner Paul Skenes and won three out of their first four games. Though April 7, they were 7-4, including a pair of walk-off wins. They haven’t won since, and already owner Steve Cohen is pleading with fans to stay the course.
First, the Mets dropped the final five games of their second homestand against the Diamondbacks and Athletics, getting shut out twice and scoring more than two runs just once; meanwhile, they gave up seven or more runs three times. Then they flew to Los Angeles to face the two-time defending champion Dodgers, and while they did get a seven-inning, one-run gem from rookie Nolan McLean opposite Yoshinobu Yamamoto on Tuesday night, they lost all three games by a combined score of (gulp) 14-3.
At 7-12, the Mets are tied with the Giants and Rockies for the National League’s worst record. They’re last in the NL East, five games behind the Braves, who have bolted from the gate by winning 12 of 19 despite injuries to a full rotation’s worth of starters, including Spencer Strider and Spencer Schwellenbach, as well as catcher Sean Murphy and shortstop Ha-Seong Kim. If there’s good news, it’s that the rest of the division has started sluggishly as well, with every team besides the Braves below .500. The Mets are only two games out of second place, not that that adds wins to their ledger.
One doesn’t have to go very far back to recall the Mets’ last eight-game losing streak: September 6–13 of last year. That skid played a major part in their missing the playoffs, because for one thing, they dropped the season series to the Reds within that span, and thus lost the tiebreaker that they would need when the two teams finished 83-79 while vying for the last NL Wild Card spot. It’s not hard to imagine president of baseball operations David Stearns noticing that during that skid, Jeff McNeil and Brandon Nimmo were the team’s two weakest hitters. Now, both are wearing other uniforms, part of a larger roster shakeup that included letting Pete Alonso and Edwin Díaz walk as free agents.
But why dwell on last year’s postmortem when we’ve got a fresh body on the table? Through 19 games, this is the Mets’ worst start since 2011, when they opened the season 6-13 and limped home with a 77-85 record. They’ve stumbled this badly or worse out of the gate only one other time this millennium, going 7-12 to start the 2004 season and finishing 71-91. While a 7-12 start shouldn’t be fatal to a team’s playoff hopes — particularly a team that as of Opening Day was projected to win 90 games — only one of the 10 teams that’s gone exactly 7-12 through 19 games since the introduction of the current 12-team postseason format in 2022 has rebounded to make the playoffs (the ’22 Guardians), and only one with a worse record (the ’24 Astros, who started 6-13) has done so within that span as well.
The Mets probably aren’t really this bad. Their -14 run differential is actually much better than those of the 8-10 Phillies (-25 runs) and Giants (-24), and slightly better than that of the 10-8 Cardinals (-17). They’re about one win behind both their Pytathagenpat projected winning percentage of .414 and their BaseRuns projected winning percentage of .436. Their win projection for the season still stands at 85, with a 57.1% chance of making the playoffs, though they’ve fallen further than any other team in terms of both projected wins (five) and playoff odds (23.4 points).
Without a doubt the Mets’ biggest problem has been their offense, which has been shutout four times and scored two runs or fewer 10 times; they’ve lost all of those games. Meanwhile, the Reds — whose 4.05 runs per game allowed is just ahead of the Mets’ 4.16 in the NL rankings — have gone 5-4 when they’ve scored no more than two runs. They’re 11-8 overall despite a -13 run differential. That’s quite a contrast.
Both the Mets’ 3.42 runs per game and 78 wRC+ (on an anemic .220/.286/.331 line) rank second-to-last in the NL. They’ve been even worse since April 4, batting .212/.252/.296 for a 57 wRC+, and scored just 2.73 runs per game, a turn that coincides with the loss of Juan Soto, who had hit .355/.412/.516 (159 wRC+) through his first eight games. The slugger strained his right calf while running the bases on April 3, an injury that was expected to sideline him for two to three weeks. Friday marks the two-week point, and the good news is that Soto has not only been able to continue hitting and playing catch since suffering the injury, he began a running program on Tuesday. All indications are that he’ll be back sometime within the next week, whether he goes out on a rehab assignment or gets live at-bats against Mets minor leaguers at Citi Field.
Aside from Soto, only two other regulars have hit at a league-average clip or better, namely catcher Francisco Alvarez (.271/.386/.542, 163 wRC+) and center fielder Luis Robert Jr. (.241/.371/.345, 115 wRC+). Jared Young, who has a 137 wRC+ in 23 plate appearances while spotting at first base and in left field, landed on the IL earlier this week due to a torn meniscus in his left knee — the same fate that befell Mike Tauchman during spring training — that will require surgery; he’s been replaced on the roster by MJ Melendez.
Everybody else who’s taken a plate appearance for the Mets has a wRC+ of 71 or lower. Until Tuesday night, Francisco Lindor hadn’t driven in a run, let alone hit a homer. He got on the board by crushing a middle-middle fastball from Yamamoto on the righty’s third pitch of the game, sending it 402 feet over the right field fence. That ended a 20-inning scoreless drought for the Mets, but it was the only run they scored. Lindor is hitting just .184/.287/.289 (71 wRC+) — and again, that’s the best performance of any hitter besides the ones mentioned above.
Other than Robert, the newcomers Stearns brought in haven’t covered themselves in glory. Bo Bichette (.228/.271/.304, 65 wRC+) and Marcus Semien (.194/.257/.269, 53 wRC+) have been downright terrible; the former has a 43.3% chase rate and just a 1.7% barrel rate. Jorge Polanco (.179/.246/.286, 54 wRC+) has been terrible and has looked even worse while dealing with inflammation in his left Achilles tendon that has limited him to DH duty. While he and the Mets say he won’t need a stint on the IL, one would think a substitute with not one but two working legs might help the cause while giving the 32-year-old switch-hitter a reset.
Elsewhere, rookie Carson Benge, who won the right field job with a strong performance in spring training and then homered in his Opening Day debut, has hit .151/.237/.226 (39 wRC+), though he does have hits in five of his last six games, compared to two in his previous nine. Amid that skid, Stearns maintained the team had not discussed sending the 23-year-old, who during his rapid rise played just 32 games at Double-A and 24 at Triple-A last year, back to the minors. “I think our view is Carson’s going to figure this out. He’s a good player and we’re happy to have him on the team,” said Stearns. “I think we’ve seen, at times, some really good at-bats, and at times, maybe getting a little bit jumpy. Probably trying to do too much, maybe subconsciously trying to do too much.”
With Soto out, and with Robert on a strict load-management regimen to keep him healthy, Benge has played five games in left and three in center. That’s opened up time in right field for Brett Baty, who brought some momentum into spring training after a strong second half and added to his positional repertoire by learning right field and first base. While he’s made eight starts at the former position and three at the latter, he’s been terrible at the plate. Not only has he hit just .203/.197/.288 for a team-low 30 wRC+, he hasn’t even drawn a walk in 61 plate appearances, a performance that might necessitate resurrecting the DiSar Awards. With career highs in both his chase (38.5%) and swing (52%) rates, it’s fair to suggest he’s pressing. Meanwhile, Mark Vientos has gotten the bulk of the first base duty with Polanco DHing. He’s hit just .227/.255/.341 (67 wRC+) and has been making particularly poor contact; his average exit velocity is down 4.2 mph from last year (from 91.4 mph to 87.2), and he’s produced just a 2.9% barrel rate and 35.3% hard-hit rate.
The Mets changed hitting coaches after last season, moving on from co-coaches Eric Chavez and Jeremy Barnes in favor of Jeff Albert (whose title is “director of major league hitting”) and Troy Snitker. After Wednesday’s loss, Snitker said, “We need to execute better in the game… We need to drive the ball more. We need to swing at pitches that we can do something with… We need to be committed to what we want to swing at, what we’re looking for and just stick with that the whole time, regardless of the situation.”
Some of that sounds like coach-speak boilerplate, but a few things do stand out about the Mets’ collective slump, even while everybody’s numbers are in small-sample territory. For one, there may be an element of bad luck involved, because while the Mets rank 19th in the majors in average exit velocity (88.8 mph) and hard-hit rate (39%), 22nd in barrel rate (6.8%), and 23rd in xwOBA (.309), they’re 29th in wOBA (.281); their -.028 wOBA-xwOBA differential is the majors’ third largest in that direction, ahead of only the Reds (-.029) and Padres (-.031).
Beyond that, a couple of things may connect to what Snitker discussed. Amid the turnover in the lineup, the team has gone from being one of the least chase-prone teams in the majors last year (26.3%, fifth lowest) to one of the most chase-prone (32.5%, fourth highest). Baty has the largest spike in chase rate among the 180 players with at least 400 plate appearances last year and 40 this year at 13.8% (from 24.7% to 38.5%). Bichette (up 8.1%, from 35.2% to 43.3%, Polanco (up 6%, from 26.8% to 32.8%), and Semien (up 5.1%, from 23.5% to 28.6%) are all in the upper quartile as well, while only Robert (-3.7%, from 32.5% to 28.7%) is down more than 0.2%.
Meanwhile, five Mets rank among the bottom 31 in year-to-year decreases in barrel rate using the same cutoffs:
| Player | 2025 Brl% | 2026 Brl% | Dif |
|---|---|---|---|
| Taylor Ward | 13.7% | 0.0% | -13.7% |
| Michael Busch | 17.1% | 4.2% | -12.9% |
| Pete Alonso | 18.9% | 6.3% | -12.6% |
| Jo Adell | 17.2% | 4.5% | -12.6% |
| Jazz Chisholm Jr. | 15.0% | 4.4% | -10.6% |
| Lenyn Sosa | 10.4% | 0.0% | -10.4% |
| Cal Raleigh | 19.5% | 10.2% | -9.3% |
| Pete Crow-Armstrong | 13.0% | 4.0% | -9.0% |
| Marcell Ozuna | 11.4% | 2.4% | -9.0% |
| Mark Vientos | 11.5% | 2.9% | -8.6% |
| Spencer Horwitz | 8.2% | 0.0% | -8.2% |
| Josh Jung | 8.2% | 0.0% | -8.2% |
| Wyatt Langford | 14.0% | 6.0% | -8.0% |
| Brenton Doyle | 10.8% | 3.1% | -7.7% |
| Yainer Diaz | 9.6% | 2.0% | -7.6% |
| Matt Chapman | 9.9% | 3.4% | -6.5% |
| Manny Machado | 12.9% | 6.5% | -6.4% |
| Austin Riley | 15.2% | 8.9% | -6.3% |
| Isaac Paredes | 6.3% | 0.0% | -6.2% |
| Bo Bichette | 7.9% | 1.7% | -6.2% |
| Nick Kurtz | 18.3% | 12.1% | -6.2% |
| Rafael Devers | 16.0% | 9.8% | -6.2% |
| Alec Bohm | 6.2% | 0.0% | -6.2% |
| Mike Yastrzemski | 8.5% | 2.4% | -6.1% |
| Jordan Beck | 9.5% | 3.4% | -6.1% |
| Jorge Polanco | 10.3% | 4.4% | -5.9% |
| George Springer | 15.8% | 10.0% | -5.8% |
| J.T. Realmuto | 8.8% | 3.0% | -5.7% |
| Jeremy Peña | 8.2% | 2.7% | -5.5% |
| Brett Baty | 12.8% | 7.3% | -5.5% |
| Luis Robert | 10.1% | 4.80% | -5.3% |
I should point out here that the 40-plate appearance cutoff I used for 2026 in order to consider the same group of players’ chase and barrel rates means I’m basing the latter comparison on anywhere from 34 batted ball events (Vientos) to 59 (Bichette) where the aforementioned Mets are concerned. Not all of these rates (including ones from the other teams above) are based on samples large enough to have started to stabilize. Still, I think this points in the direction of Snitker’s observation, in that the team isn’t making great swing decisions — and it surely doesn’t help that the guy who makes some of the best swing decisions in the game, Soto, has been sidelined.
Given that manager Carlos Mendoza is in the final guaranteed season of his contract (he has an option for next year) and that the Mets do operate in the New York media fishbowl, talk that he’s on the hot seat has already surfaced. That’s hardly fair, particularly given the new mix of players and coaches he’s been handed by Stearns, but after last year’s collapse, it’s a reality. Still, Cohen, Stearns, and Mendoza are all preaching patience instead of panic, and with Soto on his way back, and 143 games still to play, the odds are the Mets are going to be better than this — perhaps much better. But until they are, it could be tough to watch.
Brooklyn-based Jay Jaffe is a senior writer for FanGraphs, the author of The Cooperstown Casebook (Thomas Dunne Books, 2017) and the creator of the JAWS (Jaffe WAR Score) metric for Hall of Fame analysis. He founded the Futility Infielder website (2001), was a columnist for Baseball Prospectus (2005-2012) and a contributing writer for Sports Illustrated (2012-2018). He has been a recurring guest on MLB Network and a member of the BBWAA since 2011, and a Hall of Fame voter since 2021. Follow him on BlueSky @jayjaffe.bsky.social.
It’s kind of amazing how almost none of their decisions with position players are working out so far. Semien and Bichette are hitting terribly, and the “let the kids play” plan with Benge / Baty / Vientos is looking just as bad. Nimmo is raking in Texas. And Jorge Polanco is hitting terribly and has already hurt himself badly enough that he cannot play first base like they intended.
(the hurting himself enough that he can’t play the field was predicted by anyone who has been following Polanco’s career, I’m not sure why anyone treated him as a serious option at first base)
Letting Alonso walk and trading for Robert are good moves, and I think that Semien and Bichette will almost certainly hit better than this, if only by default. Same with Lindor. But whatever is going on here is not working, and I cannot imagine Mendoza lasting another year with the Mets if there isn’t a major turnaround. And maybe sooner, because Kai Correa is an interesting guy and it might be good to se what he can do.
I think Mendoza is gone by late May if things continue to go this way.
Well it won’t go continue to go this badly but if they’re ten games under by Memorial day I think he’ll be gone.
Hard to see how Mendoza is the problem, though I agree he might end up the fall guy, but I generally agree with this take. It’s been incredible to see virtually every single one of the offseason roster-reshuffling moves come up snake eyes for the first few weeks of the season. (Except Luis Robert, I guess. He seems fine.) Nimmo’s bat in particular is sorely missed, whatever the team thinks about his long-term health outlook — at the point that you’re starting both MJ Melendez and Tommy Pham, it has to mean there was a problem with the depth plan.
I’m sure the team will heat up somewhat from here but they’ve already dug a deep hole for themselves and they’re pretty hard to watch right now.
You act like they planned on going with Pham and Melendez they’re here due to injuries. They got rid of Nimmo because his contract was one of the worst in baseball and had five years left on it, and he was declining offensively and defensively. Yes, Semien’s deal isn’t good but he has two less years on it. Nimmo isn’t gonna run a .400 babip all year.
“The Nimmo trade was a bad move by the Mets” is impossible to prove, but I think “The Mets would be better in the first two weeks if they kept Nimmo” is very difficult to argue against
Yeah, there seems to be some kind of a crossed wire or reading comprehension problem here. It’s obvious that the Mets wanted out of Nimmo because of long-term concerns, but the team they’re putting on the field so far this year would definitely be better off with him in the outfield and McNeil (or whoever else) playing second. The whole offseason reshuffle was sold as something that wouldn’t hurt the Mets’ short-term chances while adding long-term flexibility. So far, at least, it’s not looking like that.
The McNeil trade still makes little sense from an on-field perspective. I guess they really just wanted him as far away from that clubhouse as possible.
That’s what depth is!
And is Melendez really isn’t bad depth and a depth guy like Tauchman is hurt.
Injuries? Wow, completely unforeseeable.
Soto has been an iron man for most of his career.
The manager is almost never going to be the problem, but I don’t know how you can say he’s the solution. His teams have massively underperformed for about four months in a row, and the lineup shakeups every game suggest that he’s just throwing things at the wall hoping something sticks.
He was a confounding hire as he learned at the feet of Aaron Boone and Aaron Boone is an incredibly poor in game manager. I wanted them to make a bigger run at Vogt. Mendy has proven to be a poor in game manager and the clubhouse has been a disaster area more often than not in his time here.
It didn’t feel good that they kept Mendy and dumped all of the other coaches. You’re basically starting fresh but with the same voice. Either clean house completely or keep the staff with maybe a tweak or two.
Is the move to fire Mendy and promote Correa, someone with very limited MLB coaching experience? Do they try to hire someone with the stipulation that they need to keep Correa as the bench coach?
I can see giving Correa a chance to finish the year like he did a few years ago in SF, but considering his lack of experience along with the teams elevated payroll and expectations, I don’t know if Cohen would be willing to exercise that kind of patience.
Yeah I have no idea honestly. I thought they should have fired Mendy after last year maybe Stearns wanted to fire him and didn’t get a sign off by Cohen? I would think Correa would be the replacement if Mendy is fired by May, I’m not sure there are other options. I don’t think Stearns would hire a grizzled old vet manager like Maddon.
The problem is that Cohen already has a bad reputation for impatience, so if he had fired Mendy, it’s somewhat likely that he would have been stuck with C-list managerial candidates, as the top-tier candidates wouldn’t want to deal with that.
Same with if he fires Stearns if the Mets miss the playoffs. If he does fire Stearns after the year who are you hiring? Mike Rizzo? Mike Hill?
Bichette is historically pretty hard to watch when he’s not one of his heaters. But of course he doesn’t have a long history with Mets fans the way he did in Toronto.
Robert has some similarities to that as well.
Polanco has also been super inconsistent lately, partly because he is so rarely healthy even when he does play.
You were the one who pointed out to me that the offseason moves were riling up the fan base in a bad way, and I was like “if it works the fans will be fine.” Except these guys are not known for being super consistent, and when they are bad they are really bad.
I mean when you have an entire roster of good players who seem to have forgotten that they’re good at baseball, I have a hard time seeing how it can *not* be the manager’s fault?
Baty said something to Steve Gelbs the other day about how he’s up there trying to make something happen instead of letting the game come to him, and like, isn’t it the coaching staff’s job to help players work through feelings like that?
It’s very hard to account for the psychological side of managing. Your suspicion may well be right — I genuinely don’t know — but as an alternate hypothesis, it also might be that the Mets put together a new roster with a bunch of streaky, contact-dependent, iffy and aging hitters and then just had the bad luck to see them all slump at the same time (perhaps with a helping of poor forecasting or scouting).
In last year’s tailspin they talked a lot about being “too passive” at the plate; this year they’re “pressing.” This kind of talk about hitters’ approach often sounds pretty post-hoc as an explanation of what’s going wrong, like if you don’t like the outcomes, you just look at pitches per plate appearance and say either “too many” or “too few” depending. Brett Baty’s feelings might not be the causal factor.
& the other issue is Lindor missed most of spring training with his hamate issue & now Soto is hurt, too.
So, not only are the 2nd tier hitters struggling, but, your best hitter is out, your 2nd best hitter is off to a slow start due to an injury.
Said before the season and I will say it again, I would never want my team to sign Bichette. I don’t have a team, but still He’s a one tool player. Hit, if that degrades even a little he’s cooked. Can’t run, can’t field, can’t throw, sometimes has short power outbursts.
I don’t understand what people are expecting from Semien. He hasn’t been good since 2023.
Still was a 3 war guy in 2024-25 though nowhere near the player he was years earlier, but if he puts up a league average wRC+ he could be a 3 plus war player. Do I think he can put up a league average wRC+? Probably not.
Sorry, I should have clarified. Since the article is talking about offense, I was referring to Semien’s bat.
He was a 4 win player in 2024 and he underperformed his xwOBA in 2025. I thought him rebounding to being a league average hitter was what was going to happen, leaving him at being about a 3 win player. I actually still think that is what is going to happen, except with these bad weeks already in the books dragging it down.
But obviously these few weeks have not been good for that prediction.
Looking at his career he’s really only had three good years with the bat: 2019, 2021, and 2023. Every other year has been league average at best, and typically below league average. He’s 35 and here’s his wRC+ trend:
2023: 128
2024: 101
2025: 89
2026: 68
Do I think he’s 68 wRC+ bad? Nah. But again, what were people really expecting here?
I know it’s extremely early but I thought when they brought in modern hitting coaches that they’d hit more consistently and hit more fly balls and get on base not less. This team in only ahead of the White Sox in pretty much every major offensive category. Besides for Alvarez who has been a monster and Robert(who has cooled down lately), nobody is hitting anywhere near where they are capable. Yes, Soto is a massive loss and Polanco’s Achilles injury has made him worse than he was in 2024 but I thought this was a deep lineup. They aren’t the only ones to blame far from it but its probably time to move on from Baty and Vientos. Baty looks like a bust again and Vientos can’t even play first base! Hopefully Soto is back on Tuesday but that won’t be the cure all to what ails Bichette, Lindor amongst many others.
According to the most recent Effectively Wild, Monday had the highest average number of runs scored on a day (with at least 10 games played) since baseball was integrated.
The Mets got shut out. By Justin Wrobleski, who threw 8 innings.
They didn’t even have a hit until the 5th!
It seems at least worth mentioning that Senga and Peterson have been epically bad, failing to give the Mets a reasonable chance of winning in six of their games so far. Including today’s numbers for Senga, the two starters have allowed 69 baserunners in 37 innings.
Yea I’d say those guys are both in jeopardy of losing their rotation spots, especially with a viable option already on the roster in Myers and three guys in AAA in Scott, Wenninger, and Tong.
Peterson had a weird first half last year with a good ERA that wasn’t anywhere close to his peripherals, and predictable became a pumpkin in the 2nd half. He’s a FA after this year so they’re not really incentivized to keep him on the roster
Senga just looks like someone that the league took a while to figure out after coming over from Japan, but since mid season last year has been no match against MLB hitters. He’s got multiple years left on the deal but at a very low salary, so I don’t think Cohen eating that money is off the table
Myers is starting tomorrow over Peterson so I guess Peterson is gonna piggyback him.
Well, it worked, but the offense sucked again today until the bullpen could no longer quite hold it. That’s 11 losses in a row now.
I tuned in to the Cubs/ Mets game today, and anecdotally, the defense was just bad/apathetic. Maybe there were mitigating factors I am unaware of but I saw nothing that made me think their defensive upgrades were panning out.
They’re at +5 outs above average early on but Vientos is immobile at first and Baty really isn’t all that good anywhere but third base.
Well, Semien has been an upgrade in the field so far, and was today. But the corner infield spots are looking as messy as people predicted.
Bichette is at +1 ooa besides for a play here or there he’s been fine now first base has been pretty bad.
The defense is objectively quite good by every publicly available metric we have, albeit in a microscopic sample size. The issue (obviously) is that while they’ve gotten multiple defensive upgrades, those guys aren’t hitting at all
The Island of Multi-Millionaire Misfit Toys.
The Mets also lost 2 out of 3 to the Cardinals from March 30 to April 1 and only scored a total of 5 runs across those 3 games, including a shutout.
When Stearns and Counsell left Brewer fans jokingly tried to reassure ourselves by saying Murphy and Arnold were the real brains of the outfit
Several years later looks like we may have been onto something?
Counsell and Murphy are probably comparable managers, although Counsell had the benefit of having Murphy around. I don’t think there was any downgrade there.
Stearns is a fantastic front office guy but in comparison to Arnold he’s way more interested in splashy trades and free agent signings and risky profiles. Arnold would never have traded for Christian Yelich and signed Lorenzo Cain, much less in the same offseason. This tendency makes you look great when things go right and terrible when things go wrong. Keep in mind, Arnold is benefiting from the development machine that he and Stearns built together.
I think the Brewers are still in excellent hands but those guys were good too.
I really think the frontier of sabermetrics right now should be measuring coaching abilities. Everyone loved Joe Maddon and thought he was the greatest coach ever, but the front offices he worked with were world-class. It’s easy to be a fun-loving, good-natured coach/manager (Arnold) when the Ws are rolling in because the front office gifted you a load of talent, but that same fun-loving nature is usually viewed entirely differently on a losing team. In other sports, I’ll die on the hill that Bill Belichick is vastly overrated as a coach. Gregg Popavich and Phil Jackson…I’m still not sure there.
I’m unsure about the Yelich and Cain moves. I thought the Cain signing was a bad move from the start. Arnold has definitely made some challenge trades, though clearly not at the Yelich trade level.
Can you clarify? The way this is is worded suggests you think signing Cain and trading for Yelich were bad moves by the Brewers front office.
To clarify: I didn’t like the Cain signing from the start, and it didn’t turn out well. Cain produced 8.4 WAR over five years with the Brewers for 80M. Side note: the Fangraphs article discussing the Cain signing had a bunch of people roasting Sadtrombone for pointing out that it was a bad contract….which it was.
I thought the Yelich trade was a great move at the time, and I still do now.
Thanks. Not to rehash but knowing all the numbers I believe the Cain signing definitely worked. Lorenzo first season coupled with his professionalism/leadership helped create the foundation of the culture the Brewers continue to this day
And I am an old fan who was calling clubhouse chemistry hokum way before Bill James put it in print.
But this time I think the Crew got it right.
I also think the responses by several of you to what I intended as a lighthearted remark suggests folks need to relax a bit
It’s a game. As Crash famously said, have fun dammit
Many of the guys on the field for the Brewers are Stearns’ guys.
This is a good point. I feel like at least five years needs to pass, if not more, before we can make some definitive judgments on Stearns. As a Brewer fan I was obviously sad to see Stearns go, but who can blame him – if someone offered me five times the salary to do the same job tomorrow, I would take it too.
I don’t really have any reason to suspect that it was anything other than what Stearns said: That he was interested in the Mets position but also seriously burned out near the end of the Milwaukee tenure.
My sense is that Arnold might have been doing a lot more near the end too, I think there was a promotion at some point? I think that coincided with a change in who was doing what.
He might have had to step away anyway due to burnout, and it might be even be true that he is still not as fresh if he needs to be.
Good points. I guess here’s my question: if he truly was burned out, did he really think going to the Mets was going to be somehow less stressful?
I was confident Murphy and Arnold would be fine owing to their individual track and records and the greater infrastructure the Brewers have built proving a sustainable model that could withstand turnover. Arnold with his Rays bona fides, and Murphy being Counsell’s mentor, seemed like safe bets. In some respects they’ve both been upgrades.
That being said, I still think Counsell is an excellent tactician but is perhaps not as lockstep with the FO in Chicago as he was in Milwaukee. Far as Stearns goes, I’ve written before on here, at this point the only conclusion I can reach is that he’s befuddled by the concept of a limitless budget; he’s made some downright awful decisions with the Mets, which would have never been possible with the Brewers since he never had the resources to make such brutal mistakes. This grand infield experiment has been so totally out of character for him, for the first time ever he really looks like he’s up against the ropes.
This could’nt be happening to a nicer bunch of guys.
How do you know they’re bad guys?
The Mets trades Nimmo et al because their shortstop, who’s devolved into not even tracking how many outs there are at this point, did not like his politics. Nimmo is now crushing it and Lindor … getting picked off base while completely flat-footed. And while Soto may be a top 20 player of all time, it is clear from his time at WSN, SDP, NYM, and team Dominican Republic that he will never be the answer “in the clubhouse”. This team was a mess last year and after shedding what they claimed were the problems, they remain a mess. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
“Clubhouse issues” are almost always a made up myth invented by sportswriters to sell newspapers. A high case rate and low OPS doesn’t get people to read your article, but spicy clubhouse drama does!
It’s hard to explain Lindor though. He’s never come across as the most cerebral player, not necessarily a low-IQ one either. But this year there have been multiple instances in just a few weeks of a complete lack of in game awareness
Whenever I see someone totally botching things at work my first thought is “did they just have a kid?”
Bro’s entire source is a dream they had
Yes because I’m sure who a player voted for in November totally affects how they play ball in April.
Hitting your worst hitter leadoff(Benge), for a week, sitting Alvarez with a day off tomorrow and not walking Hoerner with Busch on deck and the winning run on third and one out. That’s a hell of a week for Mendy!
Benge has only led off for three games. Hopefully, that idiotic experiment is now concluded. As for Alvarez, if they are not going to DH him on the days Torrens is catching, then what is Senger doing on the roster?
When a team goes through a streak like this, on the field leadership is important to weather the storm. But with all the changes the Mets have made, it’s not clear where that leadership comes from. Lindor is the only regular who was a regular just two seasons ago. (Alvarez was the princiapl catcher, but he only had 342 PAs and he’s only 25.) While Lindor is the obvious choice, he’s playing terribly and Cohen did no one favors by saying he will never be team captain. They will pull out of this, they’re not going to finish the season with their current .318 winning percentage (52-110!). But righting the ship enough to make the post season isn’t going to be easy.
As bad as they’ve been FG still thinks they’re in a tie with Phillies and Braves as the next best teams besides the Dodgers. They’re still projected to win 83 games.
OTOH the list of playoff teams who had 11 game losing streaks at any point in the season can’t be very long.
It’s not, but the playoffs are not as hard to get into as they used to be. 83 wins could be enough.
It is really hard to play your way conclusively out of the playoffs in April. The FG playoff odds still, somehow, have the Mets in the neighborhood of even money. But the rest of the season is going to be a hell of a slog from here, and there’s a problem of path-dependency too, where having already banked all these losses, the team is at a minimum less likely to go all-in at the deadline.
I don’t think 83 will be enough while the nl east other than the Braves is super weak the central is pretty strong and Arizona and San Diego look good. I think it’ll take around 86-87 wins to get the last wild card spot.