Although the 2020 New York Mets have a roster that’s built with the possibility of contending for a playoff spot, there are a number of things that must go right over the next few months.

The offense, anchored by Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil, and Michael Conforto, must remain a top-10 unit, the starting rotation must remain as one of baseball’s best, and the bullpen needs to actually be an asset from start to finish this time around. You know the one thing that’s going to be a huge part of the Mets’ overall successful or failure as a squad in 2020, though?

Well, hopefully you read the headline to this post, which makes “defense” the obvious answer.

This is an area of New York’s game that’s been lacking for a while. If we look at team Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) each season since 2015, the Mets finish outside the bottom third of baseball just once, with 13 in 2015. It’s gotten worse from there, with their cumulative -93 DRS ranking as the league’s second-worst mark. The only team worse? That’d be the Baltimore Orioles, who racked up -105 DRS en route to posting a dreadful 54-108 record.

Even if we use Statcast’s new Outs Above Average (OAA) metric, the Mets as a squad still finished in the red last season. When it comes to the every-day lineup, no major changes were made for New York with regard to player acquisition, so it’s imperative for position players to find a way to improve in order to make a difference.

We’ve at least been hearing about a number of players specifically focusing on improving defense throughout the offseason, too. The most valuable portion — especially when looking at the last couple seasons of performance — of the Mets’ roster is the starting rotation. To maximize their collective efforts, it’d be good to have a catcher who mostly feels like an asset. That’s why Wilson Ramos has done the work necessary for guys like Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard to hopefully be comfortable throwing to him on a regular basis.

J.D. Davis is another player that falls into this category after his breakout 2019 campaign. The offense was great, but advanced metrics weren’t exactly thrilled about his glove work. Depending on a number of factors — mainly Yoenis Cespedes‘ status — Davis could see significant playing time in either left field or third base in 2020. There have been a couple instances this winter where we heard about the 26-year-old’s work to improve his glove.

If he can at least maintain something close to last year’s 136 wRC+, improving on defense is imperative to truly boosting his overall value. At the moment, Steamer is projecting 1.2 fWAR through 118 games because of a negative defensive valuation.

Finally, there’s Alonso — the home-run apple of our eye. Upon arriving to Port St. Lucie, he talked about what he was hoping for from this season, two of which are getting “drunk as hell” during a World Series parade and also winning a Gold Glove award. When I saw Alonso’s comments about his own defense, I couldn’t help but immediately think about the below Twitter thread from Wayne Randazzo at the start of last season:

Based off the kind of rookie season he had offensively and his well known top-notch work ethic, I wouldn’t put something like this past Alonso one bit.

While it’s tough for me to remember to other recent offseasons, I don’t recall hearing and seeing this many stories about certain Mets players paying attention to improving their defense. It’s almost as if these guys knew this was one area where they consistently lacked and it could’ve made a huge difference if they weren’t deficient on a cumulative basis.

Upon looking at team DRS standings, it’s actually impressive the Mets posted that 86-76 record of theirs. I mentioned the Orioles being the sole team worse than them, but it’s equally as interesting to see the three teams who weren’t as bad as New York despite being in the same ballpark: the Seattle Mariners (-86 DRS, 68-94 record), the Detroit Tigers (-83 DRS, 47-114 record), and the Pittsburgh Pirates (-53 DRS, 69-93 record).

The Mets clearly stuck out like a sore thumb among baseball’s five worst defensive teams (according to DRS) last season. Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA projections have New York winning a tight National League East in 2020, and with such tough competition, every little detail matters. Manager Luis Rojas‘ team is likely to have a top-performing rotation once again, paired with a bullpen that’s at least projected to also be among the best in baseball.

Scoring runs and having an above-average offense is important, but it won’t mean anything if the Mets can’t limit scoring on the other end. Pitching remains this organization’s calling card, so it’s necessary to having a solid group of fielders behind those hurlers to maximize that anticipated top-tier production.

And who knows, maybe if the Mets can collectively take a step forward on defense, it’ll help propel them into October for the first time since 2016.