At What Point is it Time to Give Up on the 2023 Mets?

Tuesday night was a familiar scene. The Mets looked in position to win a memorable game against a heated rival, only to shoot themselves in the foot with a combination of poor pitching, questionable managerial decisions, and missed opportunities at the plate. In the end, they lost another winnable game and their slide down the standings continued.

This has been the script in basically all of the Mets’ 0-4 record in recent games against the Braves and Yankees, sandwiched between a dispiriting series loss in Pittsburgh and coming off the heels of yet another sweep (with a series run differential of only -6) against the Blue Jays.

The Mets have now lost nine of their last 10 games, with all but one of those losses coming as three runs or less. They enter Wednesday with a 31-36 record, 9.5 games out of the NL East lead and four games back of the final wild card spot.

Night in and night out, this team is an absolute misery to watch. Despite moments of individual achievement, the team has fallen apart over and over again in the late innings. After two weeks of nonstop losses and over two months of subpar play, the question has to be asked: is it time to give up entirely on this team despite the lofty expectations heading into the 2023 season?

Just looking at the current state of affairs certainly appears to point in that direction.

Their starting rotation has been a disaster, and Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander enter the day with a combined 9.3 ERA. Carlos Carrasco, Tylor Megill, and  David Peterson have been even worse. Only Kodai Senga can be said to have been meeting any sort of expectation set for him at the beginning of the year, and even he has been wildly inconsistent.

Their bullpen has been a mess outside of David Robertson, and took yet another hit on Tuesday with Drew Smith likely facing a 10-game suspension after being ejected for having sticky substances on his hand as he came into pitch. The front-office strategy of bringing in a plethora of optionable pitchers has backfired, as almost none of them have provided any pop. Instead, the Mets have been overly reliant on the three or four veterans in their bullpen to hold down the fort in the late innings.

While their starting lineup has had some success during the 1-9 span, they recently lost their best hitter, Pete Alonso, for up to a month with a broken wrist. Their new cleanup hitter, and highest-paid player, Francisco Lindor is hitting .213 and looks completely lost at the plate. On Tuesday, he struck out in the biggest moment of the game with the bases loaded in the eighth inning and one out with the Mets trailing by only a run. Starling Marte, another former All-Star having a down season, did the same in the next at-bat.

Their manager, Buck Showalter a four-time Manager of the Year, continues to make questionable decision with the lineup and bullpen, including leaving light-hitting Luis Guillorme in to hit twice with the Mets trailing by one late in games while having  Mark Vientos, who hit 13 homers for Syracuse before being called up, and Daniel Vogelbach, who can at least run into one on occasion, on the bench.

The front office will likely be in an impossible situation at the trade deadline. The Mets will almost assuredly not be sellers no matter where they are in the standings. So, Billy Eppler and co. must decide how much to give up to try and catch lighting in a bottle. Doing too much without making a deep playoff run will handicap their flexibility in the future, while doing too little will be seen as yet another failure after the 2022 deadline dud.

Steve Cohen has indicated that he is unlikely to make any significant changes despite the struggles, so Eppler and Showalter appear to be safe for the time being. It can be argued either way if that’s a smart decision, but there certainly doesn’t appear to be a 2022 Phillies- esque managerial refresh coming in the near future.

Overall, it feels extremely bleak. The team with the highest payroll in baseball can’t get out of its own way, and there doesn’t appear to be an end in sight to the downfall.

And yet, it is only June 14.

Despite their putrid recent performance, the Mets certainly have the talent to turn things around. A five- or six-game winning streak at any time would put them right back in the thick of it. They are currently trailing teams like the Giants, Marlins, Brewers, and Reds in the standings. On paper, at least, the Mets should be better than all of those teams in a 162-game sample set, even if they currently don’t look it. The expanded playoff format also provides more hope for teams toiling in mediocrity this far into the season.

Plus, we all know the recent trend of eventual National League pennant winners. Taking out the Dodgers in the shortened 2020 campaign, the last three NL-winning clubs have all struggled late into the first half of the season. The 2019 Nats were 19-31 50 games in. The 2021 Braves were under .500 as late as August 4. The 2022 Phillies were eight games under .500 at one point before they turned things around. The precedent is there, and with players with the track record of Scherzer, Verlander, Lindor, and more, history says they’re likely to turn it around sooner rather than later.

But, while the numbers may suggest there is hope for a turnaround, it’s tough to imagine it when you watch this team play night in and night out. Little they do inspires confidence that a comeback is on the horizon. Every day that they fail to capitalize on their opportunities and walk away without a win puts them further away from relevancy. If the Mets can’t at least go 10-5 in their next 15 games to get to .500 by the midway point of the season, it may be time to call it off.

While there technically is still hope, things need to start changing immediately for that to be realized. It may be slightly too early still to give up on entirely the 2023 Mets, but time is quickly running out.