“Let’s just say I would be very disappointed if the Mets fail to make the playoffs this season.” – Sandy Alderson, February 5, 2015
Among other things during a special season ticket holder event at Citi Field, the Mets general manager was asked by a frustrated fan if he had done enough to address the Mets offense in the offseason, to which Sandy replied:
“I understand the concerns, but if you’re going to judge our offseason, I ask that you please wait to see how the team performs this season.”
Heading into tonight’s finale against the San Francisco Giants, with the Mets hoping to avoid a sweep, the team’s offense ranks 24th in Runs Scored, 24th in Batting Average, 28th in Slugging Pct., and 27th in OPS.
On Wednesday morning, Kevin Kernan of the New York Post appeared on WFAN and told Boomer Esiason and Craig Carton that Mets front-office executives are looking at next season as the one where everything will come together.
I wrote about this on Monday when Andy Martino and Mike Puma both heard the same thing from team sources.
“I have sources,” Kernan said. “I’ve talked to people in the Mets’ front office, and they’ve always pointed towards 2016.”
“One of the reasons why is they feel that the pitching staff will be totally in place then. You’ll have a Steven Matz up, he’ll be up. You’ll have a Noah Syndergaard, kind of with some experience.”
“I think that’s been their gut feeling, that 2016 is the year. They’re not gonna throw away 2015, hopefully, but 2016’s been kind of like their target all along.”
It’s been very apparent going back to last Winter, that Alderson has been very apprehensive about moving any young players to improve and upgrade any part of the team’s offense.
I believe they still feel that way today even as the team has squandered a once 8-game lead over the Washington Nationals to fall into second place, a half-game behind them.
Through 60 games of the season the Mets are now only two games over .500, and the Atlanta Braves are hot on their heels, only 1.5 games behind them.
Here’s something sobering to consider about how the Mets are trending. The team is 18-26 since that incredible 13-3 start to the season. That’s a .410 winning percentage.
Unless the Mets can stop or reverse this seven-week trend, they will end the season with a final record of 73 wins and 89 losses.
Clearly the front office needs to get creative and bolster this offense if they want to play baseball in October. Unless it’s true that their eyes are actually on 2016, which probably means the players and team are pretty much on their own this season.
If that’s the case it’s too bad… I really thought with a couple of tweaks we would have a great shot at the postseason. And with our top young starters, I really loved our chances in a short series.
