How Soon Is Now?
The Mets' sudden shift gave us a final answer on this year, but not the years to come
As late as 11:37 p.m on July 27, the New York Mets were playing to win the World Series scheduled for this upcoming October. One minute earlier, they defeated the Washington Nationals by a score of 2-1.
11:37 p.m.-11:38 p.m. proved to be the team's Blue Hour, because one minute later, Ken Rosenthal tweeted some breaking news: David Robertson, the Mets’ closer who had been doing an admirable, good, thankless job replacing the injured Edwin Diaz, had been traded. To a division rival no less. My reaction was one word, two letters:
Oh.
As in: Oh. It's over.
Endings are hard. We all dream of a happy ending, knowing full well most of the time it isn't our call, it's anticlimactic, and it's messy. The Mets, like many teams before them decided to pull the plug on a season themselves, hoping to get some magic beans that might sprout in the future, non-distant or otherwise. They went about it in a violent, expensive way that no franchise had ever done before, but the general idea of a losing team selling as the trade deadline approached is as old as time, or more specifically 1986, when the deadline was moved from the absurdly early June 15 to July 31 (this year, August 1).
The thing I can't get over is: the 2023 Mets weren't officially deceased. On that fateful July 27, Fangraphs gave the Metsies a 14.9 percent chance at the postseason. 14.9 percent is not what anyone would consider "great." It also is not zero. Since 2014, not counting the 60-game 2020 season, six teams made the playoffs despite Fangraphs claiming on July 27 of that season they had a less than 14.9 percent chance to do so.
Most notably, the 2021 Atlanta Braves had a 9.6 percent shot; they won the whole damn thing. The 2014 Kansas City Royals (14.6 percent), made it to Game 7 of the World Series. Both the 2015 Texas Rangers and 2021 St. Louis Cardinals got into the tournament despite having a 4.1 percent shot.
I think there are two ways of looking at this. You could say that six teams in eight seasons is something to think about. Or you could crunch the numbers further and point out that 117 other teams had a less than 14.9 percent chance since 2014, and they in fact didn't get to play more than 162 games. In other words, only 4.87 percent of teams under the 14.9 percent threshold defied the odds. But I would imagine the people that would claim six teams in eight seasons is something to think about would think two things:
4.87 percent is not zero percent
Neither is 14.9 percent
Am I saying the Mets should have been buyers at the deadline instead? I'm not sure, to tell you the truth, although I can easily see a scenario where they could have been light purchasers, picking up some good bullpen arms for fringe prospects and cold hard cash — not giving away Ronny Mauricio or someone of that ilk or anything. In this scenario, they'd have kept upcoming free agents Tommy Pham, Mark Canha, and Robertson, as well as Max Scherzer with an opt-out option after the season, and get nothing in return, but they'd still have a shot. Also in this scenario, the team wouldn't look like zombies. I don't think it's a coincidence their only loss to the Nationals in their four-game series with them this past weekend was on the day Scherzer was dealt (during the first inning, in fact). Nor is it a coincidence they lost to the pathetic Kansas City Royals in a bemusing way (walk-off balk) the day Verlander was traded, then got swept in the three-game series. It seems like declaring the team as cooked for 2023 — despite having the best record in the National League in July — became a self-fulfilling prophecy almost immediately, or at the very least expedited the inevitable.
This is definitely part of a larger conversation, because I feel there are different philosophical, generational modes of thought at play here. There are some who value prospects highly, easily swayed by potential. Those people I feel tend to be on the younger side. Older folks can rattle off dozens of can't miss phenoms that can and did miss, and realize there's only now, and they only have so many nows left to watch their team. The median age of current MLB general managers/presidents of baseball ops is nearly 49 — not young, but not old either. (Billy Eppler is 47.)
I wonder if Steve Cohen and Billy Eppler fell in love with the idea of the future. And/or with the idea of reinventing the wheel, by sending a ton of moolah to beef up a farm system nearly overnight. And/or the idea of having a capital-P Plan. (I certainly don't envy Yankee fans, whose team did next-to-nothing, adding only a couple of fringe arms.) Even if the whole punting on 2024 thing is total bullshit, which I think it might be, the front office and ownership publicly pulled a Eric Andre in that meme where he shoots Hannibal Buress and wonders out loud why someone would do something like that. 2025 is allegedly the next time the Mets will try to play for the world championship. 2025 will be the tenth anniversary of the Mets squad that on July 27, 2015 had a 19.5 percent chance at the postseason. They were buyers at that deadline and eventually reached the World Series. After they lost, we thought surely we'd be back again soon enough.
But nobody knows the future.
I've got the same angst but even after a good July (where I think they over performed their pythag record), they hadn't really closed the gap at all on the Wild Card. Given that, I shifted 51%-49% to the sell and see how the younger players do down the stretch (including Peterson and Megill) side.
Honestly, this entire season feels like a hangover from last season's collapse.